don't like HTML email? here's your fix.

[Trevor Smith]

On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:39:36 -0800, Steve Lamb wrote:

>    Uhm, a web page in IE and Netscape, the two most "standards conformant"
>browsers there are, will more often than not look different in each.  Toss in
>Opera, another "standards conformant" browser and it look different again.
>
>    You're making the mistake that HTML will be rendered the same.  It will
>not.  Monospaced ASCII is a little harder to mess up.

Sigh. You're making the mistake. You completely misread my argument.

There is a difference between saying "you must both use Navigator"
and saying "you must both use a proportional font", but it is a
difference of scale, not a difference of logic.

I agree, we need a *real* standard for rich text email, not an
embrace and extend strategy by competing companies. But that doesn't
mean that the existing convention -- plain text email -- guarantees
identical rendering on different clients.

Just like Navigator and IE will display HTML email differently,
dfferent clients might render plain text email differently too,
depending on whether they are using proportional fonts or not,
depending on screen width, and maybe depending on other things.

I wasn't arguing that the existing mess with HTML email is "correct".
I was pointing out that to argue that using plain text email
guarantees readability is incorrect.


-- 
 Trevor Smith          |          trevor@haligonian.com
 PGP public key available at: www.haligonian.com/trevor

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