[pmmail-list] hyper-text?

[Simon Bowring]

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002 13:42:17 -0700, Tim Roberts wrote:

>So, the RFCs tell us how to find an HTML section in a MIME message, how to 
>interpret HTML tags, and how to embed images in other sections to avoid 
>having to make another network request round trip.
Tim,

The RFCs do cover the MIME encoding of the various component files
that make up a generaised HTML document, but that's all - that is
not sufficent to allow HTML-emailers to interwork in a reliable
or consistent manner!

What isn't defined is what HTML features make sense in email and how
they should or could be used within a email client. Just one trivial
example is how should hyperlinks be handled?

A receiving email client may not have web-access so a recipient
cannot necessarily follow a hyperlink in a received page, 
similarly it cannot get behind the sender's fire-walls etc to 
retrieve them.

A sending email client could decide to include the linked documents
all nicely mime encoded as per the RFCs you quote, but how "deep"
should it go?

You could solve this with a rule that says all the hyperlinks in an 
emailed HTML document (set) can only reference other things in the 
same document (set). However no such rule (RFC or whetever) exists!

This is just one example of *HUNDREDS* of similar issues with HTML
emails!

Simon

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