>
> At 08:15 6/17/98 -0600, James Boorn wrote:
> >Maybe I am just dense, so please enlighten me. What problem does HTML
> >email solve? I see no reason for it, and am one of those that just
> >deletes it. But maybe if I knew the problem it solved I'ld be willing to
> >consider it a solution.
>
> HTML can serve as a common platform-independant document format. So anytime
> it would be appropriate to send an attached document via email, HTML may be
> able to suffice.
>
> I know that postscript and PDF are available, but not many DOS/Win users
> have a postscript viewer. And how many people on any platform have the
> tools to create PDF documents? HTML tools are more common and even those
> whose mail readers don't directly support it can read the document with
> another tool they have available (i.e., a browser).
>
> This scenario is much more likely in an organizational environment than on
> open mailing lists.
>
This doesn't answer the question of what is the purpose of
HTML-formatted email. HTML documents as attachments are valid and
useful in certain contexts. But rendering the textual content of an
email message in HTML or, even worse, in HTML and text is rather
pointless.
This ignores the fact that HTML is a pretty poor platform-independent
document format, especially when presentation is desired. And that
the HTML produces by mail reader is usually quite poor and frequently
non-standard which creates problem of interoperability with all of
these HTML tools. And that there already exists a standard
(text/richtext) for transmitting richer textual email.
- Ian
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