Colored Backgrounds

[Simon Bowring]

>You and I are probably the only subscribers to this mailing list that don't 
believe that 
>HTML e-mail will lead to the end of civilisation as we know it - tread 
carefully .

Or at least tread courteously :-)

I regard it as a sign of ignorance (at best), or contempt for 
other users (at worst) to originate HTML messages (ditto for 
messages in a word processor format when text would have done).

If you want to attach a PDF, HTML, JPEG, MPEG etc, that's fine, 
*provided you know* that the recipient is expecting it, sadly
many email packages *default* to HTML, and many users do not
even know they are "breaking the rules".

The bandwidth argument is of very much reduced importance
nowadays but will become more important as more and more email 
is passed down slow wireless (often 9600 baud) links to PDAs 
and mobile phones with limited displays); the standards argument 
is, however, crucial!

It is a matter of life and death to drive according to the 
rules of the road ("The Highway Code" in the UK), so most
of us understand the reason for obeyance.

Sadly perhaps, it is only a matter of courtesy to obey internet 
standards, however as more and more suppliers ship standards
extending rubbish (started with web browsers and now also with 
email and news clients), we see less and less interoperability
between different suppliers' offerings.  People living in a 
PC/Windows centric universe have no idea that there are *millions* 
of computer users who have a text mode screen in front of them e.g. 
millions of IBM 3270 terminal users, many tens of thousands of email 
enabled mobile phone users (set to rapidly grow to 10s of millions),  
people using dial-up links to unix boxes etc, etc).

Using HTML for formatted text is just as "valid" as using RTF, PDF, 
SGML, Word, Wordperfect, PostScript formats etc - i.e. a standards 
compliant mail client won't  "understand" the message and will 
display it as an attachment requiring either the user to be able 
to read the format directly, or that he has a suitable application 
that can understand the encoding.

There would be nothing to prevent people building a wordperfect 
renderer into an email package, much as they have built an HTML 
renderer into them (indeed early MS email software used a 
completely made-up MS binary format, completely meaningless to 
anything else), but it's NO BLOODY GOOD unless *ALL* vendors do 
it and for this there needs to be decent workable standards set 
(not just "it looks a bit like HTML might solve a couple of 
the issues, despite the fact it's a complex splintered standard 
with scant regard for security etc"), which must also include 
a fall-back mode for clients that pre-date the standard.

The fact that some email clients understand (some undefined subset
of) HTML directly is counterproductive to interoperability; it just 
encourages the ignorant use of use of email.

It's interesting how variable people's sense of empathy is - so many
people are just incapable of putting themselves in another's position 
(or even understanding that there could be another position)!

Simon Bowring