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I prefer plain text email, but this cranky unix-user anti-features tradition is a bad thing. Discord won over IRC because the people who make IRC clients and s

by sneak 1y ago

I prefer plain text email, but this cranky unix-user anti-features tradition is a bad thing. Discord won over IRC because the people who make IRC clients and servers think the world in 1999 was the pinnacle of engineering. It wasn’t. Rich text emails are great. So are variable-width fonts.

kevincox 1y ago
Yeah, the occasional bold word, inline link, heading or even the occasional image can make a message much more readable. If you don't like bold words your client can ignore that tag. I think this is partly an over-reaction to some senders that go way overboard with bright colours a hundred images and complex layout that doesn't render right on your screen size. But just because a capability can be used poorly doesn't mean that it can't be used well. I can also understand that some people choose to prefer the text version of messages because it is so common to "abuse" HTML. And for those people I even include a text fallback in case their client doesn't have the ability to do that.
- pomatic 1y ago
  I'm sure markdown email has been done? But just didn't gain traction?
  - jaffa2 1y ago
    Mailmate on macos solves this very nicely. As a bonus my html mails have never looked better and i get the bonus of writing in text using markdown . Currently evaluating it.
  - colonial 1y ago
    GNOME Evolution supports Markdown natively (I believe either raw or rendered to HTML on send; I use the latter.)
  - Avamander 1y ago
    There's no The Markdown that's standardised (or safe enough), that it could be implemented like that unfortunately.
    - xigoi 1y ago
      Thank you. I hate when people say “Markdown” as if it was a single language and not a collective term for 100+ kinda similar languages.
  - DavideNL 1y ago
    For macOS check MailMate : https://freron.com/ https://freron.com/
encom 1y ago
>1999 was the pinnacle of engineering Typing words to strangers online, worked just as well using IRC in 1999 as it does today. However my issue with Discord isn't the rich text, it's that Discord is a proprietary, centralised, CIA honeypot and a garbage company. Their Electron client is the least of their sins. >Rich text emails are great. They can be. They usually aren't. Yesterday I got a marketing email from an electricity provider. The unsubscribe link was 1302 characters of obfuscated Sendgrid bullshit. And it was full of tracking images and all links had click tracking. I wonder how this crap is GDPR compliant, because I'm fairly sure I never consented to any of this.
- sneak 1y ago
  If you don’t like the emails your electricity provider sends you, don’t give them your email address, or filter all of their emails to the trash. Rich text emails as a format and as a feature are great. If you don’t like the content of emails that doesn’t change the issue at all. In the alternative you are proposing, the unsubscribe link isn’t clickable at all. (I also dislike Discord for many of the same reasons, but it won because it is better for users, because it has more features. Your complaints about it, which I share, are irrelevant to this discussion.)
  - encom 1y ago
    >just don't get spammed bro Great solution! I wish I'd thought of that.

by sneak 1y ago

kevincox 1y ago

Yeah, the occasional bold word, inline link, heading or even the occasional image can make a message much more readable. If you don't like bold words your client can ignore that tag. I think this is partly an over-reaction to some senders that go way overboard with bright colours a hundred images and complex layout that doesn't render right on your screen size. But just because a capability can be used poorly doesn't mean that it can't be used well. I can also understand that some people choose to prefer the text version of messages because it is so common to "abuse" HTML. And for those people I even include a text fallback in case their client doesn't have the ability to do that.

pomatic 1y ago
I'm sure markdown email has been done? But just didn't gain traction?
- jaffa2 1y ago
  Mailmate on macos solves this very nicely. As a bonus my html mails have never looked better and i get the bonus of writing in text using markdown . Currently evaluating it.
- colonial 1y ago
  GNOME Evolution supports Markdown natively (I believe either raw or rendered to HTML on send; I use the latter.)
- Avamander 1y ago
  There's no The Markdown that's standardised (or safe enough), that it could be implemented like that unfortunately.
  - xigoi 1y ago
    Thank you. I hate when people say “Markdown” as if it was a single language and not a collective term for 100+ kinda similar languages.
- DavideNL 1y ago
  For macOS check MailMate : https://freron.com/ https://freron.com/

encom 1y ago

>1999 was the pinnacle of engineering Typing words to strangers online, worked just as well using IRC in 1999 as it does today. However my issue with Discord isn't the rich text, it's that Discord is a proprietary, centralised, CIA honeypot and a garbage company. Their Electron client is the least of their sins. >Rich text emails are great. They can be. They usually aren't. Yesterday I got a marketing email from an electricity provider. The unsubscribe link was 1302 characters of obfuscated Sendgrid bullshit. And it was full of tracking images and all links had click tracking. I wonder how this crap is GDPR compliant, because I'm fairly sure I never consented to any of this.

sneak 1y ago
If you don’t like the emails your electricity provider sends you, don’t give them your email address, or filter all of their emails to the trash. Rich text emails as a format and as a feature are great. If you don’t like the content of emails that doesn’t change the issue at all. In the alternative you are proposing, the unsubscribe link isn’t clickable at all. (I also dislike Discord for many of the same reasons, but it won because it is better for users, because it has more features. Your complaints about it, which I share, are irrelevant to this discussion.)
- encom 1y ago
  >just don't get spammed bro Great solution! I wish I'd thought of that.