[Telecom] ASCII vs. HTML (was Re: 1+10D, was 11X and N11 Codes)

>***** Moderator's Note ***** >So, PLEASE don't use a Subject such as "Re: Telecom Digest". Also, >PLEASE don't use Quoted-printable encoding _or_ html. The Digest is >text-only. > >Bill Horne >Temporary Moderator

Bill,

Mike and a number of people use Yahoo and Gmail as their only E-mail. Often times, there is no "text only" option. When people like Mike post, they may not have the option to change to ASCII text.

More and more people use web-based E-mail where HTML is the only choice. The days of POP3/SMTP are unfortunately numbered. Even with Usenet you tend to see more HTML in there.

Is there some sort of HTML removal tool you can use to strip the HTML coding and return to ASCII text?

JB

***** Moderator's Note *****

JB,

AFAIK, HTML can be stripped, but quoted-printable can't. So long as a message contains "Text/Plain" content, I'll do everything I can to publish it.

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

Reply to
John Bledsoe
Loading thread data ...

This is not acceptable. There is no reason to put up with this trash. If some mail services cannot conform to common standards, there is no reason the REST of us should put up with it. There is no reason to accept HTML mail. If people want to be able to communicate with the world, they should learn to use the standards the rest of the world uses, or use a service that does.

Not me. Like most better Usenet services, the provider I use runs cleanfeed which discards all HTML postings. While HTML e-mail is unnecessary and silly, HTML posts to Usenet are TOTALLY unacceptable and in violation of RFCs.

There are several of them, and a number of mailing lists use them. They often result in unreadable text, however. Just get users to send plaintext and don't worry about it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Good point. The MIME standards which define attachments and various message body types have been standards track RFCs since 1992. This may be kind of a radical suggestion, but you might consider updating your software every decade or so.

I'm not thrilled with HTML mail, but my mail and news software deals with it OK on my FreeBSD laptop. You can, too.

R's, John

Reply to
John Levine

I can't speak for Yahoo, but GMail DOES in fact allow for plain text. Furthermore since GMail works via POP3 and IMAP4 virtually every mail client known to man can be used and most if not all of those can be set to plain text.

I use GMail with the web interface, Apple Mail, Outlook 2003, and Pine and all support plain text.

Reply to
John Mayson

Yes, precisely. And there is no reason not to set them to do so. The problem is that many people do not understand that it can be done, or why it should be done.

It is not in any way a technical problem or a lack of application capabilities.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Outlook can, in fact, be configured to send plain text mail. If you are using Exchange, that is only possible for mail sent to non-"local" addresses, but it does work. It can also be configured to show received mail as plain text.

And, as someone else pointed out, sending mail as multipart/alternative is an option. A problem arises when Outlook receives such a multipart message. Instead of showing the plain text part of the multipart message, Outlook insists on showing an HTML-to-text conversion of the HTML part. The conversion is crappy and does not come close to the author's intent.

If you are reading this message as HTML, some software along the way has converted it from the plain text I sent. I consider such conversion to be immoral and a violation of my copyright. Nonetheless, I am aware that such conversions are done by some systems. For example, if you are using Yahoo! or Google Groups to read this, it may appear as HTML (not just surrounded by an HTML frame). To me, that is fraudulent.

Reply to
Dave Close

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.