> For those of you arguing that anyone's machine can display HTML and styled >> text, that's not the point. One of the posts that triggered this came >> through in huge blue letters on my system. In the past, some posters have >> sent HTML that displayed as fine print only a lawyer could love. The point >> of using plain text is to allow each subscriber control display parameters >> at his/her end as best suits them, rather than to force them to wade through >> annoying or unreadable fonts. >> > Yes, there are always a few folks out there who, out of ignorance or misguided desire to "express themselves" have to use an oddball font. Seems it would be more productive to address those individuals directly and ask them to change specific aspects of their markup rather than insist on a blanket suppression of all markup by all users.
> > One of the reasons for using plain text is conservation of bandwidth as > some of us are still on dial up, <spit>. > I'm on a slow connection myself. Often not much faster than dialup. This argument makes no sense. How many more characters must be downloaded to display a message that has HTML encoding than one that is plaintext? Even if we really stretch and say "several thousand," that's still a fraction of a second's difference at typical dialup speeds. Your email client probably wastes more time handshaking and authenticating with the server. Connection speed is irrelevant to the argument. > I believe that is also the reason for the tradition of doing so going all > the way back to... > The fact that "things have always been done this way" has never been a particularly compelling argument against change. To quite the Brady Bunch, "When it's time to change, then it's time to change." > > All plain text does is default to a non-proportiona font family such as > courier. IOW, an "I" takes up the same space as a "W" etc. > > Just makes things run faster for those of us still stuck in the slow lane.. > OK. so now it seems you're arguing that everybody should limit themselves to plaintext because you can't read a proportional font? Or at least that you find a proportional font harder to read than a non-proportional one? This might actually be a reasonable argument. IF it is shared by a significant number of the other members on the list. Personally, I have no problem reading proportional fonts, and I prefer them for everything except source code and other applications where spacing and column position are significant. I actually find non-proportional fonts annoying for free text like emails and ebooks. Personal preference, and I don't think mine has any more right to be enforced than yours does. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
