Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
FWIW, I think that Ghodmode has every right to ask why HTML e-mails are prohibited on this list, even though I personally rejoice that they are. I also appreciate the non-confrontational way in which he has presented his views and responded to the view of others. However. In my e-mail client (Seamonkey), there would appear to be an option to mark potential recipients as able (or not able) to receive HTML e-mails; if I (inadvertently) send attempt to send an HTML e-mail to someone not marked as able to receive HTML e-mails, my client asks what I want to do : send as ASCII, send as HTML or send as both. I suspect it also asks if I want to remember that decision. Ghodmode, does your e-mail client not offer similar possibilities, and if so, can you simply not mark this list as Cannot accept HTML e-mails and Send as ASCII while leaving all other e-mail recipients unchanged ? Even more off-topic : how is one meant to mentally render Ghodmode ? Is it Godmode, or G Hodmode or G H Odmode or what ? Philip Taylor __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 12:59:45 AM, Ghodmode wrote: There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? --- Er.. I am. At least, I'm using an email client that doesn't by default render HTML (it also doesn't retrieve external resources such as linked images and stylesheets). Instead it displays the text alternative and provides the HTML as an attachment that I can open in a browser should I wish to (which I won't except from trusted sources - and that doesn't include mailing lists). If you send HTML only without the plain text alternative then all I see is a blank page. Since almost all HTML messages contain both the HTML and also a plain text alternative, every character of HTML is bloat and so most HTML messages are more than twice the size they need to be. FWIW, I connect via GPRS (which is what my mobile broadband service falls back to when 3G isn't available) when 'out of office' and even when I have ~1Mb/s MBB available I pay for it at the rate of almost $25US per GB. So while I probably wouldn't leave the list if it allowed HTML, I hope you can understand why I wouldn't exactly rejoice! -- Geoff __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wednesday, July 20, 2011 12:12:26 pm Ghodmode wrote: Ya I shouldn't have said there aren't any, but I was hoping someone would comment with the name of one that doesn't. No one has yet... Not even you. What's TA-ships? Teaching assistantships. Any grad student teaching a class, which is many. Are any of them on this list? I don't know. But there are students in Graphic design and computer science and Information Science, and it's reasonable to guess that many of those would be interested in web technologies, and perhaps be a part of this list. And they're using one of the well-known webmails... Hordemail I think. What do you use? KMail. It also supports HTML mail too, of course. We have smart people in this community. If people are using a problematic email client, they'll know it. Besides that, most emails are HTML formatted. If they have problems with HTML in a mailing list, they'll also have problems elsewhere. Yup. And do. I have to use Outlook at work, as an office policy. And replying to HTML emails with inline comments is really awful. There's really no way to do it that doesn't make your replies look like part of the original quoted email. This entire conversation would blow up and be almost entirely illegible the way it's currently written if this was in HTML. You're right, but I still say it would be nice to be able to do things like this. However, I'm learning that I'm alone in that opinion. Not really. I don't really disagree with your basic premise: that disallowing HTML email is largely outdated. I was participating in your discussion - answering your questions with possible reasons from my own experience. All of my reasons were fringe cases, which sort of proves your argument. The problem is that I don't disagree with the rest of the list's premise that HTML email isn't really necessary either. You're asking why we don't. Everyone else is asking why we should. And as far as I can see, the reasons aren't that compelling in either direction. ---Tim __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 6:42 PM, Mark Henderson shadefro...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 July 2011 11:59, Ghodmode ghodm...@ghodmode.com wrote: Okay, so I change my email settings every time I send to CSS-discuss so that it's plain-text, but I have to ask... why? In case you haven't already noticed, you are going to get *flamed* for asking that :-) Much as in the same way if you had asked why bottom posting is preferred (and enforced to a large degree I might add). That wasn't my intention. I sincerely feel that HTML makes email better. I didn't expect to be the only one, but that's why I asked the question. It's okay, though... I can take the flames :) Is that a good comparison? There's a clearly defined reason for bottom-posting since top-posting breaks the order of the conversation. There are clearly defined reasons for banning HTML email, such as irresponsible senders, bandwidth efficiency, and privacy/security concerns, but most of them don't really seem to be as much of a problem within this community. Top-posting is also strongly discouraged, if not forbidden, on most mailing lists, but HTML isn't. I'll go with that comparison, though. You are right about the flames (obviously), but here's how that conversation could ideally go: Question: blockquote Why the heck do I need to post in the middle of the quoted text when I reply to someone's question. It's quicker and easier at the top. /blockquote Answer: blockquote When you reply below the question, it's easier to read the resulting emails from top to bottom and understand the conversation. If the answer is at the top and the question is somewhere in the middle, it's difficult to read and understand. /blockquote Final message: blockquote Okay... Cool! That makes sense. Thank you for answering my question. /blockquote However, as you mentioned, questions like this never get this type of answer. Maybe people need to vent their frustrations and questions like this give them that opportunity? There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? It's not just about clients, but servers also that are sometimes configured to reject html when certain criteria are met. On the flip-side of this there aren't many mail clients that can't handle the configuration of both -- plain text for certain addresses/mailing lists and rich text/HTML for the rest, if that's your choice (I have a similar setup where some addresses get html and the rest get plain text). There is no need to change your settings every time you send to this or any other list -- so what client are you using? I'm sure we can sort it out. I hadn't thought about the potential server problems. Still, most email is HTML. So, any problem with allowing HTML on this list would also mean a lot of problems with a lot of other emails. You're right about the clients. I'm using Gmail and it doesn't have a text-only setting on a per-recipient basis... At least I don't think it does... I may need to look more closely. My ghodmode.com email is hosted by Google Apps. My laziness wasn't the real reason for the question, though. -- //Mark Thank you. -- Ghodmode http://www.ghodmode.com/blog __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On 20/07/2011 2:29 PM, Ghodmode wrote: I'm not going anywhere, but you have a point. Some people seem to be disproportionately upset by the topic. The reason that text is used is mainly due to security issues and encoding (mono-space). My email client is permanently set to only show text and send text emails. Another reason is that this list conforms to what is practiced by what I believe are all W3C working Groups. This is text format from the CSS WG open mailing list. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Jul/0306.html You recently made a comment about the practice for this list to have the To: field not being sent to the list. Any thread where you becomes involved shows a broken thread in this list archives (below) and most email clients. http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/116402 There are good reason why things work the way they do. Wondering about where _list-mum_ is since this thread is clearly *off topic*. -- Alan Gresley http://css-3d.org/ http://css-class.com/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 10:00 PM, Alan Gresley a...@css-class.com wrote: On 20/07/2011 2:29 PM, Ghodmode wrote: I'm not going anywhere, but you have a point. Some people seem to be disproportionately upset by the topic. The reason that text is used is mainly due to security issues and encoding (mono-space). My email client is permanently set to only show text and send text emails. Another reason is that this list conforms to what is practiced by what I believe are all W3C working Groups. This is text format from the CSS WG open mailing list. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Jul/0306.html I can't dispute the potential for security or privacy problems for HTML email in general, but I do think that most people who receive email are subjected to those problems and that this group isn't the most likely source of them. W3C mailing lists allow HTML and attachments: from http://www.w3.org/2002/03/email_attachment_formats.html : blockquote Although email messages themselves are normally sent in plain text or HTML format, attachments in other formats are sometimes included. /blockquote You recently made a comment about the practice for this list to have the To: field not being sent to the list. Any thread where you becomes involved shows a broken thread in this list archives (below) and most email clients. I didn't understand part of that. Any thread where I become involved shows a broken thread in the list archives? How is that? I have made comments about the Reply-To, but that's not related to this topic, is it? http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/116402 That links to a continuous thread hierarchy. There are good reason why things work the way they do. Are the reasons still good? That's the question I was asking... What are they and are they valid? Wondering about where _list-mum_ is since this thread is clearly *off topic*. Yes, it relates to CSS-Discuss rather than to CSS. However, since it affects everyone on the list, it's only appropriate to have the conversation on the mailing list. list-mum? Do you mean the list administrator? Note that the email that started the thread was sent to css-d-owner and only CCd to css-d. He hasn't replied. It became a conversation thread because people wanted to discuss it. I'm just replying to peoples messages that they sent to me on the list. I didn't reply on the list unless the messages were sent to me on the list... this one is included, of course. -- Alan Gresley http://css-3d.org/ http://css-class.com/ -- Ghodmode http://www.ghodmode.com/blog __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
Okay, so I change my email settings every time I send to CSS-discuss so that it's plain-text, but I have to ask... why? Is it a CSS-Discuss community policy, or the policy of an individual who happens to be the list administrator? I suspect that it's based on old practices for reasons that are no longer valid. There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? Use of HTML and CSS enhances readability and semantics, which can in turn enhance accessibility. We know this... it's what we discuss continually in this community. The overhead added by HTML is insignificant by any modern standards. So, why can't we use HTML... especially in this community. I imagine that this has been asked before. I didn't check the archives, but I would like it to be considered again with the opportunity for new feedback from current members. Thank you. -- Ghodmode http://www.ghodmode.com/blog __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
* Ghodmode wrote: Is it a CSS-Discuss community policy, or the policy of an individual who happens to be the list administrator? I suspect that it's based on old practices for reasons that are no longer valid. Noting that this kind of discussion, even of marked offtopic, is usually not particularily well-received on the list, I can suggest to consider what features of HTML mails you find essential to talk about practical use of cascading style sheets and how you would avoid imposing choices you find appropriate on others. For instance, you would not specify the font you like because it's likely not installed on other users' systems, or because they configured the font they prefer to read emails. You would not use images because they would make messages very big if they are specified inline or as attachments, or because they could be used for tracking if they are external. You would probably not change font sizes or colors because people tend to find that annoying and dis- tracting (you could use them well, but people usually don't). You could add that HTML mail editing interfaces are usually very poor and make it hard to properly encode, for instance, where you split a quote. The markup they tend to produce is often rather hideous. The point there is that if everyone excercises restraint in using HTML mails, there isn't much left people could use it for to communite any better (as opposed to individualize the appearance of mails or whatever you may have in mind). On a technical level you create problems with spam filters as spam very often uses HTML mail for various reasons, and problems for the archive software as it would have to strip all sorts of markup for reasons of security. I would not read HTML-only mails because my client does not support them, and I've not seen them used sensibly virtually ever in e- mail discussions (though I see some benefits with newsletters, in as much as newsletters are good use of e-mail as a medium). You can find arguments such as these in all sorts of articles on the subject on the web. In the odd event that you actually need some HTML feature to communicate better (say you gathered data about practical use of cascading style sheets and the best way to present it is in form of a table) and wish to tell the community about it, you always have the option to make a web page and post a link. And for the little things like emphasis there are *alternatives available* with plain text. So, no, this is not based on some individual's personal preference but rather on the experience with what works and what doesn't of many, and various issues that arise from HTML mail usage as they can be observed in practise. If you think you can make a convincing argument that HTML mails, all things considered, are better, by all means write it up and post a link; if it is indeed convincing, things are likely to change. In any case, this isn't the right place to make such an argument as it is not specific to this particular list (you can make the same argument for any HTML or webdesign or related list). -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Bjoern Hoehrmann derhoe...@gmx.net wrote: * Ghodmode wrote: Is it a CSS-Discuss community policy, or the policy of an individual who happens to be the list administrator? I suspect that it's based on old practices for reasons that are no longer valid. Noting that this kind of discussion, even of marked offtopic, is usually not particularily well-received on the list, I can suggest to consider what features of HTML mails you find essential to talk about practical use of cascading style sheets and how you would avoid imposing choices you find appropriate on others. For instance, you would not specify the font you like because it's likely not installed on other users' systems, or because they configured the font they prefer to read emails. Well, essential is too strong a word, but I think it would be nice to have the ability to make text bold or italicized for emphasis. Having a different font, indentation, and/or background color would be nice for blocks of code. Imposing choices on others? Allowing HTML wouldn't force use of HTML. However, disallowing HTML forces use of plain text. That's what I would call imposing choices on others. Another point is that I didn't impose anything. I asked for feedback from the community. With regard to font choices, don't email clients handle that scenario in a way similar to how browsers handle it... with substitution? You would not use images because they would make messages very big if they are specified inline or as attachments, or because they could be used for tracking if they are external. You would probably not change font sizes or colors because people tend to find that annoying and dis- tracting (you could use them well, but people usually don't). You could add that HTML mail editing interfaces are usually very poor and make it hard to properly encode, for instance, where you split a quote. The markup they tend to produce is often rather hideous. That's right. I wouldn't do any of those things... In this, as with all other things in a community, we would ask users to act responsibly. Obviously, there's potential for abuse. In my experience, most email clients act reasonably with fonts, colors, etc. I've rarely had an inclination to view the source of an email. What email clients are you talking about? The point there is that if everyone excercises restraint in using HTML mails, there isn't much left people could use it for to communite any better (as opposed to individualize the appearance of mails or whatever you may have in mind). I disagree, but like I said above, allowing HTML in email would give us a choice. On a technical level you create problems with spam filters as spam very often uses HTML mail for various reasons, and problems for the archive software as it would have to strip all sorts of markup for reasons of security. I would not read HTML-only mails because my client does not support them, and I've not seen them used sensibly virtually ever in e- mail discussions (though I see some benefits with newsletters, in as much as newsletters are good use of e-mail as a medium). Most email often uses HTML mail. Spam filters search for strings. I subscribe to more than 20 mailing lists, few of them have this restriction, but none of them have the problems you describe. I really would like to know what email client you use. Even text-based email clients can view HTML emails even if they don't show the styles. Here are 5 mailing lists to which I subscribe that allow HTML email and don't have any of the problems you describe: - Blueprint CSS : http://groups.google.com/group/blueprintcss - Gnome-MY : http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-my-list - Greasemonkey Users : http://groups.google.com/group/greasemonkey-users - WP Hackers : http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers - jQuery-UI : http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-ui I did notice that most of my lists are from Google Groups... Almost all of them are from Google Groups or Mailman. You can find arguments such as these in all sorts of articles on the subject on the web. In the odd event that you actually need some HTML feature to communicate better (say you gathered data about practical use of cascading style sheets and the best way to present it is in form of a table) and wish to tell the community about it, you always have the option to make a web page and post a link. And for the little things like emphasis there are *alternatives available* with plain text. I agree. need is too strong a word. I'm just saying it would be nice. So, no, this is not based on some individual's personal preference but rather on the experience with what works and what doesn't of many, and various issues that arise from HTML mail usage as they can be observed in practise. If you think you can make a convincing argument that HTML mails, all things considered, are better, by all
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Ben Henick lurker...@henick.net wrote: There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? There are very few that handle it genuinely well, and the most commonly used e-mail client implements an ancient rendering engine with all the bugs and security holes that go along with advanced age. There are a few mainstream clients that are more common than others. Wouldn't users of older or less common software (especially on this list) would be familiar with problems associated with their software choice? Use of HTML and CSS enhances readability and semantics, which can in turn enhance accessibility. We know this... it's what we discuss continually in this community. The overhead added by HTML is insignificant by any modern standards. ...Unless your access to bandwidth is restricted. Since one of the founding values of this community, and in fact the entire Web, is that it should be readily accessible to all comers, well... we lead by example, right? I'm living in East Malaysia (Borneo) in an apartment complex that doesn't allow fixed phone lines. My maximum bandwidth down is (theoretically) 1Mb/s and I have a 5Gb cap per month. I can't use any form of streaming video and YouTube means pause and go make a sandwich while it buffers. Is someone out there more restricted than me? With or without the ability to use HTML in our emails, we need to exercise restraint and proper judgment... just like we do with the web pages we design. I am confident that this community would do that if we had the ability to use HTML. So, why can't we use HTML... especially in this community. 1. We need to be able to paste in blocks of production code with confidence that subscribers will be able to read that code as intended. Who's to say that given the next round of Windows updates, several thousand people might just have to twiddle their settings and/or mail management process to read and respond to list messages well? That's exactly the question that would hang over the list if HTML was allowed. HTML email would be an option, not a mandate. So, if any user wanted to send a plain text message with a suggested block of code, that wouldn't be any more of a problem than it is now. Wouldn't a properly formatted block of code with proper indentation in a blockquote and a different background color be easier to identify, copy, and paste in an email? Well, I'm never too surprised by problems caused by a Windows update, but most emails are HTML. So, any change needed for this list would be needed anyway. Don't forget that I'm talking about this community, not the internet in general. I think that the vast majority of us know a little bit more about web pages and HTML than the general population. 2. Every schlub on the planet with reliable Internet access has their own damnfool way of formatting their HTML e-mails. We don't want anybody to go blind. Related: Comic Sans. Again... restraint, proper judgment, and more knowledgeable community. 3. HTML email support is essentially an open invitation to anarchy. Apart from proverbial blindness, it also poses risks (however small) including but not limited to pr0n spam, virus delivery, and people doing goodness-only-knows-what because they think it's cool (cf. plaintext sigblocks). That's going a bit too far... Anarchy? Look at your inbox. How many of those emails are plain text only. How many of those emails (other than mine :)) caused anarchy? Again ... restraint and proper judgement from a community that is generally more knowledgeable. This is a community. It's potentially self-correcting. If someone posts garbage, several people will complain about it quickly. If it's bad enough, the admin will likely ban the user pretty quickly. I'm probably about to prove my point by getting banned. 4. If you really want everybody to see really cool s**t, well, every reasonably current mail client can turn a URL into a link without trouble. While messages of nothing more than O hai my site roXX0rz accompanied with a link are strongly discouraged, they are not banned outright. Consider that we'd be seeing a lot more, and much worse, along those lines of misbehavior (and subsequent censorship) if HTML e-mails were allowed. In short, the text-only policy greatly reduces the amount of childishness and general noise that subscribers are forced withstand in return for the privilege of access to good advice - enough so that it's worth enforcing with extreme prejudice. Given Point [4] above, the downside for this group is negligible-to-nonexistent. I have been lurking for quite a while. I have over 2700 emails in my own personal css-d archive. I've seen very little of that kind of thing. People who are malicious/mischievous *might* try something like that if they had the opportunity, but it just doesn't seem like we have too many people like
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
I just performed a test with a short message: Unadorned: This is yellow. This is Garamond typeface. This is Comic Sans typeface. This is BOLD. This is italicized. This is underlined. This is in a different size. Note emoticon --- Adorned: This is yellow. *This is underlined.* This is Garamond typeface *this is bold.* * This is italic.* This is another size. The unadorned source file is 167,567 bytes, while the marked up file is 167,240 bytes. (Could be shorter because there's less text in it.) Both are bloated. Any size difference is, IMHO, academic. Ted -- +-+ | 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 May the Spirit | | 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 of pi spread | | 06286 20899 86280 34825 32411 70679 82148 around the world. | | 08651 32823 06647 09384 46095 50582 ...PI VOBISCUM!| +-+ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wednesday, July 20, 2011 7:59:45 am Ghodmode wrote: There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? This obviously isn't true, as we've heard from at least two people. I work for a major American university, and the email system all our graduate students with TA-ships are forced to use does not support HTML emails, so there's a whole population that's not using HTML mail. There are also email readers that handle plain text much better than others. For example, I'm assuming the replies to this are using * for bold and _ for underlines. But I'm seeing them in actual bold and underlined. And I'm seeing quotes in green, but I'm pretty sure no one's actually formatting them that way themselves. Use of HTML and CSS enhances readability and semantics, which can in turn enhance accessibility. We know this... it's what we discuss continually in this community. Given the sad state of HTML rendering in emails (MS Outlook 2010 still uses Word as its renderer, for crying out loud), I'm not convinced that HTML email would actually qualify as more accessible than plain text. In a browser, certainly. But email readers are not browsers - they barely even rate as high as the proverbial red-headed stepchild of the browser family. The overhead added by HTML is insignificant by any modern standards. On this, I agree (provided there aren't giant background images and signature avitars -- which, personally, I get a lot of) So, why can't we use HTML... especially in this community. In this community, and other web-related communities, HTML email was a particular issue, because (at least back in the day -- probably not so true anymore), typing HTML into an HTML email resulted in HTML being displayed. Not the HTML code that we all actually want to see, but the table, or green text, or what-have-you that the HTML would produce. As you can imagine, that could be particularly problematic. As for highlighting blocks of code -- we've all been doing this long enough to recognize CSS when we see it. It doesn't need a background color. And besides, it's almost always more useful to just give a link to the site and some line numbers from the code. ---Tim __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
[css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 10:15 AM, Ed Seedhouse eseedho...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Ghodmode ghodm...@ghodmode.com wrote: Any html email i get gets dumped straight into the trash bin by my mail reader, at my instruction. HTML is a web page markup language. Email is not the web. Wow! ... harsh! Troll? I mean, since email is the primary means of communication on the world wide web and most mainstream email clients format their messages using HTML by default, I can't understand your comment other than in the context of a trolling attempt. What if important family members don't know how to set plain text? And it very bad manners indeed to post off topic as you are doing. If you don't like the way the list is run feel free to unsubscribe. Wow! ... harsh! I can't promise good manners, but I will promise to ask for opinions on issues related to the list and respect and appreciate those opinions. On the topic of manners, please review the list policies. Especially the following: - Try not to offend other list members, or to feel offended by them. See the section below titled Offensensitivity for more. -- Ed Seedhouse As you might have guessed, I disagree on both points. I'll take the chance that I'm not the only one in this community that does. __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Jul 20, 2011, at 12:17 PM, Ghodmode wrote: Troll? I'm surprised the listmom hasn't called a halt to this discussion yet. Hopefully he will do so soon. PS - I'd be the first to unsubscribe if this this list start allowing html mail. Philippe -- Philippe Wittenbergh http://l-c-n.com/ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
gmail + html emails + iphone mail.app = hard to read I wish gmail had an option to strip HTML from all incoming e-mails. Sorry to contribute to this OT thread... :: crawls back into hole :: __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Micky Hulse mickyhulse.li...@gmail.com wrote: gmail + html emails + iphone mail.app = hard to read I wish gmail had an option to strip HTML from all incoming e-mails. Sorry to contribute to this OT thread... :: crawls back into hole :: I've seen the screen under those circumstance. Definitely hard to read. On a different note. I'm lazy. Very lazy. I like being able to insert sample html and sample css into an email without doing anything special. But, I'm even lazier than that. I also appreciate not being forced to take extra precautions to deal with possible hidden links, exploits, and who knows what. There is no who knows what you say. Well, in html email I'm not so sure. In asci email I'm 100% sure. I've never had an asci email download a 1pixel tracking image. Besides, it might be embarrassing to send an html/css reply to a list with such notable designers. My poor little reply might have fonts out of play and god knows what :) Regards, Claude Needham __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
sigh Here is the usual course of these conversations: People fight about something trivial (However, I don't believe this issue is trivial!) All leave the list forever for two weeks. Then come back and ignore each other. ... Ted, almost 70, and appreciates the ability to change type faces/sizes in the web preferences. -- +-+ | 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 May the Spirit | | 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 of pi spread | | 06286 20899 86280 34825 32411 70679 82148 around the world. | | 08651 32823 06647 09384 46095 50582 ...PI VOBISCUM!| +-+ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Tim Climis tim.cli...@gmail.com wrote: On Wednesday, July 20, 2011 7:59:45 am Ghodmode wrote: There aren't any contemporary email applications that can't handle HTML. Is anyone using one? This obviously isn't true, as we've heard from at least two people. I work for a major American university, and the email system all our graduate students with TA-ships are forced to use does not support HTML emails, so there's a whole population that's not using HTML mail. Ya I shouldn't have said there aren't any, but I was hoping someone would comment with the name of one that doesn't. No one has yet... Not even you. What's TA-ships? Do many of your graduate students subscribe to this mailing list? My original question was never intended to target the general public, only the people on this mailing list. The oldest email system that I can think of that might be in use and might not be able to support basic HTML is something based on Novell Groupwise, but I'd like to know something definitive. There are also email readers that handle plain text much better than others. For example, I'm assuming the replies to this are using * for bold and _ for underlines. But I'm seeing them in actual bold and underlined. And I'm seeing quotes in green, but I'm pretty sure no one's actually formatting them that way themselves. What do you use? Use of HTML and CSS enhances readability and semantics, which can in turn enhance accessibility. We know this... it's what we discuss continually in this community. Given the sad state of HTML rendering in emails (MS Outlook 2010 still uses Word as its renderer, for crying out loud), I'm not convinced that HTML email would actually qualify as more accessible than plain text. In a browser, certainly. But email readers are not browsers - they barely even rate as high as the proverbial red-headed stepchild of the browser family. Basic stuff should work fine... bold, italic, monospace font, block quotes. We have smart people in this community. If people are using a problematic email client, they'll know it. Besides that, most emails are HTML formatted. If they have problems with HTML in a mailing list, they'll also have problems elsewhere. The overhead added by HTML is insignificant by any modern standards. On this, I agree (provided there aren't giant background images and signature avitars -- which, personally, I get a lot of) What counts as images, anyway. If embedded, wouldn't that be an attachment? No attachments allowed. is a rule I agree with. I can see how that's a problem, though. While I suspect it's easy to flip a switch and allow HTML, it may be a much different thing to weed out embedded images that are encoded differently than regular attachments. I can understand that not all email clients have the ability to block images (img tags). So I can see that as a potential problem, but I do think that people in the community would ido the right thing/i and correct others when they don't. So, why can't we use HTML... especially in this community. In this community, and other web-related communities, HTML email was a particular issue, because (at least back in the day -- probably not so true anymore), typing HTML into an HTML email resulted in HTML being displayed. Not the HTML code that we all actually want to see, but the table, or green text, or what-have-you that the HTML would produce. As you can imagine, that could be particularly problematic. I asked this question to begin with because I thought that a lot about it might have been decided back in the day. I just wanted a new discussion, and a new decision if it was called for. As for highlighting blocks of code -- we've all been doing this long enough to recognize CSS when we see it. It doesn't need a background color. And besides, it's almost always more useful to just give a link to the site and some line numbers from the code. You're right, but I still say it would be nice to be able to do things like this. However, I'm learning that I'm alone in that opinion. Besides that, you're making part of my argument for me. The phrase we've all acknowledges the web-savvy group I'm talking about rather than the general public. ---Tim -- Ghodmode http://www.ghodmode.com/blog __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Claude Needham gxx...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Micky Hulse mickyhulse.li...@gmail.com wrote: gmail + html emails + iphone mail.app = hard to read I wish gmail had an option to strip HTML from all incoming e-mails. Sorry to contribute to this OT thread... :: crawls back into hole :: I've seen the screen under those circumstance. Definitely hard to read. On a different note. I'm lazy. Very lazy. I like being able to insert sample html and sample css into an email without doing anything special. I'm lazy, too. That's why I created the topic. Every time I use this list I have to be sure to set the formatting to plain text, then open up my message in a text editor that will cut the lines off at 70 characters. A lot of extra work just to send an email, but access to this community makes it worth it. Someone might say that I should change the defaults of my email program, but I don't want to. I like being able to format my email for the recipients that allow it. But, I'm even lazier than that. I also appreciate not being forced to take extra precautions to deal with possible hidden links, exploits, and who knows what. There is no who knows what you say. Well, in html email I'm not so sure. In asci email I'm 100% sure. I've never had an asci email download a 1pixel tracking image. I can't argue with you there. These are legitimate concerns. My email client doesn't show images in incoming emails unless I've explicitly allowed it, but I guess that's not true for all clients. Besides, it might be embarrassing to send an html/css reply to a list with such notable designers. My poor little reply might have fonts out of play and god knows what :) Regards, Claude Needham -- Ghodmode http://www.ghodmode.com/blog __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] [OT] Why no HTML
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Ted Rolle Jr. ster...@gmail.com wrote: sigh Here is the usual course of these conversations: People fight about something trivial (However, I don't believe this issue is trivial!) All leave the list forever for two weeks. Then come back and ignore each other. I'm not going anywhere, but you have a point. Some people seem to be disproportionately upset by the topic. ... Ted, almost 70, and appreciates the ability to change type faces/sizes in the web preferences. -- +-+ | 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 May the Spirit | | 41971 69399 37510 58209 74944 59230 78164 of pi spread | | 06286 20899 86280 34825 32411 70679 82148 around the world. | | 08651 32823 06647 09384 46095 50582 ... PI VOBISCUM! | +-+ __ css-discuss [css-d@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
