Can anybody tell me how to send HTML-format mail in gnus
M.T
Evans Winner
I am surprised that no one has answered your question, if
only to scold you about how evil HTML emails are -- with
which I generally agree, but sometimes they can be useful.
I don't know if there is a native way in gnus to do it, but
the Emacs Muse package (at least version 3.12 -- the one I
have) has a handy function called `muse-message-markup. If
you are in a mail buffer you write your Email as normal text
but with the simple Muse markup syntax and then M-x
muse-message-markup RET and the message is reformatted as an
HTML email. Then just send it.
Dunno if that's helpful, but I figure it beats being
ignored.
M.T
thank you very much.I am just using an not that simple
method.powered by MIME lib,we can include html codes like
this:
>
Jashy
1. M-x mml-insert-part enter
2. Content type: text/html
--
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Tim X
>> > I wrote my article in muse,and compile it to html,
> and then load those above and then C-x i insert the
> html file generated by muse,and then send it to
> ***@blogger.com. And that allows me to enjoy the convinent
> and power of muse and can also easy update my blog.
> Your reply is really helpful,I appriciate it very much.
> and i think i can now working all in one enviroment.
> that's fun.
>
In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing. However, this does
appear to be a special case. One thing to note is that if sending HTML
mail, it really should consist of both a plain text part and an HTML
part to comply with relevant mail rfcs. Note also that many anti spam
filters will block e-mails that only contain HTML and odn't comply with
the rfc standards. furthermore, many mail readers will not display the
HTML correctly if it isn't written correctly.
With respect to blogger, there is a package called g-client written by
T.V. Raman that provides an emacs interface to many google services
(gcalendar, gphoto, greader, gblogger etc). The package is bundled with
emacspeak, but can be used without it. The emacspeak and g-client
packages are hosted on google code.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Xah
«In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing.»
HTML in email is a very good thing.
From the technology point of view, it is far more powerful. For
example, it can contain links, bold text, coloring, embedded images,
etc. The bulkier than plain text in size, of course, but in today's
youtube days, this doesn't matter. Also not, if my 10 years old email
transmission protocol knowledge is not outdated, then email is still
sent by first converting to a ascii encoding. This is invented by the
unix folks, which is extremely inefficient.
From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
want it.
Arguably, another format, such as rich text that is espoused by Apple
computer's email progrm ( ~2002 to ~2006 and no support for html
mail), is a better tech than HTML for rich text in email. But for
whatever social reasons it didn't catch on. Html is the de facto
standard today for rich text in email.
I wrote a essay back in 2002 detailing my thoughts on this:
Plain-Text Email Fetish
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html
Also, as i mentioned before, tools used by tech geekers usually have 5
or more so years lagging in catching up with any tech that are being
adapted in the commercial world. For example, HTML email has basically
became the standard in Microsoft since maybe 2002?, and html is widely
supported or in fact default format for commercial web based service
provider since many years ago too.
Emacs's rmail, should adopt the ability to send HTML mail. It is my
guess, that it will adopt it eventually. The question is just how many
more years later?
convenient Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Cor Gest
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> HTML in email is a very good thing.
That is utter CRAP, if you think that a message, dolled-up more
than a cathouse on X-mas'eve has more information than the same text
in ascii, you really ought to learn to read.
Cor
PS
If you do not like my opinion, buy another !
--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving armed conflict : Have a gun !
Xah
«
HTML in email is a very good thing.
»
On Aug 7, 8:17 am, Cor Gest <c...@clsnet.nl> wrote:
«That is utter CRAP, if you think that a message, dolled-up more than
a cathouse on X-mas'eve has more information than the same text in
ascii, you really ought to learn to read.»
well, HTML is technically superior simply because it can do a lot more
things.
In the mid 1990s, a lot tech geeker seriously think that the web
should remain in plain text or <pre>. They say exactly what you are
saying now. If you do research on newsgroup archive, i bet you can
still dig up lots of such arguments.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
M.T
I think html is too complex for email.We do need some tags language which
enable us to give our mail a nice look.But html is a bad design.Because it
mix the perfomance and the meaning,I think XHTML+css is a better choice,
but we need a simplifed version of it.Something like MUSE or LATEX,if our
clients perform defferent with the same codes,even the worst situation,
we know
#title somethin
is title
or
\title{something}
is title
with no limit of network,i think more powerful ways to express ourself is
worthy of try.
i am sorry my english is very poor ...
regards
all
Evans Winner
well, HTML is technically superior simply because it can
do a lot more things.
I am not sure this reasoning follows very well. Certainly
the ability to do many things is nice, but they have to be
the right things. One functionality that HTML lacks is the
ability to be a simple, portable plain ascii message, which
sounds like I am being circular, but really, for most
people, that is the single most important feature of email.
Cor Gest
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
>well, HTML is technically superior simply because it can do a lot more
>things.
So is a F16 compared to my bicycle. but the bike beats getting a
pork-chop at a corner store.
HTTP is NOT mail!
Well, nearly all junkmail IS html anyway. so you really must be a
closet-spammer in promoting that junk.
Cor
Xah
> Xah <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> I think html is too complex for email.We do need some tags language which
> enable us to give our mail a nice look.But html is a bad design.Because it
> mix the perfomance and the meaning,I think XHTML+css is a better choice,
> but we need a simplifed version of it.Something like MUSE or LATEX,if our
> clients perform defferent with the same codes,even the worst situation,
> we know
> #title somethin
> is title
> or
> \title{something}
> is title
I agree with you that HTML is complex.
Some technology just move on its own by social forces. Some say perl
is complex and ugly, or that php is more worse but seems better. But
if you work as sys admin or web coding, these are the tech you are
stuck with.
For rich text in email, there are conceivably many better designed
techs. For better or worse, HTML or its derivative, is the de facto
standard.
(note here that many standards used today came from unix in the 1980.
Such as truncating email lines, the semantic confusive email quoting
convention “>”, the ascii transmission in email protocol, the so-
called “mbox” email format, etc.)
> with no limit of network,i think more powerful ways to express ourself is
> worthy of try.
>
> i am sorry my english is very poor ...
No problem at all!
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Emmett Grogan
I am also an older guy like Richard and Eli. Nevertheless I am one of
the look straight ahead to the future guys. I love emacs since almost 20
years and I think Xah is right in each single detail of his views on the
modernisation of emacs issue. Xah speaks out what people like me are
always thinking. Please give Xah a chance!
Regards
-Emmett
Sivaram Neelakantan
> Tim X wrote:
> «In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing.»
>
> HTML in email is a very good thing.
>
> From the technology point of view, it is far more powerful. For
> example, it can contain links, bold text, coloring, embedded images,
> etc. The bulkier than plain text in size, of course, but in today's
> youtube days, this doesn't matter. Also not, if my 10 years old email
> transmission protocol knowledge is not outdated, then email is still
> sent by first converting to a ascii encoding. This is invented by the
> unix folks, which is extremely inefficient.
>
> From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
> people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
> don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
> 90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
> want it.
[...]
It might be old fashioned but I'd prefer the lowest common denominator
in getting my point across varying vintage MUAs in use. And as someone
mentioned earlier, spam is pretty much HTML and I risk getting my mail
binned by someone elses' spam filter.
And if lighting up the email to get my attention is the reason for
going in for HTML, then someone's trying too hard.
I've received humongous HTML mails that just had one line of text in
it. The rest were all pictures, templates and other doodads. Most of
Microsoft email clients seem to be ones doing it; though there are
ways to turn it off in them, few seem to do it.
sivaram
--
Tim X
> Tim X wrote:
> «In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing.»
>
> HTML in email is a very good thing.
>
I disagree
> From the technology point of view, it is far more powerful. For
> example, it can contain links, bold text, coloring, embedded images,
> etc. The bulkier than plain text in size, of course, but in today's
> youtube days, this doesn't matter. Also not, if my 10 years old email
> transmission protocol knowledge is not outdated, then email is still
> sent by first converting to a ascii encoding. This is invented by the
> unix folks, which is extremely inefficient.
>
Nobody can predict the future with any accuracy. When e-mail was firs
implemented, nobody realised how big it would grow and how pervasive it
would become. It is very easy to be critical with the benefit of
hindsight. for example, basing it on 7-bit characters failed to consider
the needs of languages that won't fit within a 7 bit representation, but
rightly or wrongly, internationalisation of software didn't become a
real consideration until much later.. Even worse, nobody had the
foresight to consider the scurge of spam.
There are a lot of things that could be improved concerning e-mail and
its basic infrastructure, but adding HTML to the mess is certainly not
one of them and I'm a long way from being convinced that if we did want
to add additional control over presentation of e-mail messages that HTML
is the answer.
> From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
> people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
> don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
> 90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
> want it.
>
You frequently like to quote these bogus percentages. If you don't hae
any real figures, they are completely pointless. You also need to
acknowledge that your subjective experiences are not the same as
the rest of the world. It is these sorts of unfounded claims and bogus
facts that undermines many of your arguements. I suspect it also
diminishes what many think of your opinions and is likely counter
productive to what you want to achieve.
Up until recently, I administered an e-mail system that processed
gigabytes of mail per day. While there was a fair amount of HTML based
mail, it was less than 50% and nearly 80% of that was just spam. I will
readily admit that this is just what I observed in my small corner of
the world and this only represents a user base of just over 30,000
accounts.
I disagree with your suggestion that HTML is technically superior. You
can't just make a sweeping statement like that without actually defining
what it is that e-mail is supposed to provide. As someone else pointed
out, an F16 is technically superior to a bicycle, but if allyou want to
do is go to the corner shop, that technical superiority is not only a
waste, but also a handicap.
HTML based e-mail has also had the negative tecnical consequence of
increasing the number of security issues and exposing users to more
vulnerabilities. It has also wasted huge amount of resources due to the
huge increase in message sizes, provides extremely difficult spam
detection problems (i.e. using pictures to embed spam text, making it
almost impossible to detect effectively via a scan for known spam text)
all of which resulting in the need for more bandwidth, more mail servers
with more memory and storage and more hardware to perform anti-spam
processes - all of which leads to higher costs for all of us. It also
ignores the fact that there are still millions of people who don't have
broadband and for whom every extra byte of data is an issue.
My experience has also been that the majority of people who are
insistant on using HTML in the mail have little substance in their
content. If what you write has real substance, the formatting is almost
irrelevant.
> Arguably, another format, such as rich text that is espoused by Apple
> computer's email progrm ( ~2002 to ~2006 and no support for html
> mail), is a better tech than HTML for rich text in email. But for
> whatever social reasons it didn't catch on. Html is the de facto
> standard today for rich text in email.
>
There are lots of things that become defacto standards, but this doesn't
make them necessarily a good thing. Your arguements appear to be very
much of the popularist variety - lots of people do it, therefore it must
be good or the correct way. In reality, most people don't care and don't
even know its going on.
> Also, as i mentioned before, tools used by tech geekers usually have 5
> or more so years lagging in catching up with any tech that are being
> adapted in the commercial world. For example, HTML email has basically
> became the standard in Microsoft since maybe 2002?, and html is widely
> supported or in fact default format for commercial web based service
> provider since many years ago too.
>
It is true that Microsoft is very much responsible for the growth in
HTML based e-mail. This is largely due to the fact that it was at one
time the default setting. I have found that often, when I've asked someone not
to send e-mail in HTML format, they are actually surprised to find out
that they were i.e. many people don't even realise their mail is being
formatted in HTML. The point is that just because many people use it
you cannot conclude they are doing so because they want it. In fact, the
number of HTML e-mails that are anything other than a very poor
formatting of just text far outweighs those where the author is actively
formatting their text with features provided by HTML.
My emacs mail client gives me the choice of viewing mail in HTML or
plaiin text. I choose plain text because it is faster and because the
HTML version doesn't give me any added value. Note also that links in my
text messages are clickable and just as convenient as they would be in
HTML, but without all the additional overhead. I can also view image
attachments etc. So, all that HTML can really give me are possibly
different fonts and colours - I prefer to manage those myself and not
have someone else dictate them and as mentioned above, few people
actually use these formatting features anyway.
If/when I decide to
process my e-mail on my phone, I also want it in plain text because I
don't want to have to have additional software to render HTML for simple
messages that I'm reading on a small screen. I wold rather be using my
limited phone memory, processing power and battery to do things that are
necessary and not waste it on fluff that gives no real added value.
> Emacs's rmail, should adopt the ability to send HTML mail. It is my
> guess, that it will adopt it eventually. The question is just how many
> more years later?
>
This may happen. Then again, there is a growing user base for 'markdown'
rather than markup, which is remarkably similar to the concepts of 'rich
text' and has the added benefit of still being quite readable without
being rendered. The growth of things like IM, SMS, Twitter etc could
also see a complete change in the landscape and e-mail as we know it
will begin to morph into a completely different format that is better
suited to smaller personal devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones.
I'm skeptical we will see much of an adoption of HTML in emacs mail
clients for sending of e-mail. There just isn't any real benefit. There
are also far bigger issues with e-mail that will need to be addressed
and I suspect we will see a complete change in the landscape before we
see much happen with respect to authoring of e-mail in HTML. If we do
see something along the lines of a full markup language, lets hope its
something easier to format and process, such as XML.
tim
Eli Zaretskii
> From: Emmett Grogan <emmett...@freenet.de>
>
> Xah is a smart guy. His emacs and elisp tutorials are the best I ever read.
They are also loaded with propaganda and skewed information that
clearly show that their author has his own agenda.
A good tutorial in my book is a tutorial that shows the reader how to
make the best use of the described tools. A tutorial is not supposed
to critique these tools, nor preach to tweaking these tools in ways
they were never supposed to be used.
Imagine a tutorial on using a car that devotes its main parts to
explaining how to dismantle the car and assemble a tank out of its
parts. That's how Xah's ``tutorials'' read to me.
The way Xah's ``tutorials'' are written they are actually blogs, not
tutorials. I have nothing against blogs, but let's not call each
thing by the name it deserves.
Eli Zaretskii
> From: Eli Zaretskii <el...@gnu.org>
>
> I have nothing against blogs, but let's not call each thing by the
"let's call each thing by the name it deserves"
Sorry.
Xah
the ability to send and display html email in a email app does not
exclude the ability to send plain text. You can still set your email
program to receive only plaintext, or even at the email server level.
Tech and society matches on. Many unix apps, use line based plain text
as config file. Some tech geekers insists that's still superior than
XML. These tools, largely just fell out of use. XML for example, is
becoming the standard for config files replacing line-based plain
text. For example, Apple's OSX has adopted XML for this throughout
since maybe 2003.
It's one thing to argue about some ideal technical superiority, it's
another to consider what's really happening out there for a product to
survive. Emacs is not a commercial app, so there's not much survival
pressure. It simply got dwindling users, more and more esoteric
“elite” tech geekers.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Xah
Your preference is great. I also, actually prefer plain text email.
This shouldn't offset the need to support html mail. If you don't want
html mail, you can set up your email app to display plain text only,
or at the mail server level.
For example, if emacs's rmail support html mail, this thread wouldn't
have started.
As for spam, it's a different issue as i explained in another email.
It is true that most spams are in HTML. However, before HTML became
the standard, spams are in plain text with attachement, and before
MIME with attachemet becomes popular, spam are just plain text then.
Spam simply got worse and worse over the past 20 years i've used
email, whatever is the current tech in email. In fact, its probably
easier to detect spam in html mail than plain text. (i actually blame
the worsening of spam to tech geekers's lack of social understanding.
See
“Tech geeker vs Spammers”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tech_geekers_vs_spammers.html
)
Note here also, that many tech geekers vociferously opposed the MIME
standard, saying its bloat. It just happens, and OpenSource tools just
adopts it some 5 years later.
«And if lighting up the email to get my attention is the reason for
going in for HTML, then someone's trying too hard.»
Tech geekers like to think that way. But “lighting up the email” is
not the primary use of rich text mail. Think of the whole education
industry, online commerce, in corporate communication. The need for
rich text email is simply a necessacity.
Back in 2000, i stopped using emacs rmail, because it simply cannot
support the corporate need for email. (at the time, it was the lack of
ability to send receive attachment) In a company, they'll send MS
Word, diagrams, or whatever that needs to get the point across. Most
people in a company, are not techies. e.g. human resource department,
graphics department, etc, sometimes including your manager. You cant
even begin to tell them “why are you using html with a single line of
plain text”? Considered on the whole, it's actually good that way
because for htem to spend days to learn about the technical details,
is actually a waste of time when the whole company, society, is
considered. To force everyone in the world to learn about plain text
vs html mail and when it is right to use which, is a unnecessary
inefficiency.
Another personal story: I needed rich text in email in around ~2002
for my server of “A Word A Day”. (it's a mailing list where i sent out
a english word a day. See http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Vocabulary_dir/new.html
) I need coloring and highlight in the email. I was using Apple's Mail
program to send out email. At the time, Apple's Mail program does not
support sending out HTML mail. It has a rtf format based rich text
instead. However, the rtf formatted mail does not work in yahoo
groups. So, the effect is that i couldn't do highlighting. I was in a
mac mailing list at the time (lots of mac fanatics). I discussed
this... and basically got flamed. (i'm eventually ban'd in the list
for basically being too controversial)
But now, Apple Mail support HTML, and ditched its rich-text format for
email. This essay
“Plain-Text Email Fetish”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html
was originally one of the post there.
Another story: i have a white american friend, who is a philosopher,
currently teaching in university. (have several friends who are math
professors) These peopple usually don't know shit about programing,
but are nevertheless intelligent and knowledgable. This philosophy
friend always send me email in html, often with smily icons. I'm like,
jesus, Paul, what you have a need to fold the whole email or coloring
parts of it? It annoys me. But i can't really say that to him. It's
crazy. You can't even begin to tell them what's “wrong”. It's like
telling your grandma mouse pads not supposed to be coffee mug pads. If
you actually spend time on these things, you'll have no time to do
anything other thing in life.
in terms of modernization, there are many possible improvements with
emacs. I wouldn't have suggest support html email in rmail since it's
rather a bigger project and hopeless to convience tech geekers. Nobody
is actually using rmail for email tese days anyway except a handful of
geek clique. I myself stopped using any of the classic plain-text
email programs since early 2000. (pine, rmail, vm, gnus, mutt, unix
mail) I stopped using them because it just can't do the job anymore,
despite whatever ideology that email should be plain text. It is my
guess that most professional programers who grew up with these
programs, also stopped using them out of necessity.
if you think this is a good idea, just send a bug report to gnu then.
In emacs, under the menu “Help‣Send bug report”.
I'll prob stop discussion this issue.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Xah
I agree HTML is the not best technology for rich text in email.
However, it is just the world's standard.
> > From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
> > people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
> > don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
> > 90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
> > want it.
>
> You frequently like to quote these bogus percentages. If you don't hae
> any real figures, they are completely pointless.
> You also need to
> acknowledge that your subjective experiences are not the same as
> the rest of the world. It is these sorts of unfounded claims and bogus
> facts that undermines many of your arguements. I suspect it also
> diminishes what many think of your opinions and is likely counter
> productive to what you want to achieve.
It's not bogus. If you take the time to research, i think you wouldn't
call them bogus.
For example, in my last post i linked to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail
which contains this paragraph:
«
Since its conception, a number of people have vocally opposed all HTML
e-mail (and even MIME itself), for a variety of reasons. While still
considered inappropriate in many newsgroup postings and mailing lists,
its adoption for personal and business mail has only increased over
time. Some of those who strongly opposed it when it first came out now
see it as mostly harmless.[2]
According to surveys by online marketing companies, adoption of HTML-
capable email clients is now nearly universal, with less than 3%
reporting that they use text-only clients.[3] A smaller number, though
still the majority, prefer it over plain text.[4]
»
> Up until recently, I administered an e-mail system that processed
> gigabytes of mail per day. While there was a fair amount of HTML based
> mail, it was less than 50% and nearly 80% of that was just spam. I will
> readily admit that this is just what I observed in my small corner of
> the world and this only represents a user base of just over 30,000
> accounts.
What comapany or type of company? i mean, what context?
for example, if you admin some Open Source oriented community, sure
there's a lot plain text.
Of the most largest email hoster in the world, gmail, msn, yahoo, are
probably some 80% market share in terms of email traffic. (again, a
rough guess. You can do research on the web i think the result is in
agreement. I use percentage just to be precise, instead of the more
fuzzy “majority”, “large number”, etc.)
So, i'd say if you examp gmail, msn, yahoo, probably the bulk of their
email format is html. In fact, the email account prob default to html,
and or, any email received is converted to html anyway.
> I disagree with your suggestion that HTML is technically superior. You
> can't just make a sweeping statement like that without actually defining
> what it is that e-mail is supposed to provide. As someone else pointed
> out, an F16 is technically superior to a bicycle, but if allyou want to
> do is go to the corner shop, that technical superiority is not only a
> waste, but also a handicap.
HTML is simply technically superior. Sure, F15 is better than bicycle
but ridiculous. However, HTML is better than plain text in email is
not ridiculous. It is the standard the world uses by large, and people
want rich text in email. Wikipedia says the support for html email in
email programs is 97%.
> HTML based e-mail has also had the negative tecnical consequence of
> increasing the number of security issues and exposing users to more
> vulnerabilities.
Yeah, so does lots tech has security issues. Some sys admin refuses to
install emacs an production server, and i was pissed. Did you know
that unix is traditinoally the most insecure system?
See:
“Fast Food The UNIX Way”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_fastfood_dir/fastfood.html
> It has also wasted huge amount of resources due to the
> huge increase in message sizes, provides extremely difficult spam
> detection problems (i.e. using pictures to embed spam text, making it
> almost impossible to detect effectively via a scan for known spam text)
> all of which resulting in the need for more bandwidth, more mail servers
> with more memory and storage and more hardware to perform anti-spam
> processes - all of which leads to higher costs for all of us. It also
> ignores the fact that there are still millions of people who don't have
> broadband and for whom every extra byte of data is an issue.
Spam happens regardless whether html email is used.
Perhaps you are suggesting that HTML email increases spam. I disagree.
I think spam frequency has little to do with email format.
Perhaps you are suggesting that it is easier to detect spam in plain
text email. I disagree on this too. There was the I LOVE YOU trojan,
one of the most damagig bad thing that happened in computer viruses.
Few years ago, i get few hundred (or was it thousand?) spam per day to
xahlee.org .
> My experience has also been that the majority of people who are
> insistant on using HTML in the mail have little substance in their
> content. If what you write has real substance, the formatting is almost
> irrelevant.
True. I heartily agree. See for example:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html
But you can't tell your grandma what to do.
Grammarian pundits cries and pains and tells you how you should use
punctuations, and how you should improve your writing ability to
convey attitude and emotions instead of using smilies, and so on. In
general, these are not realistic or not applicable.
Suppose your girlfriend send you a email with the line “i ♥ u!!” with
the heart in bold and large and color red. Are you gonna bitch how it
is abuse of fontification and lack of knowledge in writing and waste
of bandwitth resource?
> > Arguably, another format, such as rich text that is espoused by Apple
> > computer's email progrm ( ~2002 to ~2006 and no support for html
> > mail), is a better tech than HTML for rich text in email. But for
> > whatever social reasons it didn't catch on. Html is the de facto
> > standard today for rich text in email.
>
> There are lots of things that become defacto standards, but this doesn't
> make them necessarily a good thing. Your arguements appear to be very
> much of the popularist variety - lots of people do it, therefore it must
> be good or the correct way. In reality, most people don't care and don't
> even know its going on.
suggesting the ability for email rmail to support html email is not
based on popularity or fashion. It's more like real world need versus
ideologiest's view.
> > Also, as i mentioned before, tools used by tech geekers usually have 5
> > or more so years lagging in catching up with any tech that are being
> > adapted in the commercial world. For example, HTML email has basically
> > became the standard in Microsoft since maybe 2002?, and html is widely
> > supported or in fact default format for commercial web based service
> > provider since many years ago too.
>
> It is true that Microsoft is very much responsible for the growth in
> HTML based e-mail. This is largely due to the fact that it was at one
> time the default setting. I have found that often, when I've asked someone not
> to send e-mail in HTML format, they are actually surprised to find out
> that they were i.e. many people don't even realise their mail is being
> formatted in HTML. The point is that just because many people use it
> you cannot conclude they are doing so because they want it. In fact, the
> number of HTML e-mails that are anything other than a very poor
> formatting of just text far outweighs those where the author is actively
> formatting their text with features provided by HTML.
efficiency has to be considered on the whole. The time spend to talk
to these people about the merits of plain text, is a use of resource.
Is this resource, for you to teach, and for him to learn, less
valuable than the seconds or bytes HTML email consumes?
arguably, the world could be a much better place, where everyone
understand all techonolgy and details, and always choice the most
efficient format. That's a great vision.
Thomas Sowell calls it The Vision Of The Annointed.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
> My emacs mail client gives me the choice of viewing mail in HTML or
> plaiin text. I choose plain text because it is faster and because the
> HTML version doesn't give me any added value. Note also that links in my
> text messages are clickable and just as convenient as they would be in
> HTML, but without all the additional overhead. I can also view image
> attachments etc. So, all that HTML can really give me are possibly
> different fonts and colours - I prefer to manage those myself and not
> have someone else dictate them and as mentioned above, few people
> actually use these formatting features anyway.
does rmail support viewing html?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Xah
Phil Carmody
> On Aug 7, 10:54 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
>> I disagree with your suggestion that HTML is technically superior. You
>> can't just make a sweeping statement like that without actually defining
>> what it is that e-mail is supposed to provide. As someone else pointed
>> out, an F16 is technically superior to a bicycle, but if allyou want to
>> do is go to the corner shop, that technical superiority is not only a
>> waste, but also a handicap.
>
> HTML is simply technically superior. Sure, F15 is better than bicycle
> but ridiculous. However, HTML is better than plain text in email is
> not ridiculous. It is the standard the world uses by large, and people
> want rich text in email. Wikipedia says the support for html email in
> email programs is 97%.
An utterly spurious statistic. Support for Finnish emails in
email programs is probably closer to 100% than 97%, but that
doesn't mean that everyone should be or wants to be using
Finnish.
Phil
--
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
-- Microsoft voice recognition live demonstration
Ted Zlatanov
X> Emacs is not a commercial app, so there's not much survival
X> pressure. It simply got dwindling users, more and more esoteric
X> “elite” tech geekers.
So Emacs users are losing weight?
Seriously, have some perspective. Emacs has been around since before
many of us were born. It's always been aimed at people who can read a
manual. That's a very exclusive club if you look at people in general.
Ted
Tim X
> On Aug 7, 10:54 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
>> Xah <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > Tim X wrote:
>> > «In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing.»
>>
>> > HTML in email is a very good thing.
>>
>> I disagree
>>
>> There are a lot of things that could be improved concerning e-mail and
>> its basic infrastructure, but adding HTML to the mess is certainly not
>> one of them and I'm a long way from being convinced that if we did want
>> to add additional control over presentation of e-mail messages that HTML
>> is the answer.
>
> I agree HTML is the not best technology for rich text in email.
> However, it is just the world's standard.
>
So, what your really saying is you just want to argue for the sake of
arguing? If you can remember back to my original reply to the OP I
merely said that HTML in e-mail was a bad thing. You also snipped how I
suggested that he could do it if he wanted to. Of course, all you were
interested in is grinding your own axe and looking for any place you can
jump on a soap box!
>> > From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
>> > people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
>> > don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
>> > 90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
>> > want it.
>>
>> You frequently like to quote these bogus percentages. If you don't hae
>> any real figures, they are completely pointless.
>> You also need to
>> acknowledge that your subjective experiences are not the same as
>> the rest of the world. It is these sorts of unfounded claims and bogus
>> facts that undermines many of your arguements. I suspect it also
>> diminishes what many think of your opinions and is likely counter
>> productive to what you want to achieve.
>
> It's not bogus. If you take the time to research, i think you wouldn't
> call them bogus.
Talk about pot calling kettle black. You wrote "I
don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
90% of email traffics today, are in html" - You freely admit you have
not got any stats and that it is a guess. Maybe you should start doing
some research yourself! If you do, forget about results from marketing
companies that have their own axe to grind. Go out and find out from
users what they actually think. I suspect you will find that the vast
majority of users don't really care and most aren't even ware that their
mail is bieng formatted in HTML or that it could just be in plain text.
>
> For example, in my last post i linked to Wikipedia
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail
> which contains this paragraph:
>
> «
> Since its conception, a number of people have vocally opposed all HTML
> e-mail (and even MIME itself), for a variety of reasons. While still
> considered inappropriate in many newsgroup postings and mailing lists,
> its adoption for personal and business mail has only increased over
> time. Some of those who strongly opposed it when it first came out now
> see it as mostly harmless.[2]
>
> According to surveys by online marketing companies, adoption of HTML-
> capable email clients is now nearly universal, with less than 3%
> reporting that they use text-only clients.[3] A smaller number, though
> still the majority, prefer it over plain text.[4]
> »
yes, and the following paragraphs are less than praising of the benefits
of HTML. In fact, the very next paragraphs say
"As HTML mail is more complex than plain text, however, it is also more prone
to compatibility issues and problems with rendering consistently across
platforms and software.
Some popular clients do not render consistently with W3C specifications, and
many HTML e-mails are not compliant, either, which may cause rendering or
delivery problems, especially for users of MSN or Hotmail.^[3]"
and still, the real benefits in the sense of what HTML can give you that
you cannot do with plain text and MIME are minimal and largely just
fluff. I also find it ironic that the company that is largely
responsible for the growth of HTML mail has now got the situation where
customers using their mail systems (MSN/Hotmail) have problems with
poorly formatted HTML e-mails!
>
>> Up until recently, I administered an e-mail system that processed
>> gigabytes of mail per day. While there was a fair amount of HTML based
>> mail, it was less than 50% and nearly 80% of that was just spam. I will
>> readily admit that this is just what I observed in my small corner of
>> the world and this only represents a user base of just over 30,000
>> accounts.
>
> What comapany or type of company? i mean, what context?
>
> for example, if you admin some Open Source oriented community, sure
> there's a lot plain text.
>
No, nothing to do with open source, its a commercial entity with a lot
of education and research centres. Around 60% of the user base are on
Wndows and a bit under 40% on Macs. The remaining couple of percent are
Linux/BSD etc.
> Of the most largest email hoster in the world, gmail, msn, yahoo, are
> probably some 80% market share in terms of email traffic. (again, a
> rough guess. You can do research on the web i think the result is in
> agreement. I use percentage just to be precise, instead of the more
> fuzzy “majority”, “large number”, etc.)
so you use it to sound like you are precise when your making a guess?
Just admit your making a subjective guess and stop trying to make it
sound like you have some authoritative knowledge or research.
> So, i'd say if you examp gmail, msn, yahoo, probably the bulk of their
> email format is html. In fact, the email account prob default to html,
> and or, any email received is converted to html anyway.
>
So if its converted to HTML on receipt anyway, how is it soemthing that
is beneficial to the end user as apart form something that just makes
the web interface easier for the provider?
>> I disagree with your suggestion that HTML is technically superior. You
>> can't just make a sweeping statement like that without actually defining
>> what it is that e-mail is supposed to provide. As someone else pointed
>> out, an F16 is technically superior to a bicycle, but if allyou want to
>> do is go to the corner shop, that technical superiority is not only a
>> waste, but also a handicap.
>
> HTML is simply technically superior. Sure, F15 is better than bicycle
> but ridiculous. However, HTML is better than plain text in email is
> not ridiculous. It is the standard the world uses by large, and people
> want rich text in email. Wikipedia says the support for html email in
> email programs is 97%.
Your still mixing up cause and effect. Wikipedia also says that many of
those mailers don't do a good or consistent job of rendering the mail
and it makes reference to things like fishing attacks, which are made
possible because of HTML mail. How much of the growth in HTML mail is
due to companies adding that facility to try and get some sort of market
edge? What proportion of users really care whether their e-mail is in
plain text or HTML? How many would have switched to HTML if they actually
had to change the default configuration if it had been set to plain
text out of the box? How many users would be happier if they hadn't been
caught by that fishing attack or their e-mail address had not been
confirmed as legitimate to the spammers when they opened the mail or
their download took only 1/3rd as long or their mailbox was able to
handle 75 percent more messages?
>
>> HTML based e-mail has also had the negative tecnical consequence of
>> increasing the number of security issues and exposing users to more
>> vulnerabilities.
>
> Yeah, so does lots tech has security issues.
and thats your argument to support making it worse? Just because there
are security issues in some other area is a pretty poor arguement for
adding additional issues in this one.
> Some sys admin refuses to
> install emacs an production server, and i was pissed. Did you know
> that unix is traditinoally the most insecure system?
Hogwash. You have to learn to be a bit more critical in your
reading (I'm assuming you have read that somewhere). Statements like
that are just emotional FUD filled rubbish. For a start, there is no one
Unix - they are all different and have had different volnrabilities. You
also need to distinguish between security issues due to misconfiguration
and security issues that are a result of the fundamental design or poor
programming. Sweeping statements like that mean absolutely nothing.
Note also, its not bot-nets of UNIX boxes that spammers and a growing
number of serious criminals are using - they are bot-nets of windows
boxes.
>> It has also wasted huge amount of resources due to the
>> huge increase in message sizes, provides extremely difficult spam
>> detection problems (i.e. using pictures to embed spam text, making it
>> almost impossible to detect effectively via a scan for known spam text)
>> all of which resulting in the need for more bandwidth, more mail servers
>> with more memory and storage and more hardware to perform anti-spam
>> processes - all of which leads to higher costs for all of us. It also
>> ignores the fact that there are still millions of people who don't have
>> broadband and for whom every extra byte of data is an issue.
>
> Spam happens regardless whether html email is used.
> Perhaps you are suggesting that HTML email increases spam. I disagree.
> I think spam frequency has little to do with email format.
> Perhaps you are suggesting that it is easier to detect spam in plain
> text email. I disagree on this too. There was the I LOVE YOU trojan,
> one of the most damagig bad thing that happened in computer viruses.
As I said in the previous mail, HTML makes it harder to detect the spam
because spammers can embed their message inside an image. You cannot
detect it unless you use sophisticated image analysis software or OCR,
both of which are too resource hungry to be of any practicle use on a
production mail server. I won't even go into the issues of fishing
attacks that HTML enables or the fact spammers can use embedded objects
within the HTML to detect when you open the mail - verifying that it is
a legitimate e-mail address and even recording the time it was opened.
As to your reference to the "I love you" virus, that isn't what most
people would call spam, but rather a virus. Personally, it didn't bother
me as I'm on one of those traditionally insecure Unix systems that is
not affected by such things and even if someone did send me a virus that
was able to run on my Unix system, it would only have minimal impact due
to the clear seperation between user space and kernel/system space (a
significant reason/cause of many of MS security problems).
>
>> My experience has also been that the majority of people who are
>> insistant on using HTML in the mail have little substance in their
>> content. If what you write has real substance, the formatting is almost
>> irrelevant.
>
> True. I heartily agree. See for example:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html
>
> But you can't tell your grandma what to do.
>
> Grammarian pundits cries and pains and tells you how you should use
> punctuations, and how you should improve your writing ability to
> convey attitude and emotions instead of using smilies, and so on. In
> general, these are not realistic or not applicable.
>
Well, that certainly doesn't describe my grandmother, my mother or
anyone else I've discussed it with. In fact, despite having helped a lot
of people, I've not yet come across a single person who feels they just
simply must have HTML e-mail. Many think its nice until you point out a
few things, such as the spam stuff, the fact many mail readers don't
render it correctly, the fact that some mail systems will block it, they
fact its a lot larger etc etc and they almost always then ask how they
can turn off HTML formatting of the messages they send. In fact, the
only time I've come across clients who have insisted on HTML e-mail, it
was because they wanted to use the mail for marketing purposes and are
still caught up in the old brochure midnset. Most of the time, once I
explain some of the issues involved and suggest that a better approach
would be to provide just a basic e-mail with a link to their sales
information on their website, they are more than happy to go that
route.
> Suppose your girlfriend send you a email with the line “i ♥ u!!” with
> the heart in bold and large and color red. Are you gonna bitch how it
> is abuse of fontification and lack of knowledge in writing and waste
> of bandwitth resource?
>
No I'd just dump her for being a tasteless unimaginative
cliche. Luckily, my current partner has better taste and while not a
person even slightly interested in tech stuff, she is smart enough to
understand the issues and has no problem with plain text.
This is another point I've noticed with your posts. I think you
unde-estimate people. You seem to have an attitude that anyone who has
even a basic technical grasp of things is a tech geek. In reality, many
people have little problems understanding technology. Many are not at all
interested, but thats different from not being able to udnerstand
it. The teens and 20 somethings, technical
understandning of computers, terminology and concepts is very high. It
appears to drop off a bit in the 40 - 60s for those not that engaged
with technology. Surprisingly, it seems to increase again in the above
60s. In fact, I've assisted quite a few retired people who have jumped
in with both feet and are not only having no problems coming to terms
with it all, are actually really enjoying the challenge and are often
amazed at what they are finding out.
>> > Arguably, another format, such as rich text that is espoused by Apple
>> > computer's email progrm ( ~2002 to ~2006 and no support for html
>> > mail), is a better tech than HTML for rich text in email. But for
>> > whatever social reasons it didn't catch on. Html is the de facto
>> > standard today for rich text in email.
>>
>> There are lots of things that become defacto standards, but this doesn't
>> make them necessarily a good thing. Your arguements appear to be very
>> much of the popularist variety - lots of people do it, therefore it must
>> be good or the correct way. In reality, most people don't care and don't
>> even know its going on.
>
> suggesting the ability for email rmail to support html email is not
> based on popularity or fashion. It's more like real world need versus
> ideologiest's view.
>
You don't beleive it is a good solution, but you think it is needed
because there is so much of it already - thats what I would call a
popularist perspective. You would possibly argue it is just a pragmatic
perspective - its there so we should just accept it and go with the
flow.
My perspective could well be defined as being ideological, but unlike
you, I don't see that as a bad thing as long as its not taken to an
extreme. As I actually provided the OP with suggested solutions and only
mentioned that it was a bad idea to use HTML formatted mail, I don't
think my view is that of an ideological extremist.
>> > Also, as i mentioned before, tools used by tech geekers usually have 5
>> > or more so years lagging in catching up with any tech that are being
>> > adapted in the commercial world. For example, HTML email has basically
>> > became the standard in Microsoft since maybe 2002?, and html is widely
>> > supported or in fact default format for commercial web based service
>> > provider since many years ago too.
>>
>> It is true that Microsoft is very much responsible for the growth in
>> HTML based e-mail. This is largely due to the fact that it was at one
>> time the default setting. I have found that often, when I've asked someone not
>> to send e-mail in HTML format, they are actually surprised to find out
>> that they were i.e. many people don't even realise their mail is being
>> formatted in HTML. The point is that just because many people use it
>> you cannot conclude they are doing so because they want it. In fact, the
>> number of HTML e-mails that are anything other than a very poor
>> formatting of just text far outweighs those where the author is actively
>> formatting their text with features provided by HTML.
>
> efficiency has to be considered on the whole. The time spend to talk
> to these people about the merits of plain text, is a use of resource.
> Is this resource, for you to teach, and for him to learn, less
> valuable than the seconds or bytes HTML email consumes?
>
Yes, because the time I spend explaining such things doesn't cost you
and everyone else money. The increased bandwidth, security problems,
spam and added cost of trying to prevent it cost us all because
providers need to cover these expenses somewhere and they do that by
charging us more.
> arguably, the world could be a much better place, where everyone
> understand all techonolgy and details, and always choice the most
> efficient format. That's a great vision.
>
Yet you can't resist jumping into a thread like this one to argue
against any attempt to help inform people of such things. In fact, you
often highjack such threads to push your own agenda with total disregard
for the actual point of the question and I note you didn't even attempt
to address the OPs question and conveniently cut out all the text except
that one line which gave you the opening to get on your soap box.
>> My emacs mail client gives me the choice of viewing mail in HTML or
>> plaiin text. I choose plain text because it is faster and because the
>> HTML version doesn't give me any added value. Note also that links in my
>> text messages are clickable and just as convenient as they would be in
>> HTML, but without all the additional overhead. I can also view image
>> attachments etc. So, all that HTML can really give me are possibly
>> different fonts and colours - I prefer to manage those myself and not
>> have someone else dictate them and as mentioned above, few people
>> actually use these formatting features anyway.
>
> does rmail support viewing html?
I don't use rmail, so I don't know. However, VM, mew and I believe
wonderlust and gnus do.
Xah
well, unix's tools and “man” is also used by a exclusive club. Are you
suggesting emacs should adopt “man” instead of info, and replace elisp
by sed, awk, sh?
Seriously, read the man.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Xah
wrote:
> Xah <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Aug 7, 10:54 pm, Tim X <t...@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
> >> I disagree with your suggestion that HTML is technically superior. You
> >> can't just make a sweeping statement like that without actually defining
> >> what it is that e-mail is supposed to provide. As someone else pointed
> >> out, an F16 is technically superior to a bicycle, but if allyou want to
> >> do is go to the corner shop, that technical superiority is not only a
> >> waste, but also a handicap.
>
> > HTML is simply technically superior. Sure, F15 is better than bicycle
> > but ridiculous. However, HTML is better than plain text in email is
> > not ridiculous. It is the standard the world uses by large, and people
> > want rich text in email. Wikipedia says the support for html email in
> > email programs is 97%.
>
> An utterly spurious statistic. Support for Finnish emails in
> email programs is probably closer to 100% than 97%, but that
> doesn't mean that everyone should be or wants to be using
> Finnish.
Ok. You used analogy to refute my reason. What is your real argument
that the ability to send/receive html formatted mail in emacs is not a
good thing?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Cor Gest
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
> On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 05:20:23 -0700 (PDT) Xah <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, I really am unaware of any commerce-driven survival of the
fittest pressure withstanding fully user-adaptable application that is
still around and kicking after about a quarter of a century, which
incidentally is about long enough to Read The Fine Manual.
And we all know about those commercial manuals , don't we ...
Cor
--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving an agressor : Have a gun !