8 ms·

Maybe the answer is to return to sending plaintext emails? HTML emails are an abomanation. Rather than extend them, just ditch them.

katastic 9y ago
Or you know, a standard that actually supports useful things like links.
- michaelmior 9y ago
  "Standard" is arguable when it comes to email. Yes messages can use HTML, but it's hard to get HTML email to look consistent across different clients.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  Your mail client can render links in plaintext emails. It probably already does. Bonus: no hiding evil URLs behind phishing <a> tags!
  - katastic 9y ago
    You guys are seriously downvoting HTML? Have you ever worked in a business environent? Have you have used Outlook (the most popular e-mail client in the world)? How do you support attachments in text? Do you assume every "link" is a link? Do you modify your own system for adding attachments and referencing them in the body? Oh wait. Now we're re-inventing the exact same thing again that HN users apparently consider evil.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
      >Have you have used Outlook (the most popular e-mail client in the world)? Popular != good. Outlook is awful. >How do you support attachments in text? You don't. This is a benefit. >Do you assume every "link" is a link? Sure? >Do you modify your own system for adding attachments and referencing them in the body? No, you don't do this at all. Plain fucking text.
      - katastic 9y ago
        >Outlook is awful. Yes. And any system that wants to REMOVE the incumbent, has to replace it with superior features. I mean, what are you actually trying to argue for here? You literally just used Markdown to add emphasis to your post. Are you going to use a less expressive communication format for your important business e-mails... when you clearly use Markdown for internet comments with complete strangers? I know HN is full of startups but I can't be the only person who actually interacts with clients on a daily basis.
        Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
        Just because Markdown is appropriate here doesn't mean it's appropriate for emails. Comments on internet threads are fundamentally different from emails. If I wanted to emphasize in email I might use a very small subset of markdown's syntax (i.e. asterisks) but only as a coincidence - you know markdown is based on common plaintext email patterns, right?
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      > How do you support attachments in text? RFC 2045
    - jwilk 9y ago
      From the HN guidelines: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - zeveb 9y ago
      > How do you support attachments in text? Attachments are part of the MIME standard and are completely orthogonal to HTML email.
js2 9y ago
We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style.
  - lozf 9y ago
    Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history.
    - hota_mazi 9y ago
      The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. Which is a great thing. I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is.
      - wahern 9y ago
        Less exhausting than reading each of those 20+ emails separately. For any conversation of substance, you need the relevant context before you can understand the reply. If context isn't required, then don't include it. Inline replies act as a forcing function, directing people to reply to the substance of what was said. That necessarily includes eliding irrelevant bits, which is often the most helpful aspect. Neither top posting nor bottom posting help emphasize substance. In high quality forums inline posting is extremely useful for both reader and author. For the Outlook and Twitter set, it's a pointless debate.
ams6110 9y ago
I do. All my emails are plain text.
- criddell 9y ago
  How did you get that to happen? Almost all emails I send are text but close to 100% of everything I receive is html.
flukus 9y ago
At least with markdown you also gain a pretty good idea of how it will format in plain text clients as well.
kccqzy 9y ago
Ah remember text/enriched? It’s a standard designed for rich text in emails. I don’t think any major product uses it right now though, but I believe it’s supported by old versions of Apple Mail circa 2004.
hota_mazi 9y ago
> HTML emails are an abomanation. They're a life saver. This is 2017, the least we can ask is that people take the time to use bold, italics, bullet points, tables, hyperlinks, and type faces to make their communications more cogent. If you mean that "abuse of HTML" is an abomination, then yes, sure. But light use of HTML is extremely important today and my opinion of someone trying to communicate an important piece of information to me is directly related to how much care they have put into composing their email.
- redmorphium 9y ago
  The thing about HTML emails is, different email clients support different things. It's not HTML5 at all. If you want to do layouts, you must use tables. There are hacky things you have to do to display things correctly across all different types of clients. You have tools like this: https://buttons.cm/ https://buttons.cm/ which generate abominable code for the sake of compatibility. Also, Outlook uses the Word rendering engine to process HTML. It's janky, at best.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    It's that supposed to be an argument against HTML emails? That some companies choose not to implement it for compatibility? Like, let's stop printing because companies are making proprietary cartridges and breaking compatibility??
    - redmorphium 9y ago
      Not some companies. All companies, including Google for Gmail, Yahoo for Yahoo mail, Microsoft for Outlook, etc have very limited support for HTML in their HTML rendering engines. Instead of using floats and margins, you have to revert to using <table> for layouts. Otherwise, your emails just won't render correctly, much of the time. It's not possible to support HTML fully in Webmail clients, either. Even without scripting, you could write an HTML email that overlays a malicious button on top of Gmail's web interface itself, and it would be too easy to phish people.
AlexAffe 9y ago
This. Also: The unconverted markdown source is in itself already a nice way of formatting text/code/lists/headings/whatever. That's the whole point of markdown, no? So, yes, markdown rules, but because I can use it in plain text sources and benefit from it. Just never convert to html except on webpages.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  Surely convert it to html if the client decides that's how they want it, otherwise leave as markdown?
  - AlexAffe 9y ago
    Well, that should be a receivers end decision imo. The content is there, everyone is free to view it as they please. But in essence it's plain text, no html tag shenanigans (because that's a pain to read when unparsed) or, god forbid, javascript (because it's dangerous).
    - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
      Yes, that's exactly what I meant by "client". I think the tricky issue in this case relates to links because they totally ruin the text when left untranslated (in much the same way that unparsed html does), but some would prefer to view the original URL. I'd possibly advocate a different format - e.g. surround text in square brackets, supply URLs in order, at bottom of text.
alkonaut 9y ago
Agree html was probably overkill to get the useful subset: links, images, and text formatting. I send code snippets all the time, and to get it syntax highlighted so anyone can read it, it has to be an image. Which means no one can copy it. Links can be rendered from the text. But images and formatting is horrible. Markdown seems like the format email should have used if it had existed.
jonathanstrange 9y ago
I always send plaintext emails. HTML mail continues to be nuisance. You don't need fancy formatting for daily text communication. But I can understand why marketing people like it...

katastic 9y ago

Or you know, a standard that actually supports useful things like links.

michaelmior 9y ago
"Standard" is arguable when it comes to email. Yes messages can use HTML, but it's hard to get HTML email to look consistent across different clients.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Your mail client can render links in plaintext emails. It probably already does. Bonus: no hiding evil URLs behind phishing <a> tags!
- katastic 9y ago
  You guys are seriously downvoting HTML? Have you ever worked in a business environent? Have you have used Outlook (the most popular e-mail client in the world)? How do you support attachments in text? Do you assume every "link" is a link? Do you modify your own system for adding attachments and referencing them in the body? Oh wait. Now we're re-inventing the exact same thing again that HN users apparently consider evil.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
    >Have you have used Outlook (the most popular e-mail client in the world)? Popular != good. Outlook is awful. >How do you support attachments in text? You don't. This is a benefit. >Do you assume every "link" is a link? Sure? >Do you modify your own system for adding attachments and referencing them in the body? No, you don't do this at all. Plain fucking text.
    - katastic 9y ago
      >Outlook is awful. Yes. And any system that wants to REMOVE the incumbent, has to replace it with superior features. I mean, what are you actually trying to argue for here? You literally just used Markdown to add emphasis to your post. Are you going to use a less expressive communication format for your important business e-mails... when you clearly use Markdown for internet comments with complete strangers? I know HN is full of startups but I can't be the only person who actually interacts with clients on a daily basis.
      - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
        Just because Markdown is appropriate here doesn't mean it's appropriate for emails. Comments on internet threads are fundamentally different from emails. If I wanted to emphasize in email I might use a very small subset of markdown's syntax (i.e. asterisks) but only as a coincidence - you know markdown is based on common plaintext email patterns, right?
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    > How do you support attachments in text? RFC 2045
  - jwilk 9y ago
    From the HN guidelines: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - zeveb 9y ago
    > How do you support attachments in text? Attachments are part of the MIME standard and are completely orthogonal to HTML email.

js2 9y ago

We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.

Spivak 9y ago
Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style.
- lozf 9y ago
  Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history.
  - hota_mazi 9y ago
    The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. Which is a great thing. I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is.
    - wahern 9y ago
      Less exhausting than reading each of those 20+ emails separately. For any conversation of substance, you need the relevant context before you can understand the reply. If context isn't required, then don't include it. Inline replies act as a forcing function, directing people to reply to the substance of what was said. That necessarily includes eliding irrelevant bits, which is often the most helpful aspect. Neither top posting nor bottom posting help emphasize substance. In high quality forums inline posting is extremely useful for both reader and author. For the Outlook and Twitter set, it's a pointless debate.

ams6110 9y ago

I do. All my emails are plain text.

criddell 9y ago
How did you get that to happen? Almost all emails I send are text but close to 100% of everything I receive is html.

flukus 9y ago

At least with markdown you also gain a pretty good idea of how it will format in plain text clients as well.

kccqzy 9y ago

Ah remember text/enriched? It’s a standard designed for rich text in emails. I don’t think any major product uses it right now though, but I believe it’s supported by old versions of Apple Mail circa 2004.

hota_mazi 9y ago

> HTML emails are an abomanation. They're a life saver. This is 2017, the least we can ask is that people take the time to use bold, italics, bullet points, tables, hyperlinks, and type faces to make their communications more cogent. If you mean that "abuse of HTML" is an abomination, then yes, sure. But light use of HTML is extremely important today and my opinion of someone trying to communicate an important piece of information to me is directly related to how much care they have put into composing their email.

redmorphium 9y ago
The thing about HTML emails is, different email clients support different things. It's not HTML5 at all. If you want to do layouts, you must use tables. There are hacky things you have to do to display things correctly across all different types of clients. You have tools like this: https://buttons.cm/ https://buttons.cm/ which generate abominable code for the sake of compatibility. Also, Outlook uses the Word rendering engine to process HTML. It's janky, at best.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  It's that supposed to be an argument against HTML emails? That some companies choose not to implement it for compatibility? Like, let's stop printing because companies are making proprietary cartridges and breaking compatibility??
  - redmorphium 9y ago
    Not some companies. All companies, including Google for Gmail, Yahoo for Yahoo mail, Microsoft for Outlook, etc have very limited support for HTML in their HTML rendering engines. Instead of using floats and margins, you have to revert to using <table> for layouts. Otherwise, your emails just won't render correctly, much of the time. It's not possible to support HTML fully in Webmail clients, either. Even without scripting, you could write an HTML email that overlays a malicious button on top of Gmail's web interface itself, and it would be too easy to phish people.

AlexAffe 9y ago

This. Also: The unconverted markdown source is in itself already a nice way of formatting text/code/lists/headings/whatever. That's the whole point of markdown, no? So, yes, markdown rules, but because I can use it in plain text sources and benefit from it. Just never convert to html except on webpages.

oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
Surely convert it to html if the client decides that's how they want it, otherwise leave as markdown?
- AlexAffe 9y ago
  Well, that should be a receivers end decision imo. The content is there, everyone is free to view it as they please. But in essence it's plain text, no html tag shenanigans (because that's a pain to read when unparsed) or, god forbid, javascript (because it's dangerous).
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    Yes, that's exactly what I meant by "client". I think the tricky issue in this case relates to links because they totally ruin the text when left untranslated (in much the same way that unparsed html does), but some would prefer to view the original URL. I'd possibly advocate a different format - e.g. surround text in square brackets, supply URLs in order, at bottom of text.

alkonaut 9y ago

Agree html was probably overkill to get the useful subset: links, images, and text formatting. I send code snippets all the time, and to get it syntax highlighted so anyone can read it, it has to be an image. Which means no one can copy it. Links can be rendered from the text. But images and formatting is horrible. Markdown seems like the format email should have used if it had existed.

jonathanstrange 9y ago

I always send plaintext emails. HTML mail continues to be nuisance. You don't need fancy formatting for daily text communication. But I can understand why marketing people like it...