My $.02: Plain text is always acceptable to read - bad HTML is hard to read. HTML is useful for impressing people - are you the sort of person who is impressed by formatting? Plain text works for code - HTML often mangles code
David. Stroller wrote: > On 31 Jan 2010, at 00:46, David Godfrey wrote: > >> ... >> and long before I sent an email on the list I had noticed that many >> contributors also sent in HTML. >> > > My belief was that the practice of sending HTML messages to this list > was established only amongst newcomers, who come here looking for help > & who don't know any better. > > >> One problem with plain text and modern clients, is that text is >> wrapped at the senders end. >> Normally to something like 72characters. >> This is a huge waste of screen space where you may easily have 160 >> to 300 or more characters available on a modern screen. >> > > Addressed elsewhere. > > >> HTML also allows simple formatting changes (like this) that can >> often assist with readability. >> > > It does so, only if your view and and mine *happen* to coincide on > what constitutes "readability". > > It is sophisticated & adult of you to choose black text as your > display preference, as many people composing in HTML choose colours > such as blue, green or pink. > > However your text size is too small. > > I have 1600x1200 monitors, each with a diagonal of c 20". I don't know > what size or resolution your monitor(s) is, and I don't care, just as > you shouldn't need to know the specifications of mine. When I > configured my mail client preferences some years ago, I spent some > minutes choosing the optimal font for viewing. It says "13 points" in > my display preferences, but it would probably appear a different size > on your screen; that doesn't matter - it's just best for me on my > monitors, considering my operating system, viewing distance, screen > resolution and optical prescription. > > When you send me HTML email, you're saying "I don't care what text > size you find most readable, I'm setting this one instead". The font > of your last email was a few points too small and it's a little > difficult for me to read. > > Additionally, if we all continue to post and reply in HTML, then I > can't copy a sentence of your message into mine and quote it, (like > this: "The sentence before last was all one line") without either it > ending up in a different format to the rest of the sentence. I then > have to manually & arduously change the font, font size, and colour of > the pasting to match the rest of my text. This should not be > necessary, if we all just post in plain text. > > I do rather feel that those of us who believe in open-source and open- > standards missed an opportunity when HTML first became adopted by > mainstream email clients. I believe this was initiated by Netscape > Communicator in the mid- to late-1990s, and geeks simply objected to > it and said "don't use that around here". Of course the mainstream > didn't listen to the geeks, and an HTML email non-standard was since > been made up on an ad-hoc basis over the following decade. I was a > newcomer to computers myself in 1996, and didn't use OSS for another 3 > or 4 years, but I can only think that *maybe* someone would have been > successful if they had vigourously proposed an alternative before it > was too late. > > Email would benefit from the ability to designate text clearly as > bold, italic or underlined, to include inline hyperlinks, to designate > perhaps a word or a sentence or two as "emphasised" in some way that > would normally be displayed to the reader as red or blue. But it needs > this without allowing whole emails to be composed in glaring pink, or > allowing the sender to specify a font size which distracts or inhibits > readability (or indeed ANY font or size). > > I have a client who employed a graphic designer to create fancy HTML > "stationary" for his company emails. They include a number of logos > (sent as jpeg images, of course) and as a consequence a one-sentence > email, in which there are only a few hundred bytes of text, arrives > consuming 100kb in my email box. This aspect of the client's messages > is annoying, but overall the most critical problem is the imposition > of font & its size upon the reader, IMO. > > If you post in plain-text, no-one will think less of you for it, and > no-one will filter your messages to /dev/null on the basis of that. > The same cannot be said for posting in HTML. > > Also: please try to post your messages as a general rule only to *one* > list at a time. Surely everyone on -dev already reads -users? > > Stroller. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation > Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business > Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts > Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com > _______________________________________________ > Ledger-smb-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Ledger-smb-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users
