[geeks] mail formatting (was Re: HD/IDE question)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 @ 16:18 +0100, Mike Meredith said:

> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006 00:27:12 -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > The problem is that in the 15 years we've been wanting to get past
> > plain text, *NOBODY* has come up with a sane and well-designed
> > standard for doing anything else.
> 
> Actually we've got the beginnings of one ... and you're using it! Nobody
> has used the defacto standards to render email text in an enhanced way
> (as far as I know) but there's no reason why it cannot be done. Making
> words *bold* and _emphasising_ them has been 'standard' for years, and
> emoticons aren't much younger. What else is really *needed* ?

That's not a codified standard, and it does nothing for layout and
things like that.

People want to send postcards and "chart junk" to each other.

I want a standard that at least let's me still see the message, which
the current use of HTML does not allow.

> Enhancing (and gracefully extending) text/plain strikes me as a better
> method than introducing
> text/with-all-the-knobbly-bits-that-only-works-in-my-mua.

No one suggested introducing anything that only works in one mua.

What I suggested was the exact opposite: a standard that all of them
use.

What's going to happen if things stay as they are, is we'll see most
email go to HTML formatted madness, and even more crap than we have
to deal with now.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["It's a damn poor mind that can only think
of one way to spell a word." -- Andrew Jackson]