From: Jonathan Hutchins (hutchins@tarcanfel.org)
Date: 05/02/03


Message-ID: <1051893289.3eb29e2951427@mercury>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 11:34:01 -0500
From: Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins@tarcanfel.org>
Subject: Re: HTML posting

Quoting Jason Clinton <me@jasonclinton.com>:
 
> I don't really have an opinion on this but to be fair, I can think of a
> couple of instances where HTML mail would be better.
  
> * Word wrapping. The age-old problem of selecting a wrap width that will
> be mostly compatible. In HTML, you just put quoted messages in
> <blockquote>s. The renderer's computer is responsible for pagination and
> breaking.
 
I can't recall the last plain-text editor I saw that wouldn't wrap text.
Better and more consistently than HTML, which sometimes doesn't wrap (and
sometimes won't horizontal scoll either).
 
> * Accessibility. In plain text, nothing tells a screen reader that a
> line by itself is a header. In markup, this is indicated.
 
Headers are marked in text messages, and the body doesn't need markup.
 
> As for backwards compatibility, all HTML email clients have that built
> it. Messages are generally sent with both a plaint text and HTML version
> of the message.
 
Right - so why clutter up the bandwidth with the unnecessary HTML? This is
niether a math- nor a foreign language list.

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