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Stroller wrote: |
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> |
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> I've been wondering for a while why no alternative has been proposed. |
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> HTML was originally considered poor because it wasted bandwidth, HTML |
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> messages being *at least* twice the size of the plain text, but often |
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> several times as large. I wonder if console-based mail-readers were |
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> late in adopting it for that reason, and it gained additional |
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> unpopularity amongst programmers & the technorati as a consequence. |
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> |
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> Nowadays HTML is bad principally because it imposes fonts upon the |
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> reader. I know what size my monitor is & at what size my mail program |
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> should render text. I have an HTML-capable mail reader & have no |
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> objection to the HTML messages sent by Amazon & Deep Discount, because |
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> they are clear & readable - they have expensive design teams who |
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> clearly take a deal of time ensuring that. But a poster to the |
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> Openmoko mailing list a while back formatted his messages not only in |
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> a tasteful green which I'm sure he enjoyed a lot, but also in a tiny |
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> font which was unreadable on my screen. Undoubtedly it looked fine to |
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> him, but I don't know what resolution he was using - 800 x 600??? - |
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> because the characters were about 2mm high on my 20" @ 1600 x 1200. |
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> |
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> What I think would be ideal for email would be a very simple text |
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> markup which allows italics, underline, bold and strikethrough |
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> characters in addition to links. I'd love to be able to convey those |
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> kinds of emphasis to readers, and I'd also love to be able to use |
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> proper clickable links in the body of a text message, but at present I |
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> can't, because I don't think it's appropriate for me to impose |
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> 13-point Verdana on those who prefer Times or Courier in some other size. |
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> |
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> EDIT: I guess a text size +1 for headers would also be appropriate |
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> (+2, -1, -2), bullet points plus superscript and subscript. Clearly |
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> some hashing out would be appropriate, but ideally formatting should |
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> be minimal, so that even displayed as pain-text the formatting is not |
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> intrusive; EG: --strikethough--, /italics/, _underline_ &c. |
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> |
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> I have also found that clients appear inconsistent about how they |
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> apply quoting to HTML messages. At least often if I reply to an HTML |
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> message and change it to plain text then the quoted message magically |
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> looses a level of quoting. Typically I change to plain-text like this |
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> because I've copied & pasted a single sentence out of the quoted |
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> section and it comes out into my own paragraph as blue, the wrong size |
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> and an inconsistent font - this is another grip about HTML. |
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> |
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> I'm surprised by this, and always assumed TinyURL kept their links |
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> forever. Are you sure it's not simply that the post is so old it |
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> points to a target page that no longer exists? It looks like TinyURL |
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> have the capacity for about 2,176,782,336 unique links before they |
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> need to add another digit after the slash. |
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> |
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|
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I guess my main point was this. Some mailing list people have some set |
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ups that may not work right in certain situations. As I have said, some |
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here are using older mail readers that don't do well, if display at all, |
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html messages. That's what I was told when I first joined here. I also |
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know from being here a long time that if a person does something silly, |
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like sending a 2Mb email or sending HTML that they can't read, they get |
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sent to the dust bin. Also, some people have replied from cell phones |
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or live in countries that charge by the amount of data. The difference |
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between html and text on a list this busy can be a lot. |
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|
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As far tinyurl. I'm not sure how old they were or if they expired or |
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what. It seemed it went to a page that said it was a old link or |
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something but it was a while back. I just know I got it a few times and |
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decided tinyurl is not for me. |
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|
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Dale |
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|
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:-) :-) |