An Emacs package that simplifies web pages, so they render correctly in the Emacs Web Browser
Emacs is a text-based editor, but the modern web isn't very text-based. Javascript, visual applications, it's all too much and I don't like it.
This package uses machine learning to translate modern HTML into the much older style of the 1990s. Simple HTML with simple, well labeled tags, that load well in the emacs browser.
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Instead of using raw LLMs to operate on a page's source, you can now generate a program that operates on the page's source.
In practice, I've found this to be both a faster browsing experience, and produce more accurate output. I had been planning to do this for a long time, but only recently found that the current class of models were producing good enough output.
Warnings:
- This uses a lot of tokens, at least initially, to generate the pages. It's recommended that you use a subscription plan or something with a reasonable cap if you turn on this feature.
- This works by sending the full webpage text to an LLM, and does the modifications by injecting js into a firefox browser. It relies on browser sandboxing, which I am happy with, but I'd warn against using it with anything that contains logged-in information/secrets/etc.
- It runs with the claude CLI, so make sure you're happy with calling the claude CLI. I plan to add more models/options in the future.
Notes:
- The modifications do not take effect the first time you visit a new type of page. If there isn't a modifier already generated, we load the page as-normal, and then use a background queue to generate the modifier program. We do this because it takes a long time for the program to generate. The next time you visit the page after generation, the changes should take effect.
- This spins up 2 firefox drivers, 1 for live browsing, and 1 for program generation. You can look at them to see what they are doing, but if you close them it will mess things up.
- Each generated program lives in simpleweb/generated_programs. If there's something you don't like, you can always delete it and regenerate it. It's sometimes worth iterating a few times for sites you frequently visit.
- It takes a moment for the webserver to start up after you first open emacs. You may need to wait 10seconds after you first open emacs to be able to start browsing.
mkdir -p ~/.emacs.d && cd $_
git clone https://github.com/sstraust/simpleweb.git
sudo apt install python3-pip
pip install openai
pip install google-generativeai
pip install --upgrade requests
(setenv "GEMINI_API_KEY" "your_api_key")
to your .emacs file
Add the following to your .emacs file:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/simpleweb")
(simpleweb-initialize)
(setenv "CLAUDE_CLI_PATH" "path to your claude")
you will also need to install firefox and geckodriver
Add the following to your .emacs file:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/simpleweb")
(simpleweb-initialize-program-generation)
It takes a few seconds (10 or so) after emacs starts up before the server is ready.
debugging: if things don't happen the way you expect them to
check the *Messages* and the *simplify-web-server* buffer.
This is a new feature that's still a little unpolished, so feel free to reach out directly if you have any problems getting it up and running.
- 8/12/26 add tooling for program generation