5 ms·

I cannot believe that Microsoft Outlook, in 2019, is still using the broken word-based HTML rendering which is an insult to the whole industry and a pain for an

I cannot believe that Microsoft Outlook, in 2019, is still using the broken word-based HTML rendering which is an insult to the whole industry and a pain for anybody in email business. Is there a strategy behind this? Is Outlook on maintenance mode with no developers? Or is it on their best interest to keep it broken?

cma 7y ago
Google wants some of that action: https://developers.google.com/gmail/ampemail/ https://developers.google.com/gmail/ampemail/
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Wow, this sounds like a horrible idea... I see no scenario where this idea could succeed. Most businesses put their mails through sandboxes and whatnot. and a mail that looked like a chicken once, will look like a pile of bones at the time it reaches the receiver. Well, we had mails that contained VBScript. Outlook users can actually execute these. I think Microsoft changed policies to default disallow for a lot of VB components about a year ago.
pilif 7y ago
Since office 2007 they use word to render HTML mail. Probably mostly because of security reasons because at the time their other option was IE which lead to many previous security flaws. Word isn't much safer but at least it is under the Office team's control plus it's less widely deployed than IE was at the time. It also has way fewer features with regards to HTML rendering which helps reducing the attack surface. On the other hand, as it's neither browser nor HTML editor, its HTML rendering capabilities are never improved because it's no priority. And thus HTML mail is stuck at tables, font tags and spacer gifs for the rest of eternity. Thank you Microsoft. (OTOH, whatever helps discourage HTML mails and encourage plain text is a good thing in my book. And now, get off my lawn)
Alex3917 7y ago
> Or is it on their best interest to keep it broken? I get the impression that most mail is currently sent using Outlook and read using Gmail, so there is kind of a detente where everything is just frozen.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  So Outlook users send more email than Gmail users? How does this work? I mean it implies in some way a difference in the amount of reading Gmail users do and a difference in the amount of sending Outlook users do. That sounds weird.
  - njarboe 7y ago
    Businesses use Outlook and send to lots of customers who have Gmail.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      Do businesses really use outlook though, to send to their customers? The place I'm at right now automates sending out lots of customer emails, but they don't use outlook to do it they use some automated tool, however the HTML provided is outlook compliant HTML because you have to have something that can also be read in Outlook.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        > Do businesses really use outlook though, to send to their customers? Yes. This might be hard to grasp from an SV web dev perspective, but not all industries are just about shoving ads at people. The company I work for does not do mass mailing. We use email to actually communicate with actual people who wish to exchange actual money for our product. This often involves months of back and forth discussion, because our product is highly customized.
        dx034 7y ago
andrei_says_ 7y ago
Outlook is incredibly painful to accommodate when creating responsive emails. It requires workarounds which include nesting divs inside of tables inside of conditional comments. I’ve done many things but coding responsive emails has pushed my cognitive resources to the limit. Because of outlook.
paulodeon 7y ago
We're building a software tool that lets you create HTML emails visually without worrying about client specific rendering bugs like this. It's due to launch in the next month. If you're interested email paul.odeon@milliner.app and I'll add you to the list to be notified when we launch!
- mjaniczek 7y ago
  After working on crafting such emails for a while for my previous employer, I was seriously considering starting a SaaS to do exactly what you just described. (I didn't start.) Best of luck!
meuk 7y ago
> Or is it on their best interest to keep it broken? It seems similar to a strategy they use more often, famously known as embrace, extend, and extinguish [1]: 1. Use some standard/specification 2. Accumulate lots of users with questionable strategies 3. Extend/break/deviate from the specification 4. Devs update software to cope with the undocumented Microsoft(c) behavior 5. There is no point in following the specification or standard anymore, since it won't work in practice anyway. Microsoft effectively dictates what devs do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
brown9-2 7y ago
It’s amazing to think how much collective time is wasted due to this strategy.
delusional 7y ago
The biggest problem for modern email is outlook.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  I use Outlook every single day, and it is my favorite email client (RIP, Google Inbox) because it's simple enough and still quite powerful. What is "modern email"? If it's HTML based stuff, then I don't want it. I like my communication simple, because that makes it more reliable.
yyyk 7y ago
I dunno about Microsoft's intentions, but it's in our (worldwide internet users) best interest for Outlook to keep the 'broken' renderer. HTML email has some use-cases as long as the HTML used is very limited, and that's exactly what Outlook provides. There's however no justification to turn email into a full on web page like Google wants. The longer Outlook's renderer is 'broken', the less likely we are to get abominations like Google's AMP email. Ultimately, email really is a document and should remain that way. This is compatible with HTML, but completely incompatible with Javascript.
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  Oh come on, don't you wish you could send a game using WebGL via E-Mail? Think about the possibilities! (To some degree I'm unsure if I'm really joking - I can image practical use, but I love plain text mail, which I can easily search, filter and render as I need it)
  - yyyk 7y ago
    Ah, wonderful. We'll have animated, autoplaying 419 scams. We'll need Turing-complete spam filters, which will be exploited themselves. Just what we needed. Edit: Wait a minute. Wouldn't these WebGL games need microtransaction ability? That's a must for any game company. Obviously we must be allowed to use the payment API in emails! So now the scams would be able to bill the user directly.
    - johannes1234321 7y ago
      As long as they can mine Bitcoin there's no need for micro transactions. Just make sure that there is no save button and warn the user that closing the mail will lose their game state. A more serious use case might be the architect sending models of the new building or the doctor sending MRIs. While those cases have practical issues like the recepient not being able to respond to it easily (move that wall!) and privacy, they also have interesting benefits like no need to login to some cloud and retention period controlled by the recepient. Sending as attachment of course works, but needs container formats to collect assets together and sandboxing in browsers for local files. As well as this being a media break, where I have to switch to a different tool to look at it then where the context is.
eli 7y ago
There was a petition at one point to have the rendering engine changed and Microsoft made some kind of vague promises to improve it. https://freshinbox.com/blog/the-outlook-team-reaches-out/ https://freshinbox.com/blog/the-outlook-team-reaches-out/ I would assume that it's not a simple technical change on their end.
throw0101a 7y ago
Given that Microsoft and Outlook started the disaster that is HTML e-mail, why would you think that they'd actually fix the mess that they started?
- yyyk 7y ago
  Your comment made me check whether it was MS that started HTML e-mails. Well, this doesn't seem to be the case, unless I'm missing something. According to wiki, only Outlook 98 added support for HTML emails[0]. It's not difficult to find Outlook 97 users asking how to support HTML[1], so the wiki changelog doesn't seem to be wrong. Outlook 98 was released in June 1998. Outlook Express doesn't change this picture - version 4 didn't have HTML email support[2], and version 5 was only released in 1999. MS support date appears to be June 1998. Meanwhile, Eudora 4.0 release announcement[3] at December 97 already mentions HTML support. So at the very least, Eudora had it first. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook#cite_ref-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook#cite_ref-11 [1] https://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/396121-outlook-97-mail-format.html https://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/396121-outlook-97-m... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4#Bundled_and/or_integrated_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4#Bundled_an... [3] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/1997/12/08/qualcomm-ships-eudora-pro-e-mail-40-windows https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/1997/12/08/qualcomm-s... Rich HTML Messages - Users have the ability to view and compose rich HTML messages, using graphics and stylized text. Emails containing HTML look as if they would on a web browser and include graphics such as embedded images, tables and java applets.
  - throw0101a 7y ago
    Outlook Express 4 was bundled with IE4, which was released in October 1997: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express#History * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4 I was also on Usenet at the time, and the garbage that OE produced was atrocious. And let's not get into top-posting. (Now get off my lawn.)
velobro 7y ago
I got another one for you! It's 2019, and Office for Windows still uses Internet Explorer to render add-ins built with OfficeJS. This is slated to be switched to Edge (regular edge, not the Chromium-based build) with Windows 1903 and a newer Office version, but damnit if my life isn't going to be hell debugging IE for a couple months.

cma 7y ago

Google wants some of that action: https://developers.google.com/gmail/ampemail/ https://developers.google.com/gmail/ampemail/

raxxorrax 7y ago
Wow, this sounds like a horrible idea... I see no scenario where this idea could succeed. Most businesses put their mails through sandboxes and whatnot. and a mail that looked like a chicken once, will look like a pile of bones at the time it reaches the receiver. Well, we had mails that contained VBScript. Outlook users can actually execute these. I think Microsoft changed policies to default disallow for a lot of VB components about a year ago.

pilif 7y ago

Since office 2007 they use word to render HTML mail. Probably mostly because of security reasons because at the time their other option was IE which lead to many previous security flaws. Word isn't much safer but at least it is under the Office team's control plus it's less widely deployed than IE was at the time. It also has way fewer features with regards to HTML rendering which helps reducing the attack surface. On the other hand, as it's neither browser nor HTML editor, its HTML rendering capabilities are never improved because it's no priority. And thus HTML mail is stuck at tables, font tags and spacer gifs for the rest of eternity. Thank you Microsoft. (OTOH, whatever helps discourage HTML mails and encourage plain text is a good thing in my book. And now, get off my lawn)

Alex3917 7y ago

> Or is it on their best interest to keep it broken? I get the impression that most mail is currently sent using Outlook and read using Gmail, so there is kind of a detente where everything is just frozen.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
So Outlook users send more email than Gmail users? How does this work? I mean it implies in some way a difference in the amount of reading Gmail users do and a difference in the amount of sending Outlook users do. That sounds weird.
- njarboe 7y ago
  Businesses use Outlook and send to lots of customers who have Gmail.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    Do businesses really use outlook though, to send to their customers? The place I'm at right now automates sending out lots of customer emails, but they don't use outlook to do it they use some automated tool, however the HTML provided is outlook compliant HTML because you have to have something that can also be read in Outlook.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > Do businesses really use outlook though, to send to their customers? Yes. This might be hard to grasp from an SV web dev perspective, but not all industries are just about shoving ads at people. The company I work for does not do mass mailing. We use email to actually communicate with actual people who wish to exchange actual money for our product. This often involves months of back and forth discussion, because our product is highly customized.
      - dx034 7y ago

andrei_says_ 7y ago

Outlook is incredibly painful to accommodate when creating responsive emails. It requires workarounds which include nesting divs inside of tables inside of conditional comments. I’ve done many things but coding responsive emails has pushed my cognitive resources to the limit. Because of outlook.

paulodeon 7y ago

We're building a software tool that lets you create HTML emails visually without worrying about client specific rendering bugs like this. It's due to launch in the next month. If you're interested email paul.odeon@milliner.app and I'll add you to the list to be notified when we launch!

mjaniczek 7y ago
After working on crafting such emails for a while for my previous employer, I was seriously considering starting a SaaS to do exactly what you just described. (I didn't start.) Best of luck!

meuk 7y ago

> Or is it on their best interest to keep it broken? It seems similar to a strategy they use more often, famously known as embrace, extend, and extinguish [1]: 1. Use some standard/specification 2. Accumulate lots of users with questionable strategies 3. Extend/break/deviate from the specification 4. Devs update software to cope with the undocumented Microsoft(c) behavior 5. There is no point in following the specification or standard anymore, since it won't work in practice anyway. Microsoft effectively dictates what devs do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

brown9-2 7y ago

It’s amazing to think how much collective time is wasted due to this strategy.

delusional 7y ago

The biggest problem for modern email is outlook.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
I use Outlook every single day, and it is my favorite email client (RIP, Google Inbox) because it's simple enough and still quite powerful. What is "modern email"? If it's HTML based stuff, then I don't want it. I like my communication simple, because that makes it more reliable.

yyyk 7y ago

I dunno about Microsoft's intentions, but it's in our (worldwide internet users) best interest for Outlook to keep the 'broken' renderer. HTML email has some use-cases as long as the HTML used is very limited, and that's exactly what Outlook provides. There's however no justification to turn email into a full on web page like Google wants. The longer Outlook's renderer is 'broken', the less likely we are to get abominations like Google's AMP email. Ultimately, email really is a document and should remain that way. This is compatible with HTML, but completely incompatible with Javascript.

johannes1234321 7y ago
Oh come on, don't you wish you could send a game using WebGL via E-Mail? Think about the possibilities! (To some degree I'm unsure if I'm really joking - I can image practical use, but I love plain text mail, which I can easily search, filter and render as I need it)
- yyyk 7y ago
  Ah, wonderful. We'll have animated, autoplaying 419 scams. We'll need Turing-complete spam filters, which will be exploited themselves. Just what we needed. Edit: Wait a minute. Wouldn't these WebGL games need microtransaction ability? That's a must for any game company. Obviously we must be allowed to use the payment API in emails! So now the scams would be able to bill the user directly.
  - johannes1234321 7y ago
    As long as they can mine Bitcoin there's no need for micro transactions. Just make sure that there is no save button and warn the user that closing the mail will lose their game state. A more serious use case might be the architect sending models of the new building or the doctor sending MRIs. While those cases have practical issues like the recepient not being able to respond to it easily (move that wall!) and privacy, they also have interesting benefits like no need to login to some cloud and retention period controlled by the recepient. Sending as attachment of course works, but needs container formats to collect assets together and sandboxing in browsers for local files. As well as this being a media break, where I have to switch to a different tool to look at it then where the context is.

eli 7y ago

There was a petition at one point to have the rendering engine changed and Microsoft made some kind of vague promises to improve it. https://freshinbox.com/blog/the-outlook-team-reaches-out/ https://freshinbox.com/blog/the-outlook-team-reaches-out/ I would assume that it's not a simple technical change on their end.

throw0101a 7y ago

Given that Microsoft and Outlook started the disaster that is HTML e-mail, why would you think that they'd actually fix the mess that they started?

yyyk 7y ago
Your comment made me check whether it was MS that started HTML e-mails. Well, this doesn't seem to be the case, unless I'm missing something. According to wiki, only Outlook 98 added support for HTML emails[0]. It's not difficult to find Outlook 97 users asking how to support HTML[1], so the wiki changelog doesn't seem to be wrong. Outlook 98 was released in June 1998. Outlook Express doesn't change this picture - version 4 didn't have HTML email support[2], and version 5 was only released in 1999. MS support date appears to be June 1998. Meanwhile, Eudora 4.0 release announcement[3] at December 97 already mentions HTML support. So at the very least, Eudora had it first. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook#cite_ref-11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook#cite_ref-11 [1] https://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/396121-outlook-97-mail-format.html https://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/396121-outlook-97-m... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4#Bundled_and/or_integrated_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4#Bundled_an... [3] https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/1997/12/08/qualcomm-ships-eudora-pro-e-mail-40-windows https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/1997/12/08/qualcomm-s... Rich HTML Messages - Users have the ability to view and compose rich HTML messages, using graphics and stylized text. Emails containing HTML look as if they would on a web browser and include graphics such as embedded images, tables and java applets.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  Outlook Express 4 was bundled with IE4, which was released in October 1997: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express#History * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_4 I was also on Usenet at the time, and the garbage that OE produced was atrocious. And let's not get into top-posting. (Now get off my lawn.)

velobro 7y ago

I got another one for you! It's 2019, and Office for Windows still uses Internet Explorer to render add-ins built with OfficeJS. This is slated to be switched to Edge (regular edge, not the Chromium-based build) with Windows 1903 and a newer Office version, but damnit if my life isn't going to be hell debugging IE for a couple months.