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E-mail was invented so people could quickly exchange text messages over fast or slow or really slow connections, using simple, non-processor-intensive applications on any computing platform, or using phones, or hand-held devices, or almost anything else that can display text and permits typing.

That's what e-mail is for. That's why it's great.



There is not much more I think I'd add to that: it says in a nutshell what there is to be said about all this teenage need to use HTML mail - and all would be fine if only kids were the ones having this need! But "your uncle" got this idea at some point that the mail message "looks nicer" the way he conceived it, he does not trust you to configure your mail client to please your own needs.

a dinosaur turns 22emacs keyboard bindings - 2

Comments

scipio 9. June 2007, 08:54

The worst are those empty messages that tell me that my e-mail client doesn't support HTML messages. I'm always tempted to reply that I chose to read them in plain text.

Aux 10. June 2007, 11:12

The only usage for HTML for me is to paste inline images (: But styling is STUPID! I think the only allowed HTML tag in e-mail should be IMG!

Claudio Santambrogio 10. June 2007, 15:42

But that is one of the main issues! You shouldn't push images on somebody receiving your mail, you never know under which circumstances that person will read it. And embedding external images is equally evil. Just send a link to the image, and whenever the recipient will have time, or the means to see it, she'll do so.

Khaled Khalil 10. June 2007, 23:54

umm.. but isn't www itself like that ?
according to its article on wikipedia it is "a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet."
for just hypertext, i think w3m, elinks, lynx, or any text browser is enough for browsing text documents, why the need for such complex browser like Opera ?
the same question is, you have a mobile phone, ok, do you have opera mini installed on it ? why ? wasn't phones invented for telephonic calls ? or internet browsing ?
the idea is why not, not why; those teenagers + my uncle already find using email in specific way nice, why not shouldn't they do ? (while it is possible1).
i am not sure what this should mean, but i suppose there will not be any improvement in M2 :frown:, for me i don't use it, but i care about those teenagers whom are interested to read and write html emails in M2.

Edward Welbourne 20. August 2008, 17:55

I'm not convinced the rise of HTML e-mail is at all due to anyone thinking that their formatting was so crucial. I think it has more to do with the mailer software authors chosing to make HTML the default format for their e-mail "authoring tools". This, in turn, was mostly an effort to get their users to (unwittingly) put pressure on their correspondents (by subjecting them to unreadable e-mail) to "upgrade" to an HTML-capable mailer.

Doubtless there are some who do think their formatting is important; but I suspect most of the HTML e-mail being sent around the world is still being sent by people unaware that their e-mail even *is* HTML. They type plain text into a plain text box and hit send. When they get mail from others doing the same, it displays pretty much the way it looked in the text box.

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