4 ms·

> standardize alternative browsers on a consistent subset of web standards and document them so that "smolweb" enthusiasts can target that Could such a standar

> standardize alternative browsers on a consistent subset of web standards and document them so that "smolweb" enthusiasts can target that Could such a standard be based on the subset of HTML/CSS acceptable in emails? Maybe with a few extra things for interactivity.

43920 1y ago
AFAIK, "email HTML" isn't standardized either; most organizations that make nice-looking HTML emails have to do a ton of testing across different clients and come up with workarounds to make everything look consistent.
- notpushkin 1y ago
  Could we standardize email HTML?
  - OptionX 1y ago
    You could write a standard. If it actually gets mainstream adoption or goes into the standards pile it another question entirely.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    If you can convince Apple, Google, and Microsoft to implement your standard: sure. Attempts have been made with varying success. Your standard still needs to render in Outlook on Windows, though, which means you need to support the weird Office version of IE11 as an upper limit.
    - notpushkin 1y ago
      Does the email client on Windows still use IE11? (Some older versions might still have significant market share, but I’m not sure it would be for much longer?)
      - WorldMaker 1y ago
        "Outlook (New)" (aka "One Outlook") is React Native with a full Chromium webview, and the transition from out-of-the-box Windows-provided "Outlook Mobile" (Windows 8-10) to "Outlook (New)" has mostly completed, but the transition from Outlook (Classic) (aka "Bloated Corporate Outlook") seems somewhat stalled because a few big corporations have extensive plugins and cranky IT admins. (Also Outlook Mobile had a better than IE11 support and also has been Chromium on most platforms, it is "Outlook (Classic)" that continues to haunt us all with its ancient Word-based micro-browser fork of IE.)
        notpushkin 1y ago
        Sometimes I really wish MSFT broke backwards compatibility in the places that matter, not places their corporate customers don’t care about.
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      Google has recently been pivoting AMP which nearly broke the web towards email. It might actually be a better use of AMP than the web, but I'm still skeptical about some of its privacy stance and ad-injection focus: https://amp.dev/about/email https://amp.dev/about/email
- WorldMaker 1y ago
  It's fascinating how much "email HTML" is trapped in about HTML ~2.5, with limited CSS support and still a ton of FONT tags and TABLE layouts. HTML 2 might be an interesting subset of HTML to "focus on" for smolweb, but it would be a big retro throwback, and not feel at all modern. If you were starting today, might be more interesting to start with the most modern stuff and work backwards. HTML 2 TABLE could be implemented as a specialization of CSS Grid, for instance.
OJFord 1y ago
A few extra things like.. JavaScript?
- avmich 1y ago
  A total PL would be nice...
- fshafique 1y ago
  No interactivity! The email must be printable as-is. Not even CSS code to change styles when you hover over links. That's what I would for a minimum HTML for emails standard that's widely supported.
  - notpushkin 1y ago
    It’s actually a bummer: you can’t use a <style> tag because some email clients don’t like them. Instead, you have to inline your styles in every element. the lack of :hover is just a side effect of that I think (although it plays out nicely here). (While on it, can we also ban loading images from third-party servers?)
    - MrLeap 1y ago
      you sure can if we resolve to make a text editor instead of a web browser!
      - notpushkin 1y ago
        Hmm, that might not be a bad idea! We could ban CSS altogether: just leave some markup tags, maybe whatever you can do in Markdown + tables. No colors, no small print, no images. (We could even use something like gemtext as the format instead of HTML, but that wouldn’t be backward compatible with clients.) But I don’t see any email clients with somewhat significant market share going through with this :(
  - OJFord 1y ago
    I'm confused, we're talking about browsers, and comment I replied to suggested 'email + interactivity' as a standard for minimal browsers. I wasn't suggesting adding JS execution to emails. (I don't even allow remote images personally.)

43920 1y ago

AFAIK, "email HTML" isn't standardized either; most organizations that make nice-looking HTML emails have to do a ton of testing across different clients and come up with workarounds to make everything look consistent.

notpushkin 1y ago
Could we standardize email HTML?
- OptionX 1y ago
  You could write a standard. If it actually gets mainstream adoption or goes into the standards pile it another question entirely.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  If you can convince Apple, Google, and Microsoft to implement your standard: sure. Attempts have been made with varying success. Your standard still needs to render in Outlook on Windows, though, which means you need to support the weird Office version of IE11 as an upper limit.
  - notpushkin 1y ago
    Does the email client on Windows still use IE11? (Some older versions might still have significant market share, but I’m not sure it would be for much longer?)
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      "Outlook (New)" (aka "One Outlook") is React Native with a full Chromium webview, and the transition from out-of-the-box Windows-provided "Outlook Mobile" (Windows 8-10) to "Outlook (New)" has mostly completed, but the transition from Outlook (Classic) (aka "Bloated Corporate Outlook") seems somewhat stalled because a few big corporations have extensive plugins and cranky IT admins. (Also Outlook Mobile had a better than IE11 support and also has been Chromium on most platforms, it is "Outlook (Classic)" that continues to haunt us all with its ancient Word-based micro-browser fork of IE.)
      - notpushkin 1y ago
        Sometimes I really wish MSFT broke backwards compatibility in the places that matter, not places their corporate customers don’t care about.
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    Google has recently been pivoting AMP which nearly broke the web towards email. It might actually be a better use of AMP than the web, but I'm still skeptical about some of its privacy stance and ad-injection focus: https://amp.dev/about/email https://amp.dev/about/email
WorldMaker 1y ago
It's fascinating how much "email HTML" is trapped in about HTML ~2.5, with limited CSS support and still a ton of FONT tags and TABLE layouts. HTML 2 might be an interesting subset of HTML to "focus on" for smolweb, but it would be a big retro throwback, and not feel at all modern. If you were starting today, might be more interesting to start with the most modern stuff and work backwards. HTML 2 TABLE could be implemented as a specialization of CSS Grid, for instance.

OJFord 1y ago

A few extra things like.. JavaScript?

avmich 1y ago
A total PL would be nice...
fshafique 1y ago
No interactivity! The email must be printable as-is. Not even CSS code to change styles when you hover over links. That's what I would for a minimum HTML for emails standard that's widely supported.
- notpushkin 1y ago
  It’s actually a bummer: you can’t use a <style> tag because some email clients don’t like them. Instead, you have to inline your styles in every element. the lack of :hover is just a side effect of that I think (although it plays out nicely here). (While on it, can we also ban loading images from third-party servers?)
  - MrLeap 1y ago
    you sure can if we resolve to make a text editor instead of a web browser!
    - notpushkin 1y ago
      Hmm, that might not be a bad idea! We could ban CSS altogether: just leave some markup tags, maybe whatever you can do in Markdown + tables. No colors, no small print, no images. (We could even use something like gemtext as the format instead of HTML, but that wouldn’t be backward compatible with clients.) But I don’t see any email clients with somewhat significant market share going through with this :(
- OJFord 1y ago
  I'm confused, we're talking about browsers, and comment I replied to suggested 'email + interactivity' as a standard for minimal browsers. I wasn't suggesting adding JS execution to emails. (I don't even allow remote images personally.)