[LINK] Mozilla - slow progress

[Craig Sanders]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2001 at 09:09:41PM +1000, Luke Burton wrote:
> Robin Whittle wrote:
> >Mozilla's default arrangement of composing a message in HTML and then
> >suggesting that it be converted to plain text unless the sender knows
> >the recipient wants HTML strikes me as nuts.
>
> I don't really see the problem with HTML e-mails. Arguing against     
> HTML e-mail is like arguing for gopher against the web. It's not so   
> much an argument about which is better, it's just one that you'll     
> lose :)                                                               

no, it's not at all like arguing against the web or gopher. it's arguing
for using the appropriate file format for the task at hand.

gopher documents are appropriate for gopherspace because all gopher clients
can display them.

html documents are appropriate for the web because all web browsers can
render html.

plain text is appropriate for email, because it can be read by anyone
on any equipment using any software.


> Because people love their fonts, bold, underline, etc. Newbies see the 
> similarities between writing a paper letter in a word processor and 
> sending an e-mail, and they intuitively expect wordprocessor like 
> features in e-mail. It's a billion newbies who think like that against a 
> few of us ;)

ok, so because i like fonts and bold and underline it's perfectly
OK if i write my emails with groff or TeX? or send all my emails as
.dvi attachments? and the fact that the majority of recipients can't
read those formats (or it's too much hassle for them to bother) is
irrelevant?

the point of email is to communicate. it is incumbent upon the sender to
write their message in a format which can be read by every recipient,
not just those who happen to be using the same software as them.

for email, that means plain text.

> Personally, I do use plain text. But I do wish I could do hyperlinks
> properly. Pasting URLs is ugly. So perhaps a slightly tighter HTML
> e-mail standard (perhaps conforming to some document style sheet)
> would be a good middle ground.

it may be ugly, but it works, and it works for everyone no matter what
mail client they are using.

this is a client (recipient) side issue,

a decent email client can recognise a URL in the message body and
highlight it or even make it a clickable link - without any need for
special formatting.

e.g. mutt recognises email addresses and highlights them according
to the colour i've chosen (red), it recognises http and ftp urls and
highlights them in cyan. it also recognises quoted text and highlights
that in green. these colours stand out well against a black background
(another reason to use text-mode mail clients - glary white backgrounds
are bad for your eyes)...choose other colours to suit your needs.

webmail clients like IMP (or hotmail or yahoo mail) can do the same kind
of thing. i guess other mail clients such as outlook or eudora can too.

> I actually have some serious issues with the Java applet side of
> things, which prevent me from using it as my principal browser. I
> recently developed a little Swing applet, which I could run a few
> times in mozilla but would crash the whole show if I reloaded it too
> many times.  No such issues under IE and Netscape.

i disable java on all browsers anyway. there's no way that i want some
web page developer running code on my computer just because i visit
their web site.

i usually have javascript disabled too (although there's less risk with
that) and only enable it for certain sites that i need to use that wont
work without it.

> While you're surfing there with Mozilla, open a few other windows then 
> check mozilla.exe's memory usage. It's the Borg.

most browsers are bloated pigs - fortunately, it doesn't matter so much
these days. memory is dirt cheap...i've heard of 256MB PC133 RAM going
for under $80 at swap meets. having 512MB in a workstation is quite
affordable.

> Meanwhile, light and nimble projects like Konquerer are making up ground 
> so fast that it's scary. Mozilla had better get a move on.

try galeon.  if you like mozilla, you'll love galeon.

http://galeon.sourceforge.net/

if you run debian, then "apt-get install galeon" will do the trick.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>

Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
 -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch