Alastair,
Saturday, December 01, 2001, 4:50:43 AM, you wrote:
Alastair> For what it's worth, my opinion is that TB! is doing the right thing
Alastair> (read but not write).
Alastair> The problem is that home and business have radically different
Alastair> requirements.
Good call. I'm glad to hear someone finally say it.
But I think you are referring to inter-office messaging rather
than business e-mail. And no, this doesn't mean spam. Not
every message from a commercial entity is spam. That's another
area where people get carried away. HTML e-mail is most useful
as a business tool rather than a glitzy informal message. I'd
love to use theBat as my sole business e-mail tool but it is
quite a hassle to attach an html file to 10,000+ messages then
export them, make necessary changes (and no, changing the
content type to multipart/alternative is not the only change
necessary) and finally import them all back into the Outbox.
The fact is that theBat is and hopefully always will be
a step above other e-mail clients. So, simply adding the
ability to compose html messages would not be enough. One would
still want to be able to personalize mass e-mail messages and
further more embed an ascii version for anyone not able to view
html. No other e-mail client provides this functionality to my
knowledge. Even Becky only allows for sending mass html
messages via the BCC line which many servers will toss out on
sight. Why? Again that fear that any message with numerous
addresses in the BCC line is Spam.
On viruses and external images...from the business end
it would be ridiculous to expect customers to put up with
embedded images. Keeping them external at least gives the
customer a chance to delete the message before all the
downloading begins. Please don't think of HTML e-mail as an
evil business tool used by spammers alone. In my case I'd much
rather send text since I can send them ten times faster. But
our subscriber base prefers HTML. They sign up for it, it is
not chosen for them. The problem with viruses is well
documented but it is certainly not the norm. And one shouldn't
shy away from HTML because of them just as you wouldn't abstain
from using the 'Net for fear of infection.
But I digress...I think the reason why theBat has yet to
implement HTML composing is simply because when RitLabs does
something they try to do it right. I don't think it is because
they are part of some end all html e-mail movement. I am not
speaking from insider knowledge here. These are just my
thoughts on the subject.
Alastair> I have a feeling that strong feeling against viruses will spread,
Alastair> particularly as broadband connections become common, and there will be a
Alastair> fork; email will be for plain ASCII and attachments, whereas the bells
Alastair> and whistles will move to instant messaging.
Again, this is from the home-user standpoint.
E-commerce requires the use of HTML e-mail to some degree. And
at least some customers ask for it specifically. Attachments
were all the rage way back when but now people fear them. I
guess I can't blame them...at least they've come that far in
avoiding viruses. I prefer the dual html / ascii method. I like
to choose. But so far theBat is the only client that handles it
near perfect in my experience.
Alastair> Given all this, I would not encourage people to use HTML in emails, but
Alastair> they have to be able to read it (or remove it) :)
I guess I can't really argue with that except to expand
on it. I wouldn't discourage the use of any form of
communication. However, I would highly encourage the use of
theBat. That move alone would solve many of the concerns
expressed in these two threads. Even though we all may consider
theBat to be beyond mainstream quality, the masses may not feel
this way until HTML composing and improved handling is
implemented. Again, I trust this is already in the works, as
Marck has stated. It's probably just being done the right way!
One only needs to be patient I suppose.
--
Best regards,
James
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Environment:
theBat! version 1.54 Beta/9
Windows Windows NT 5.0 build 2195 Service Pack 2
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