Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Daniel]

On 17/07/2016 8:48 AM, EE wrote:

Daniel wrote:

I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable!
Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in
arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!

How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion
that it is directly clickable at the other end??

TIA


The way you have it in your message is clickable.  It looks like a link
and it goes to Yahoo if I click it.  It will not look like a link in the
compose window.


O.K., thanks to those who responded and seemed to support my 
understanding ... and thanks also to those who went to the RFC for support.


I supposed, to be fair, I should state that the link I posted to my 
sister was not actually the  I posted above (which I did 
just for simplicity!), it was to my family webpage 
http://sonsofmark.tribalpages.com/tribe/sc?sr=100=sonsofmark=21=-1=68226822, 
which she had to Copy into her (I think) Google Chrome browser, 
but then when I altered the address to 
, 
it was clickable.


Guess, for future reference, and problems with other browsers, I'll have 
to try to remember to include the angle brackets!!


Thanks for you assistance, fellas!!

--
Daniel

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.40 Build identifier: 20160120202951

or
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.38 Build identifier: 20150903203501

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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[»Q«]

In ,
"David E. Ross"  wrote:

> On 7/16/2016 5:54 PM, »Q« wrote:
> > In ,
> > "David E. Ross"  wrote:
> >   
> >> On 7/16/2016 12:35 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote [in part]:
> >>
> >>[snipped]
> >>  
> >>> The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell
> >>> the receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here."
> >>> AFAIK they don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need
> >>> either an HTML message (which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving
> >>> application like SeaMonkey that recognizes URLs and email
> >>> addresses and makes them clickable. And yes, including "http://;
> >>> does help some apps in their recognition process. Similarly, many
> >>> diagnose mail links whenever they see the character "@" --
> >>> this@that will probably be clickable when SM receives this
> >>> message.
> >>
> >> Actually, the use of the < and > as brackets is for humans.  This
> >> is so a human user can tell how much to copy and then paste into a
> >> browser's address area.  
> > 
> > The angle brackets as delimiters for URLs in plain text were
> > recommended in the appendix of RFC 1738 because "it is convenient
> > to have a separate syntactic wrapper that delimits the URL and
> > separates it from the rest of the text" without specifying whether
> > it's convenient only for humans.  
> 
> I prefer using RFC 3986, which updated RFC 1738.  In any case, RFC
> 1738 is marked as obsolete.

For the question of whether the delimiter was intended solely for
humans, not software, I prefer the earlier reference because it's
from when the issue was being tackled in the first place.  In any
case, the one that superseded it is in agreement with it about the
delimiters.

> The overall context of Appendix C of RFC 3986 seems to indicate a
> human use for the brackets.  This is seen in the reference to "on
> printed paper." in the first paragraph of the appendix.

That part is essentially the the same in 1738's appendix;  both are
very clear that they're talking about all plain text, not just
printed on paper.  I see no indication in either appendix that the
delimiters might be intended only for parsing by humans.

3986: "For example, there are many occasions when a URI is included in
plain text; examples include text sent in email, USENET news, and on
printed paper."

1738: "In addition, there are many occasions when URLs are included in
other kinds of text; examples include electronic mail, USENET news
messages, or printed on paper."

> > Whether any software's algorithms make use of the delimiters as
> > they're determining whether there's a URL present, I dunno.

> Yes, however, some software also makes use of the < and >.

For helping to determine whether a URL is present?

[crossposted and followups set to mozilla.general, since this seems to
me to be about trivia rather than SM support.]
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Paul B. Gallagher]

David E. Ross wrote:


I prefer using RFC 3986, which updated RFC 1738.  In any case, RFC 1738
is marked as obsolete.

The overall context of Appendix C of RFC 3986 seems to indicate a human
use for the brackets.  This is seen in the reference to "on printed
paper." in the first paragraph of the appendix.


Quoting RFC 3986:

"Using <> angle brackets around each URI is especially recommended as a 
delimiting style for a reference that contains embedded whitespace."


--
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--
Paul B. Gallagher

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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[David E. Ross]

On 7/16/2016 5:54 PM, »Q« wrote:
> In ,
> "David E. Ross"  wrote:
> 
>> On 7/16/2016 12:35 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote [in part]:
>>
>>  [snipped]
>>
>>> The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell
>>> the receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here."
>>> AFAIK they don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need either
>>> an HTML message (which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving
>>> application like SeaMonkey that recognizes URLs and email addresses
>>> and makes them clickable. And yes, including "http://; does help
>>> some apps in their recognition process. Similarly, many diagnose
>>> mail links whenever they see the character "@" -- this@that will
>>> probably be clickable when SM receives this message.  
>>
>> Actually, the use of the < and > as brackets is for humans.  This is
>> so a human user can tell how much to copy and then paste into a
>> browser's address area.
> 
> The angle brackets as delimiters for URLs in plain text were recommended
> in the appendix of RFC 1738 because "it is convenient to have a
> separate syntactic wrapper that delimits the URL and separates it from
> the rest of the text" without specifying whether it's convenient only
> for humans.  Whether any software's algorithms make use of the
> delimiters as they're determining whether there's a URL present, I
> dunno.
> 

I prefer using RFC 3986, which updated RFC 1738.  In any case, RFC 1738
is marked as obsolete.

The overall context of Appendix C of RFC 3986 seems to indicate a human
use for the brackets.  This is seen in the reference to "on printed
paper." in the first paragraph of the appendix.

Yes, however, some software also makes use of the < and >.

-- 
David E. Ross
.

Is it true that Donald Trump refuses to reveal his
income tax returns because he uses so many questionable
loopholes that he pays no taxes?  See
.
 Even if those
loopholes are legal, Trump might be too embarrassed to
admit he pays no taxes.
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Paul B. Gallagher]

David E. Ross wrote:


On 7/16/2016 12:35 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote [in part]:

[snipped]


The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell the
receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here." AFAIK they
don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need either an HTML message
(which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving application like SeaMonkey
that recognizes URLs and email addresses and makes them clickable. And
yes, including "http://; does help some apps in their recognition
process. Similarly, many diagnose mail links whenever they see the
character "@" -- this@that will probably be clickable when SM receives
this message.


Actually, the use of the < and > as brackets is for humans.  This is so
a human user can tell how much to copy and then paste into a browser's
address area.


That's a side effect. As you may know, a URL can contain one or more 
characters that some programs will misparse as the end of the URL, such 
as a space or a question mark; conversely, a human may add normal 
punctuation, thus: "did you go to http://this.fictional.url.com?; which 
some programs will try to parse as part of the URL. Smarter humans will 
avoid this, but as you know not all humans are smart.


Another consideration is that the use of angle brackets prevents most 
sending email clients from inserting line wrap characters in the middle 
of URLs. Those line breaks cause the receiving email client to parse 
only the first chunk as the URL and ignore the rest.


BTW, I've noticed that some smartphone messaging apps will see a link 
like  and strip the opening "<" but feed 
the closing ">" (sometimes as "%3E") to the browser, causing an error. 
The receiving user can fix the problem by stripping the last character 
manually, but it's a PITA if they don't know that.



Anyway, the point of plain text is that by definition it doesn't
have hyperlinks. So if you want to guarantee clickability, use
HTML.


That is not necessarily true. About 20 years ago, Eudora Lite
recognized URIs in plain-text messages. On the other hand, AOL's
proprietary E-mail application did not; I do not know if AOL ever
fixed that since I never use AOL.


As noted elsewhere in this thread, that's a function of the /receiving/ 
email client, not of the message content. The sender cannot know if the 
recipient has an email client smart enough to recognize his URL as such. 
But even the stupidest email client, if it's capable of parsing HTML, 
will understand hyperlinks in an HTML message. That's what I meant by 
"guarantee."


--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[»Q«]

In ,
"David E. Ross"  wrote:

> On 7/16/2016 12:35 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote [in part]:
> 
>   [snipped]
> 
> > The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell
> > the receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here."
> > AFAIK they don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need either
> > an HTML message (which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving
> > application like SeaMonkey that recognizes URLs and email addresses
> > and makes them clickable. And yes, including "http://; does help
> > some apps in their recognition process. Similarly, many diagnose
> > mail links whenever they see the character "@" -- this@that will
> > probably be clickable when SM receives this message.  
> 
> Actually, the use of the < and > as brackets is for humans.  This is
> so a human user can tell how much to copy and then paste into a
> browser's address area.

The angle brackets as delimiters for URLs in plain text were recommended
in the appendix of RFC 1738 because "it is convenient to have a
separate syntactic wrapper that delimits the URL and separates it from
the rest of the text" without specifying whether it's convenient only
for humans.  Whether any software's algorithms make use of the
delimiters as they're determining whether there's a URL present, I
dunno.
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[David E. Ross]

On 7/16/2016 12:35 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote [in part]:

[snipped]

> The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell the 
> receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here." AFAIK they 
> don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need either an HTML message 
> (which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving application like SeaMonkey 
> that recognizes URLs and email addresses and makes them clickable. And 
> yes, including "http://; does help some apps in their recognition 
> process. Similarly, many diagnose mail links whenever they see the 
> character "@" -- this@that will probably be clickable when SM receives 
> this message.

Actually, the use of the < and > as brackets is for humans.  This is so
a human user can tell how much to copy and then paste into a browser's
address area.

The presence of http:// or https:// (or some other indication of an
Iternet protocol such as FTP://) is more important to applications than
the brackets.


> Anyway, the point of plain text is that by definition it doesn't have 
> hyperlinks. So if you want to guarantee clickability, use HTML.

That is not necessarily true.  About 20 years ago, Eudora Lite
recognized URIs in plain-text messages.  On the other hand, AOL's
proprietary E-mail application did not; I do not know if AOL ever fixed
that since I never use AOL.

-- 
David E. Ross
.

Is it true that Donald Trump refuses to reveal his
income tax returns because he uses so many questionable
loopholes that he pays no taxes?  See
.
 Even if those
loopholes are legal, Trump might be too embarrassed to
admit he pays no taxes.
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[EE]

Daniel wrote:

I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable!
Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in
arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!

How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion
that it is directly clickable at the other end??

TIA

The way you have it in your message is clickable.  It looks like a link 
and it goes to Yahoo if I click it.  It will not look like a link in the 
compose window.



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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Paul B. Gallagher]

I just wrote:


Similarly, many diagnose mail links whenever they see the character "@"
-- this@that will probably be clickable when SM receives this message.


OK, guess not. Probably requires at least one period. How about 
? Or does it have to be a valid TLD like ?


--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher

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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Paul B. Gallagher]

»Q« wrote:


In ,
Daniel  wrote:


I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be
clickable! Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I
enclosed it in arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work
either!

How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion
that it is directly clickable at the other end??


There is no way you can guarantee that the recipient's software will
convert any plain text to a clickable link, but the angle brackets may
help. It may also help to include the protocol, such as http, e.g.
.  In times past, adding "URL:" helped some
software, e.g. .  (I hope I've got that
syntax right -- it's been many years since I had to use it.)


The chief purpose of the angle brackets is delineation -- to tell the 
receiving application "the URL begins here... and ends here." AFAIK they 
don't tell it "this is a URL." For that, you need either an HTML message 
(which supports hyperlinks), or a receiving application like SeaMonkey 
that recognizes URLs and email addresses and makes them clickable. And 
yes, including "http://; does help some apps in their recognition 
process. Similarly, many diagnose mail links whenever they see the 
character "@" -- this@that will probably be clickable when SM receives 
this message.


Anyway, the point of plain text is that by definition it doesn't have 
hyperlinks. So if you want to guarantee clickability, use HTML.


--
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[»Q«]

In ,
Daniel  wrote:

> I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be
> clickable! Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I
> enclosed it in arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work
> either!
> 
> How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion 
> that it is directly clickable at the other end??

There is no way you can guarantee that the recipient's software will
convert any plain text to a clickable link, but the angle brackets may
help. It may also help to include the protocol, such as http, e.g.
.  In times past, adding "URL:" helped some
software, e.g. .  (I hope I've got that
syntax right -- it's been many years since I had to use it.)
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[WaltS48]

Daniel wrote:

I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable!
Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in
arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!

How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion
that it is directly clickable at the other end??

TIA



You can't click this link? .

The recipient has to have their system configured properly. Not your 
problem.

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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[David E. Ross]

On 7/16/2016 6:09 AM, Daniel wrote:
> I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable! 
> Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in 
> arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!
> 
> How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion 
> that it is directly clickable at the other end??
> 
> TIA
> 

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1
Thunderbird 45.2.0

It appeared as a link to me.  I clicked it and got Yahoo news.

However, it would be best to supply the whole URI (aka URL).  In this
case, it would have been .

Also note that the URI is NOT clickable in the sender's composition
window for the message.  As I prepare this reply, neither the link in
your quoted message above nor in my reply are clickable.  They should
both be clickable after I send this reply.

-- 
David E. Ross
.

Is it true that Donald Trump refuses to reveal his
income tax returns because he uses so many questionable
loopholes that he pays no taxes?  See
.
 Even if those
loopholes are legal, Trump might be too embarrassed to
admit he pays no taxes.
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Re: Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Ed Mullen]

On 7/16/2016 at 9:09 AM, Daniel's prodigious digits fired off:

I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable!
Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in
arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!

How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion
that it is directly clickable at the other end??

TIA



Uh, the link above works for me.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
If electricity comes from electrons, where does morality come from?
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Sending a clickable link in a Plain Text e-Mail

[Daniel]

I've thought I can send a link in a PT e-mail and it would be clickable! 
Tonight I found it isn't, so I thought it would work if I enclosed it in 
arrowheads , i.e.  but that didn't work either!


How can I send/format a web address in a PT e-mail in such a fashion 
that it is directly clickable at the other end??


TIA

--
Daniel

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.40 Build identifier: 20160120202951

or
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 
SeaMonkey/2.38 Build identifier: 20150903203501

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