> Jack, as the author of the org-display-remote-inline-images commit, what > do you think about this patch?
This patch takes the same approach as an earlier attempt by Kit in 2014 [1]. That patch was never merged; Michael objected that the approach seemed too complex, and suggested using file-local-copy and cacheing the filename instead; he also suggested implementing this cacheing functionality in Tramp instead of Org. So, when I submitted a new attempt at this, I chose to cache by simply opening the image files in Emacs instead, since the implementation is much simpler, and would hopefully sidestep the objections from the 2014 approach. While cacheing via tempfiles is more complex, it does have some benefits: it allows cacheing across Emacs sessions, and it avoids the side effect of opening the image files in Emacs. I'm agnostic whether tempfiles or Emacs buffers are ultimately better. My inclination is to be conservative and stick with the status quo unless there's a compelling reason to switch. So, I suggest Ferdinand confirm he's tested the existing "cache" option, and articulate why he found it unsuitable, before merging this. If we do proceed in this direction, I'd suggest replacing the current cache mechanism entirely -- I don't see a good reason to maintain 2 solutions to the same problem. Also, we could combine the "download" and "cache" options into a single implementation, making them synonyms for backwards compatibility. [1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2014-11/msg00690.html [2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2020-01/msg00177.html