At 10:16 PM -0500 2/20/2000, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
>Hmm, I wonder how popular webmail services like hotmail handle
>multipart/alternative messages.
This stuff's all still kinda iffy. I wouldn't implement a general m/a
e-mail system unless I knew the audience very well and could
guarantee their clients -- in fact, we're putting together exactly
that for one specific internal application now, but won't consider it
for anything with a public audience. Ask me again in a year; this
technology isn't settled out yet.
Giving them a URL to click is about as far as I think you want to go
right now, because with a URL, they can still copy and paste it into
a browser (or, god forbid, just type it in again. And don't minimize
the number of people at that level....) -- and even if you want to do
something fancier, you still need to build in an alternative for the
less technologically sophisticated (or enabled). And when you run
into the need for multiple versions of something, I start asking "why
bother? Do a single version and spend time making it even better...."
It comes down to the same kind of argumnet about frames early on,
when you still needed a second, parallel non-frame version of a web
site. or now, with DHTML and style sheets in HTML today. Nice toys,
but if you have to build a second version to cover people who can't
use that stuff, isn't it better to find a design that allows you to
handle everyone and take the time-saving of not duplicating effort
into building that one thing better?
--
Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'"
