On 1/30/10 6:28 AM, "Lachlan Hunt" <[email protected]> wrote:

> I honestly don't understand what John was trying to do that required somehow
> converting it to HTML, formatting it, and converting back to plain text
> again.  I'm not even sure how such a method would work, but it's not the
> right way to deal with it.  See below for a simpler alternative.

First, good work on figuring out it was a mailman issue.

So here's an illustration of what would happen:

I'd read the message and see...

 ³The fact that we have some disagreements and that there are some
misunderstandings between you and I, and some others on this list, is no
reason for you to be so rude and arrogant.  Ignoring your rudeness, your
response indicates that you may not fully grasp everything I've been trying
to express and are still jumping to incorrect conclusions.  I'm going to
take a little time to be a little more clear with you.  In return, I would
appreciate a little more civility in the future. Otherwise, I can only hope
the list moderators will take appropriate action.²
This is in E¹rage 2008, current, up to date, patches, blah. It does its best
to display what it gets in that form. Send it html, I see html. Send it
text, I see text.

So, I hit reply, and it all turns to:

<http://homepage.mac.com/jcwelch/badbase64nodonut.png>

Ew.

So I hit e¹rage¹s handy ³html/not html² button, to set it as html, and I
get:

> John,   The fact that we have some disagreements and that there are some
> misunderstandings between you and I, and some others on this list, is no
> reason for you to be so rude and arrogant.  Ignoring your rudeness, your
> response indicates that you may not fully grasp everything I've been trying
> to express and are still jumping to incorrect conclusions.  I'm going to take
> a little time to be a little more clear with you.  In return, I would
> appreciate a little more civility in the future. Otherwise, I can only hope
> the list moderators will take appropriate action.

Ugly, but workable. So I dump it into bbedit, yank out all the random
non-text characters, reformat it so it looks to make some sense,
(imperfectly) then back into e¹rage.

However, that shows another one of the joys of an email client. Neither my
method, nor Lachlan¹s are acceptable for the application. If the email is
received in a renderable format, and base64 should definitely count, then it
has to just work, for viewing, replying what have you. That¹s a big thing
for a Mac application, that phrase:

³It just works²

Not ³it works after some fiddley bits are set² or ³it just works unless you
get an email from a client we dislike².

³It just works²

That¹s one of the prime characteristics of a Œproper¹ Mac application.

-- 
John C. Welch         Writer/Analyst
Bynkii.com              Mac and other opinions
[email protected]

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