[Petition] Composing Emails in the HTML Format in Opera

[Petition] Composing Emails in the HTML Format in Opera

Hello,

Do you need to compose HTML emails? Does your boss set HTML email as a requirement? Would you like to use Opera's email client? You've come to the right place!

Some of us have been very patient over the last few years since the Opera developers promised they were working on implementing HTML email. So far, nothing concrete. We have asked and reminded to implement HTML email many times. But these claims have been inefficient to date. It's now time to take this claim further. So here's a plan I have in mind. To all of you who badly need HTML email for your job, please participate in this project. You will not have to pay a cent, you will only have to warn a few friends, give your opinion, share your ideas, click a few "Digg" and "Vote" buttons, and this is all there is to do.

I plan to gather a few hundred users who are eager to vote "Yes" on an online petition, and also to vote for the petition on Digg.com. I am not sure how many people are interested. We need to reach these spread-out users, so first, think about all your friends who use the Internet. They don't necessarily have to be Opera users. Please ask them to participate to help us. Please spread the word. We need numbers.

For now, all you have to do is sign up to the announcement list to know what is going on. Not everything will be reported on this forum. So, as soon as we have enough folks subscribed to the mailing list and willing to actively participate, I'll write a petition with you guys, I'll send you through the announcement list an email asking you to sign the petition, and to digg it all at the same time, for it to make the Digg front page. WE CAN DO IT. We want to call attention seriously, at last.

This message is not a debate anymore whether HTML email is good or bad. This has already been discussed extensively. There will be no need to reply by saying HTML is evil and no response shall be given. The petition letter will have a simple structure: 1) An introduction explaining why the petition and why HTML email; 2) Debunk all nonsense counter arguments of the plain text email advocates; 3) Explain why and in which cases HTML email is a requirement; 4) Conclusion

Here's the list of nonsense arguments I have read so far from the plain text advocates:

• "Email was designed to be plain text only" <- There are two different mime types that define both text/plain and text/html. Regardless of email being designed originally for plain text, nowadays, under circumstances such as at work, this is not viable anymore
• "HTML email has no reason to be" <- Personal preferences have no place in a decision that has consequences for a varied community, we can please both sides
• "No one uses HTML email" <- Wrong. Many people use HTML email for rich-text features.
• "Companies don't use HTML Email" <- Wrong. Many companies set HTML email as a requirement for an email client. Many use an HTML signature in their emails, insert a price chart or an image in their messages, use bold, italic text.
• "If necessary, use a PDF/HTML/Word file attachment" <- When you send tens of emails a day, this is clearly counter-productive. There is no point sending an email as an attachment just because one needs to point out certain words in bold or italic.
• "HTML email is insecure" <- Not particularly. Especially that we are talking about HTML Email authoring (not reading), so it is really unlikely that you will have security issues typing an HTML email
• "HTML Email takes space and bandwidth" <- Nowadays this is NOT and issue anymore.
• "HTML email is mostly spam" <- Note quitely. First, much of the spam we get is sent using text/plain. Then, many companies such as eBay, LastMinute, or Amazon, send their communication emails as HTML.
• "You can send your newsletter as an attached Powerpoint/Word file" <- This is unrealistic, and not on par with business realities and needs. No business will accept to do so, and most customers who receive such "newsletter" will delete it, thinking it is an infected attachment, or will simply find it odd and ignore it.

Here's a list of reasons to have HTML email in Opera:

• HTML email is a requirement in most businesses
• Being able to forward an HTML without sending it as an attachment
• Being able to forward an HTML without losing formating
• Being able to send a newsletter
• Being able to use a custom signature with company logo and skype status
• Being able to use basic formating (bold, italic, etc...) without having to send a Microsoft Word document as an attachment
• Indexing all sent email (attachments aren't indexed)
• Having the option to choose between text/plain, text/html or both so that all users be satisfied

That's what I gathered. Please share your ideas. If you have other ideas, I can add them to the list. Also, please do subscribe to the announcement list. Please think about all your friends who use the Internet, and ask them to participate. Please link to this thread in your signature and spread the word. This is not tiring, this is something anyone can do, this is important. As soon as we have enough people subscribed, I'll ask you to open a Digg account if you don't have one already, we'll vote for the petition all at the same time on a specific day, and I hope we really get a serious commitment and deadline for this essential feature.
Thanks for your participation,

Originally posted by calande:

WE CAN DO IT

Hi Obama Calande,
nice idea, count me in...

BTW, I just found this mail in my inbox from eFax, an OPERA ASA partner with OPERA Web-mail's affiliate "operamail.com"...
HTML Mail in Operamail.com

Thanks, please don't forget to subscribe to the mailing list. As for the eFax HTML email, LOL... It's not that evil then, and if it helps catching the customer's attention, increasing sales, it's excellent

Signed

@calande: how about searching the forum before creating yet another thread on this thing?

What is the official statement from Opera? Can someone post it it here in full?

SIGNED!
Good idea calande!

Signed up here too. Although to be honest since 9.5 my IMAP email is completely broken anyway
Please Opera, help us ditch Outlook for work!

Oh, ya... about time. Great idea. I just jumped into the pool without thinking.
I was having 80% probability that I'll migrate to Thunderbird.
Guess I'll wait a bit longer to see the response of the Opera team.

EDIT:
Here's one more to add to the "list of reasons to have HTML email in Opera":
HTML email is easier to read and more informative.

Not all people know how to open attachments.
And picture worth a million words, right?

Thanks guys. Please link to this thread in your signature, spread the word and ask people to join. Do you have additional points for the petition?

Originally posted by GoJoeGo:

@calande: how about searching the forum before creating yet another thread on this thing?

It's a separate thread. It's different enough. I don't want to mix everything. This project is serious and I want to be able to refer to it easily with a unique link.

@calande: how is this different? The title of the thread makes it yet another generic I-didn't-search-before-posting-so-I-posted-anohter-one thread. And it should be posted in the wishlist forum anyway.

Calande, M/B to make it clear - even for those opposing that idea by ALL means - you could write [PETITION] in front of it...

And it's quite OK here in this forum!
It's thematically and from its idea fitting perfectly well here.

The wishlist forum is already full of alike requests leading to nothing usable until now...

@GoJoeGo: I have followed the HTML email topics for several years, and I'm aware that the subject comes up every now and then. This thread is not a tech support thread, it's not a rant, it's not a feature request either. The feature requests have already been done in the past, so no need to ask for a specific feature over and over again. Same goes for rants, we've read enough of those. This thread is intended to other users to join in a common effort. It is not intended to the Opera developers. What will be intended to the devs is the petition once it's complete.

@HaJotKE: Good idea! I just prepended the subject with [Petition] to make it more clear

Just signed up.

One suggestion: put a bit of information on the signup page for the announcement list so we can link to it without first giving a complete explanation of what it's about.

Gracias, RayGoneFishing. Well, the folks need to know what it's all about

I'm in. Gracias

Thanks , hope they (Opera) hear us.

Sign me up - this is utterly ridiculous that they tout the "engineering" when their mail app cannot handle such a basic thing as HTML sending - in 2008!

Pathetic, that is.

Thanks, guys. Some of you haven't added the link of this thread to their signature or haven't signed up to the announcement list. Please at least do it

It's going to be a long, uphill run, it seems...

Yeah, it all depends on the reaction of the community. If just a few users care, we won't see any outcome. However, if all of us actually move our a##es, it could become so big that the Opera devs would feel forced to provide us with some feedback and to put their money where their month is. Acting is just telling about this effort around us, putting a link of this thread in our signatures, and signing up to the announcement list. This is all there is to do. It's not difficult at all, anyone can do it.

Good petition ,

Signed

You probably mean "signed up", as the petition hasn't been written yet

You do know, this belongs in wish-list. Would you rather I move this there or close it and let you repost?

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

You do know, this belongs in wish-list

No Steve, I respectfully disagree...
This thread is not claiming for the feature itself, it's informing about the claim and it's at the same time asking for support related to an OPERA mail issue. Therefore it's fine here and it's therefore called [Petition]! Nothing at all for the wish-list.

See here also:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2606852

Originally posted by HaJotKE:

This thread is not claiming for the feature itself, it's informing about the claim and it's at the same time asking for support related to an OPERA mail issue. Therefore it's fine here and it's therefore called [Petition]! Nothing at all for the wish-list.

+1 That's how I see it too. I don't think this thread belongs in the wish list forum as it's not a run of the mill feature request.

It's not requesting a feature? Gee, now I'm confused ...

Opera needs limited HTML-composing and forwarding (though trying to clean up forwarded messages to fit with Opera's standards - no javascript, plugins, or java - is going to take some effort), and they already know that. If you're trying to convince the "HTML mail is EVIL" crowd, forget it - you know that won't work. So I'm not really certain what this thread is doing.

I can't see that composing and sending HTML is all that hard, they already do it with WYSIWYG editors (well, some anyway), so my guess is that it's the forwarding part which is the big issue. Opera works hard to keep you safe when you read HTML mail, they want to keep your recipients as safe as possible too. But if one of your friends that you're sending this to uses OE, how do they keep him safe?

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

If you're trying to convince the "HTML mail is EVIL" crowd, forget it - you know that won't work. So I'm not really certain what this thread is doing.

I'm more of the "don't really care either way" crowd. I think it's a mistake though to assume that HTML capabilities in Opera Mail is going to give it a 15%+ share of the market, or cause it to be widely deployed in workplaces. Was M2 ever meant to be an enterprise-level mail client?

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Was M2 ever meant to be an enterprise-level mail client?

And you think OE is?

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

It's not requesting a feature? Gee, now I'm confused ...

Well, the objective is kind of like a feature request of course, but it's not the wish-list kind of feature request, where someone posts a request, others support it and Opera ignores it. This threat is about a formal petition and its goal is to rally as many supporters as possible behind that petition. So, not quite the same thing. But if you feel you have to move the thread, go ahead, who am I to say you can't...

Originally posted by fanfaron:

I think it's a mistake though to assume that HTML capabilities in Opera Mail is going to give it a 15%+ share of the market,

It won't give it a 15 percent market share, not even 5 percent in the near future, but if Opera wants to be an internet suite, it needs a decent email client. A 1998 text only toy won't gain many users outside of the geek crowd.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

It's not requesting a feature? Gee, now I'm confused ...

That's true! It's not requesting a feature itself...
It's requesting support by other forum's members for a feature request, a browser feature which had already been requested (and discussed) elsewhere (multiple times) and which is only repeated here (in words) for the sole purpose of precisely defining it again.

I hope, I could make myself clear...
You know, I am not a native speaker of the English language.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

It's not requesting a feature? Gee, now I'm confused ...

I explained above why this thread isn't aimed to the devs, and why this isn't a feature request. It is a common effort to write and sign a petition. The petition will be aimed to the developers, yes, but not this thread.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Opera needs limited HTML-composing and forwarding

Why "limited"? Why not a full-featured HTML client? How long will Opera stay with its 1% market share and its everlasting shortcomings?

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

(though trying to clean up forwarded messages to fit with Opera's standards - no javascript, plugins, or java - is going to take some effort), and they already know that.

I don't understand why cleaning other people's junk. If you do so, it will likely break the layout and functionalities. On the other hand, if you remove all formating, well, this is what is done currently, a price chart, for instance becomes an unreadable junk. It is not Opera's fault if some people send poorly-written HTML code in their emails. I would forward it the way it came. Isn't it what is done when you open a poorly-written web page? Opera doesn't remove Javascript, Java applets, unnested tags, Flash animations from the page. Opera intents to display these pages the best way it can. And this is a good thing. If it tried to reformat pages after removing all it considers not standard-compliant, the rendering would be pretty bad. But also, when you write an email from scratch in Opera, obviously, it will be standard-compliant because it will be from scratch.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

If you're trying to convince the "HTML mail is EVIL" crowd, forget it - you know that won't work.

I knew I would get these kinds of comments. Again, this is not the aim of this thread, and in my first message, I explained why this thread isn't aimed at convincing text-email advocates, nor does it ask developers to implement HTML email. This has already been done, and the developers already promised they would implement it in v.8. It is now v.9.5.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

So I'm not really certain what this thread is doing.

Again, it is a common effort to gather enthusiasts to write and sign a petition. Nothing more. Certainly not a feature request.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

I can't see that composing and sending HTML is all that hard, they already do it with WYSIWYG editors (well, some anyway), so my guess is that it's the forwarding part which is the big issue. Opera works hard to keep you safe when you read HTML mail, they want to keep your recipients as safe as possible too. But if one of your friends that you're sending this to uses OE, how do they keep him safe?

I'm able to write HTML email in Gmail inside Opera, so if there's a security concern, it is no longer true because it has been implemented, no one has complained and everybody's happy with it so far. But if you think about it, would you forward an email that you don't know the sender? Because if you know the sender, it's unlikely that there's malicious code inside. And what are the odds to receive malicious code in an email? I have never received such email in more than 10 years.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

And you think OE is?

Well, yes. I know many companies that use Outlook Express. How do I know? Many times when I receive emails at work, I look at the source of the message, and there's a line that says what email client the person is using. Most of the time it's OE, it's often MS Outlook or Thunderbird also. I hardly ever see Opera M2. Oddly enough, M2 is the only one that doesn't support HTML email. So, as a boss, if I had to choose between OE and Opera for email, currently I would have to choose OE unfortunately. But OE isn't the only client that supports HTML email. But this isn't the topic of this thread.

Originally posted by calande:

Again, it is a common effort to gather enthusiasts to write and sign a petition. Nothing more.

Thank you. Some of us use Opera for mail at work all day every day, and only ever visit the forum to find out why something broke.
It seems an appropriate place for Calande to find a group of like-minded people. I want to be shot of Outlook completely but still need it for forwarding/ replying and occasional composition of HTML messages. I'm not really likely to visit the wishlist if I'm not a regular here... also every time it is requested it gets shouted down by some people who don't need it and completely over-react like they're trying to protect the entire concept of email from corruption - despite the fact that we're already using HTML email, we just have to switch clients every time we need to do so.


Calande's points were also well made to invite action from others not start a flame-war.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Originally posted by fanfaron:

Was M2 ever meant to be an enterprise-level mail client?

And you think OE is?

No, I don't. It's sort of the point.

Signed!

But with the word that there should be better support of the HTML E-mails that are recieved, because there are many errors when rendering!

We're currently 15 on the announcement list, please, guys, spread the word as much as possible and add this thread link to your forum signature, for those of you who haven't yet. Thanks

Originally posted by calande:

Composing Emails in the HTML Format in Opera

... from your sig...

M/B you could also post the code from your sig here, including the formatting, in order to make it easier for some to use it.
Mine is here:

[SIZE=3][COLOR=red][B]Your help is needed: please sign the petition![/B][/COLOR][/SIZE]
[URL=http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=237309][COLOR=red][Petition] Composing Emails in the HTML Format in Opera[/COLOR][/URL]

Thanks, yes, I noticed you have the signature
I use [ size = 5 ] Text here [ / size ] but don't use a size too big.

Count me in !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I use Opera during the workday. There are so many times I need to send an e-mail that requires HTTP, can't use OP and I end up using Outlook.

calande,
I just dig up some history about a petition for Opera.
I found this.

We may need more than 2000 votes to get even a tiny response from Opera.

BTW, be prepared to be moved into the wishlist forum like this old thread.

Thanks JSJAG. I hope you subscribed to the announcement list. If you want to help, please add a link to this thread in your signature

jaelanicu: I had a look at the petition. It's heck of a feature that they were asking. They were asking Opera to be ported to the Palm platform, it's probably a major effort compared to supporting HTML email. Anyway, we'll try our best, that's the best we can do at this point

As a "petition", hosting this on your blog might be better. Otherwise, formally it does belong in wish-list.

My point about OE is that it really wasn't intended for corporate use - that was Outlook at the time.

As far as "limited" ... well, it would be too difficult (and confusing to the user as well) for Opera to write an editor with multiple columns and tables, divs and all that other stuff, if you really need tables you'll have to use some other editor. Since Opera doesn't allow scripting or plugins in mail, filtering that stuff out of forwarded messages is necessary to insure that your recipient sees the same thing you do anyway, otherwise you don't know what he'll see.

Originally posted by "sgunhouse":

As far as "limited" ... well, it would be too difficult (and confusing to the user as well) for Opera to write an editor with multiple columns and tables, divs and all that other stuff

It's true that it'll be like creating an HTML document editor and it'll be quite difficult, or at least, a big job.

If it would be just a workaround that allow loading an HTML page from a local system (including any referenced images) as an email message, even it would be in a read-only mode, for me it's still acceptable. Opera would only need to gather the files from local system and combine them into an email message. No need to create an HTML composer engine at all.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

As a "petition", hosting this on your blog might be better.

Except on a blog it wouldn't get nearly as many eyeballs.

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Since Opera doesn't allow scripting or plugins in mail, filtering that stuff out of forwarded messages is necessary to insure that your recipient sees the same thing you do anyway, otherwise you don't know what he'll see.

Um, shouldn't it be the goal that I and the recipient of the forwarded message see the same message the sender sent? Without any filtering? I understand your security concerns, but I do not want any program to mutilate my emails, at least not without asking me first, either via global settings or on a per-message basis.

Originally posted by RayGoneFishing:

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Since Opera doesn't allow scripting or plugins in mail, filtering that stuff out of forwarded messages is necessary to insure that your recipient sees the same thing you do anyway, otherwise you don't know what he'll see.

Um, shouldn't it be the goal that I and the recipient of the forwarded message see the same message the sender sent? Without any filtering? I understand your security concerns, but I do not want any program to mutilate my emails, at least not without asking me first, either via global settings or on a per-message basis.

You're certainly a trusting soul. HTML is one thing, but I don't want embeds or scripts.

Originally posted by fanfaron:

You're certainly a trusting soul. HTML is one thing, but I don't want embeds or scripts.

Depends on the sender of course, but yes, I admit the demand for no filtering at all was a bit over the top. Got to backtrack on that one So there needs to be some kind of filtering, but I still don't want to leave the decision to Opera what to filter and what to let pass, without any options to configure Opera's behavior.

What I'd really like to see there is filtering based on sender or address book groups. This way I could have different levels of filtering depending on how far I trust the sender. In any case, if Opera filters something, that should be noted clearly somewhere on the screen and I want the option to override the filtering -- as is often done with external images these days: "External images in this email were not displayed, click here to display them."

If we could just refocus the discussion around the petition and leave the debate aside that would be perfect

I though hosting the thread on the Opera forum convenient, this is why I posted it here.

BTW, I see more and more people have put the link in their signature, thank you very much. Today this is starting to bear its fruits, looking at the number of subscribed people. Keep on spreading the word!

I've signed it in previous posts. I'm signing it now. My client's ask me all the time, so why don't you have HTML email. I have to tell them, until I see if Zimbra desktop is any good, the best (though obviously far from great, yet) email client around is Opera. Sigh. Besides HTML email we also need vCard support, mailing lists, and more powerful contact management tools.

Signed!

HTML mail should be a very good thing.... Opera go for it!