Replys with broken HTML see [Re: [CLUE-Tech] Re: "Hmm... I I disagree."]

[Tim Harris]

On Fri, 24 May 2002 13:53:05 -0600
"Jed S. Baer" <thag at frii.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 24 May 2002 10:58:07 -0600
> Tim Harris <tdharris at usa.com> wrote:
> 
> > Jed S. Baer wrote:
> > 
> > >"Tim Harris" <tdharris at usa.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>Just a comment. I find it annoying to scroll through a post and see a
> > >>lot of non-functional html code. It's a pain. Does any else have an
> > >>opinion about this?
> > >
> > I'm not opposed to the rich text format but it seems to get all screw up
> > when it's sent to a discussion list. I select plain text only when I 
> > send email to lists such as this. I'm using Netscape 6.2. I suppose I 
> > could use something like fetchmail or pine but I'm too lazy to take the 
> > 5 minutes to configure it. Frankly, I occasionally need to look at and 
> > print html formatted email (invoices and the like). I suppose I'm in 
> > danger of turning this into a discussion list so I will stop.
> 
> There are certainly occassions when sending an RTF, PDF, whatever, using
> e-mail as the transport mechanism, is really fine. When you have an
> arrangement with some other party, and are expecting particular documents
> to come through as such, hey it's great to be able to use
> mime-encapsulation to send such things.
> 
> As with so many other things I rant about, the question is whether it's
> _necessary_, i.e. is there something essential conveyed by using other
> than plain text, or is it just fluff. And, in the case of e-mail, there
> are plenty of people using older software (or software which just takes
> the [IMHO correct] stand of "e-mail is plain text and should stay that
> way") who will have trouble reading it. Note that I'm not saying that some
> particular document should not be sent as an attachment as HTML, but
> that's a different thing. The main body should just be plain text (in
> whatever language you use).
> 
> Just curious whether Nutscape's new e-mail program still interprets and
> executes all HTML tags in a e-mailed document. I can remember a while back
> getting spams with <IMG> tags in them, and I was initially shocked when my
> _mail_ program actually behaved just like a web browser, and retrieved the
> poxy things.
> 
> My personal recommendation is Sylpheed. It's really a snap to set up and
> run. It strips HTML and shows you the plain text. It's fast. Hey, it'll
> even auto-sort your mail into various folders, if you like.
> 
> Since this is a discussion list, I don't see any harm in having the
> discussion ;-).
> 
> jed

Jed, I am sending this reply from my Sylpheed client. So far I like it a lot. Looks somewhat like Kmail but more configurable. By the way, Netscape gives you the option to view html as an attachment but the default is in line. I farted around with pine earlier and tried to send a reply to this list earlier. But I couldn't figure out how to make the from line show my forwarding address which is what I'm a member of this discussion group with. Got a reply from the CLUE saying it is waiting approval because I'm not a member. My actual email address is timdharris at attbi.com but I always use a forwarder tdharris at usa.com. I had that email address for several years and I don't feel like changing it everytime I change ISPs. I guess I'm not a lazy as I thought --trying two new clients in one day. 

Tim