5 ms·

I wish people didn’t use html at all for emails…

jeroenhd 5y ago
I'm fine with HTML myself, actually; it's stuff like CSS that I'm more worried about. There are plenty of use cases for <li>/<h1>/<em> in emails, and with some nice default user styles they can give everyone a pleasant experience. Sadly, CSS is often applied and the HTML people write is often broken.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  You say that, but then a couple of times a month i get emails from a certain cultural society that for some reason always come out with the main text in one giant, one letter wide column… Both on the phone and outlook webmail!
sleavey 5y ago
First thing I do when I install Thunderbird on a new computer: disable HTML, enable monospace font.
wiz21c 5y ago
Yeah, receiving email in html format is painful. With text, I can look at them the way I want.
simias 5y ago
I still only send plaintext myself, but clearly that ship has sailed. Many mailers don't even bother adding a proper text/plain alternative anymore. I caved in and replaced mutt with Thunderbird personally. Not only for properly displaying HTML, but it was a big reason. Thunderbird sucks massively for composing plain text emails though, and no simple way to integrate an external editor...
- rauhl 5y ago
  > I caved in and replaced mutt with Thunderbird personally. Not only for properly displaying HTML, but it was a big reason. Thunderbird sucks massively for composing plain text emails though, and no simple way to integrate an external editor... Have you considered emacs with notmuch and the Gnus renderer? It displays most HTML emails well, and when it doesn’t then a browser is just a quick ‘. b’ away. And of course there’s no need to integrate an external editor, because it’s integrated within the editor! As a plus, it is simply amazing how quickly one can search local email.
jesusjosephsson 5y ago
I wish I could set up automatic replies to mails lacking plain text.
ubermonkey 5y ago
How would you support formatted text in email, then? Please don't say "there shouldn't be formatted text in email." That's not a reasonable position.
- rauhl 5y ago
  > How would you support formatted text in email, then? RFC 1896 specifies text/enriched: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1896 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1896 And of course nowadays there is Markdown, which basically codifies a lot of earlier plain-text formatting conventions. > Please don't say "there shouldn't be formatted text in email." That's not a reasonable position. I don’t know about that, really. We got by fine with plain text messages for decades, and the formatting conventions were good enough to convey meaning and nuance.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    We got by fine for thousands of years without computers at all
    - cezart 5y ago
      If by fine you mean the life style people had in the 12th century, I’ll pass and stick with computers..
      - breakfastduck 5y ago
        I was making the point that surviving without something in the past or currently is no reason not to improve it.
        rauhl 5y ago
        Improvements are awesome! That’s why I linked to the text/enriched RFC. I really wonder if anyone who downvoted actually read it, or just emotionally reacted. I don’t think that HTML emails are really an improvement: full-fledged HTML engines bring in too many opportunities for exploits and privacy loss. They definitely add capability, but at too high a cost IMHO. In general, I think that our industry would benefit from asking ‘can we?’ less and instead asking ‘ought we?’ more.

I'm fine with HTML myself, actually; it's stuff like CSS that I'm more worried about. There are plenty of use cases for <li>/<h1>/<em> in emails, and with some nice default user styles they can give everyone a pleasant experience. Sadly, CSS is often applied and the HTML people write is often broken.

Grustaf 5y ago
You say that, but then a couple of times a month i get emails from a certain cultural society that for some reason always come out with the main text in one giant, one letter wide column… Both on the phone and outlook webmail!

sleavey 5y ago

First thing I do when I install Thunderbird on a new computer: disable HTML, enable monospace font.

wiz21c 5y ago

Yeah, receiving email in html format is painful. With text, I can look at them the way I want.

simias 5y ago

I still only send plaintext myself, but clearly that ship has sailed. Many mailers don't even bother adding a proper text/plain alternative anymore. I caved in and replaced mutt with Thunderbird personally. Not only for properly displaying HTML, but it was a big reason. Thunderbird sucks massively for composing plain text emails though, and no simple way to integrate an external editor...

rauhl 5y ago
> I caved in and replaced mutt with Thunderbird personally. Not only for properly displaying HTML, but it was a big reason. Thunderbird sucks massively for composing plain text emails though, and no simple way to integrate an external editor... Have you considered emacs with notmuch and the Gnus renderer? It displays most HTML emails well, and when it doesn’t then a browser is just a quick ‘. b’ away. And of course there’s no need to integrate an external editor, because it’s integrated within the editor! As a plus, it is simply amazing how quickly one can search local email.

jesusjosephsson 5y ago

I wish I could set up automatic replies to mails lacking plain text.

ubermonkey 5y ago

How would you support formatted text in email, then? Please don't say "there shouldn't be formatted text in email." That's not a reasonable position.

rauhl 5y ago
> How would you support formatted text in email, then? RFC 1896 specifies text/enriched: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1896 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1896 And of course nowadays there is Markdown, which basically codifies a lot of earlier plain-text formatting conventions. > Please don't say "there shouldn't be formatted text in email." That's not a reasonable position. I don’t know about that, really. We got by fine with plain text messages for decades, and the formatting conventions were good enough to convey meaning and nuance.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  We got by fine for thousands of years without computers at all
  - cezart 5y ago
    If by fine you mean the life style people had in the 12th century, I’ll pass and stick with computers..
    - breakfastduck 5y ago
      I was making the point that surviving without something in the past or currently is no reason not to improve it.
      - rauhl 5y ago
        Improvements are awesome! That’s why I linked to the text/enriched RFC. I really wonder if anyone who downvoted actually read it, or just emotionally reacted. I don’t think that HTML emails are really an improvement: full-fledged HTML engines bring in too many opportunities for exploits and privacy loss. They definitely add capability, but at too high a cost IMHO. In general, I think that our industry would benefit from asking ‘can we?’ less and instead asking ‘ought we?’ more.