GNU bug report logs - #963
no support for viewing bmp images?

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Message #5 received at submit <at> emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com (full text, mbox):

From: xah lee <xah <at> xahlee.org>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:02:28 -0700

I tried to open a bmp image file, but when it opened in a buffer it  
shows ascii.
for example, i can view jpg, gif, png image files.


In GNU Emacs 22.2.1 (powerpc-apple-darwin8.11.0, Carbon Version 1.6.0)
 of 2008-04-05 on g5.tokyo.stp.isas.jaxa.jp
Windowing system distributor `Apple Inc.', version 10.4.11
configured using `configure  '--prefix=/Applications/Emacs.app/ 
Contents/Resources' '--with-carbon' '--without-x' '--libexecdir=/ 
Volumes/Emacs/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/libexec' 'CFLAGS=-Os -arch  
i386 -arch ppc -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -DUSE_ATSUI - 
DUSE_MAC_TSM''

Recent messages:
./Snapshot_001.bmp
./Snapshot_002.bmp
./Snapshot_003.bmp
./Snapshot_004.bmp

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄


☄

Message #10 received at 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
To: 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#963: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:46:01 -0400

Emacs 24.1 will be able to view bmp files through the ImageMagick
library. However, it looks like this is not implemented for the Nextstep
port (from examining configure), nor for MS Windows (?), ref thread

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-09/msg01579.html
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-10/msg00002.html

The documentation doesn't seem to make this explicit, it probably
should.

Message #13 received at 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>
To: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#963: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 18:17:25 +0200

Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org> writes:

> Emacs 24.1 will be able to view bmp files through the ImageMagick
> library. However, it looks like this is not implemented for the Nextstep
> port (from examining configure), nor for MS Windows (?), ref thread
>
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-09/msg01579.html
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2010-10/msg00002.html
>
> The documentation doesn't seem to make this explicit, it probably
> should.

This is from 2011 and should probably have been closed, since we had
bmp support in Emacs 24.1.  But since it wasn't, here's the current
state of affairs AFAICT:

When I compile the current master branch using --with-imagemagick,
viewing bmp images works for me.  But imagemagick is now disabled by
default (and rightly so).  Without imagemagick compiled in I just get
garbled text when opening a bmp file.

Using Emacs 26.1 from Debian I can view BMP images just fine, as
expected, since it comes with imagemagick support.

It seems to me that Emacs is missing BMP support if built without
imagemagick.  It would be nice to not depend on that library for this
use case.

Thanks,
Stefan Kangas

Message #16 received at 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#963: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 20:11:10 +0200

Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se> writes:

> When I compile the current master branch using --with-imagemagick,
> viewing bmp images works for me.  But imagemagick is now disabled by
> default (and rightly so).  Without imagemagick compiled in I just get
> garbled text when opening a bmp file.
>
> Using Emacs 26.1 from Debian I can view BMP images just fine, as
> expected, since it comes with imagemagick support.
>
> It seems to me that Emacs is missing BMP support if built without
> imagemagick.  It would be nice to not depend on that library for this
> use case.

Are BMP images used much, though?  I can't remember the last time I saw
one in the wild.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

Message #19 received at 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#963: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 12:40:34 +0200

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org> writes:

> Are BMP images used much, though?  I can't remember the last time I saw
> one in the wild.

I remember seeing them in stuff like tutorials for how to load an
image in <foo> language and suchlike.  Perhaps I saw was some Scheme
stuff a couple of years ago where the examples used BMP...?  I can't
remember exactly.  It might have been PNG too, to be honest.

I still think it would be a nice little feature to have.  But I won't
protest if this is closed as wontfix either.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

Message #22 received at 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
To: Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se>
Cc: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>, 963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#963: no support for viewing bmp images?
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2019 15:41:53 +0200

Stefan Kangas <stefan <at> marxist.se> writes:

> I remember seeing them in stuff like tutorials for how to load an
> image in <foo> language and suchlike.  Perhaps I saw was some Scheme
> stuff a couple of years ago where the examples used BMP...?  I can't
> remember exactly.  It might have been PNG too, to be honest.
>
> I still think it would be a nice little feature to have.  But I won't
> protest if this is closed as wontfix either.

Yeah, I think this is one of those image formats we'll just have to
defer users to ImageMagick if they want to see...

This reminds me: Since we don't really want to point users towards
compiling with ImageMagick due to security concerns -- would it make
sense to write a shim over external utilities to handle exotic formats?
I mean, it would just have to call "convert" in a temp buffer to some
format we do handle (like PNG).

But I guess that doesn't really deal with the security issue, as buffer
overflows in "convert" will do pretty much the same as in Emacs.  But it
would lead to fewer segfaults in Emacs itself, so perhaps it's worth
doing?  It'd be a pretty trivial shim, and we could deprecate compiling
with ImageMagick for sure.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

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