On 12/7/03 6:19 PM, "Deborah Shadovitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12/6/03 8:25 PM, "Dan Warne" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> typed: > >> on 7/12/03 3:21 PM, Paul Berkowitz at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >>> I'd find it both puritanical and overly controlling to tell other >>> people how they should express themselves in print, and foolish to refuse to >>> read their messages just for that reason. >> >> Geez, that was a bit of a diatribe, Paul. >> >> All you have to do is place the rule which deletes all HTML email -after- >> the rules which sort legitimate emails from your lists, etc, into the right >> folders. >> >> I woulda thought an MVP like you would have simply suggested that :-) > > No one here reads thoughts. You made your statement and Paul -- who does an > heck of a lot for us here -- responded to your statement. I, too, read your > words and thought the same thing. In fact, I was about to write the same > thing Paul did, but then I finished the thread and saw that Paul had said it > well. It is you here Dan, not Paul there, who was rude. Nice of you to say so, Deborah. I did come on a bit strong, but I do get annoyed with the tone of moral superiority that I sometimes either read, or read into, proclamations of preferences for plain text over HTML. I'm not sure I would characterize it exactly as "elitist" as John Welsh did, although I know what he means. It feels more "spartan" or "puritan" to me, which is why I used the latter word. In any case, the strength of my retort was partly due to my misreading of Gary's message: I thought he was deleting HTML messages sight unseen, not using a script to convert them to plain text to protect his visual sensibilities. That's not so drastic - I don't really care if he wants to do that, although it doesn't save much of anything else since the message has to be downloaded first before the rule runs and the script takes extra time, but I guess it saves rendering time in the IE HTML engine. I wouldn't have got so annoyed if I'd read Gary's message more carefully. It still seems wrongheaded to me, but it won't lose nearly as much information, especially not entire messages, this way. I think that most "complex HTML" is probably advertising, largely unsolicited. Not all of it, but enough so that avoiding it or converting it to plain text won't lose you too much. However simply including a table, which some other mailers can do, will get a message tagged as complex HTML in Entourage, so you might miss some messages you'd like to get. But currently, deleting or even plain-texting HTML means _all_ HTML including the simpler formatted-text-type messages. I usually like getting these as they were sent: I like it when someone takes the trouble to present text well-formatted as in a postal letter or Word document. It's clearer, nicer, and easier to read. Not to mention the display of indentations and tabs, as John pointed out. Perhaps if all email programs had agreed to adopt RTF for formatted text we could make a more clear-cut differentiation on how to treat those vs. HTML on a message-by-message basis. But many email programs, not just Entourage, use HTML for simple text formatting. We can already distinguish between simple and complex HTML with the pref to view or not view complex HTML, plus the separate pref (not in Gary's Entourage 2001, of course), to block "interaction" even from complex HTML. Those prefs should be enough for anti-wild-HTML zealots. Perhaps MacBU will be considering some type of protection from the intrusions caused by some complex HTML on a message-by-message basis, as many people have requested - that would be a nice improvement. But as for "protecting yourself" from formatted text - well, really. I'll even put up with the occasional lurid background color (occasionally a student will send me one of those. I have survived the experience so far.) But if Gary or anyone else wants to avoid this by converting to plain text, it doesn't hurt me as long as they're not deleting my HTML messages sight unseen. -- Paul Berkowitz MVP Entourage Entourage FAQ Page: http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - 2001 or X. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise. -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
