Re: Can anybody tell me how to send HTML-format mail in gnus

[qingant <qingant@gmail.com>]

I do think we need the ability to get email formated well.Plain
text is able to express ourselves,but not good enough.As a
college student in china,I fill very angry when recieved email
from the office with a M$ word file attached----I download it
and opened it on my old computer with OOo,waiting for serviral
minutes just to see some emphrased headers and indented iterms
!!!
so,why not give email itself the power to do little things to
get the context a little better stuctured? ON the other hand,
things get changed when html was abused, it's neccessary to
be aware of what we really want.It is more important in chinese.
If u just looking at the souce code of a chinese webpage,u will
get amused.
I do love emacs very much.Gnus is not perfect,but is better than
any client i have used.But i fail to make it work with gmail.









Xah wrote:
> On Aug 7, 9:59 pm, Sivaram Neelakantan <nsivaram....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Xah <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Tim X wrote:
>>> «In general, HTML in mail messages is a bad thing.»
>>> HTML in email is a very good thing.
>>> From the technology point of view, it is far more powerful. For
>>> example, it can contain links, bold text, coloring, embedded images,
>>> etc. The bulkier than plain text in size, of course, but in today's
>>> youtube days, this doesn't matter. Also not, if my 10 years old email
>>> transmission protocol knowledge is not outdated, then email is still
>>> sent by first converting to a ascii encoding. This is invented by the
>>> unix folks, which is extremely inefficient.
>>> From the social point of view, HTMl is also far more useful, and
>>> people wants the ability to have colored text, embed images, etc. I
>>> don't have stats on this, but it is my guess that 80%, or perhaps even
>>> 90% of email traffics today, are in html. Human animals, collectively,
>>> want it.
>> [...]
>> It might be old fashioned but I'd prefer the lowest common denominator
>> in getting my point across varying vintage MUAs in use.  And as someone
>> mentioned earlier, spam is pretty much HTML and I risk getting my mail
>> binned by someone elses' spam filter.
>>
>> And if lighting up the email to get my attention is the reason for
>> going in for HTML, then someone's trying too hard.
>>
>> I've received humongous HTML mails that just had one line of text in
>> it.  The rest were all pictures, templates and other doodads.  Most of
>> Microsoft email clients seem to be ones doing it; though there are
>> ways to turn it off in them, few seem to do it.
> 
> Your preference is great. I also, actually prefer plain text email.
> 
> This shouldn't offset the need to support html mail. If you don't want
> html mail, you can set up your email app to display plain text only,
> or at the mail server level.
> 
> For example, if emacs's rmail support html mail, this thread wouldn't
> have started.
> 
> As for spam, it's a different issue as i explained in another email.
> It is true that most spams are in HTML. However, before HTML became
> the standard, spams are in plain text with attachement, and before
> MIME with attachemet becomes popular, spam are just plain text then.
> Spam simply got worse and worse over the past 20 years i've used
> email, whatever is the current tech in email. In fact, its probably
> easier to detect spam in html mail than plain text. (i actually blame
> the worsening of spam to tech geekers's lack of social understanding.
> See
> “Tech geeker vs Spammers”
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tech_geekers_vs_spammers.html
> )
> 
> Note here also, that many tech geekers vociferously opposed the MIME
> standard, saying its bloat. It just happens, and OpenSource tools just
> adopts it some 5 years later.
> 
> «And if lighting up the email to get my attention is the reason for
> going in for HTML, then someone's trying too hard.»
> 
> Tech geekers like to think that way. But “lighting up the email” is
> not the primary use of rich text mail. Think of the whole education
> industry, online commerce, in corporate communication. The need for
> rich text email is simply a necessacity.
> 
> Back in 2000, i stopped using emacs rmail, because it simply cannot
> support the corporate need for email. (at the time, it was the lack of
> ability to send receive attachment) In a company, they'll send MS
> Word, diagrams, or whatever that needs to get the point across. Most
> people in a company, are not techies. e.g. human resource department,
> graphics department, etc, sometimes including your manager. You cant
> even begin to tell them “why are you using html with a single line of
> plain text”? Considered on the whole, it's actually good that way
> because for htem to spend days to learn about the technical details,
> is actually a waste of time when the whole company, society, is
> considered. To force everyone in the world to learn about plain text
> vs html mail and when it is right to use which, is a unnecessary
> inefficiency.
> 
> Another personal story: I needed rich text in email in around ~2002
> for my server of “A Word A Day”. (it's a mailing list where i sent out
> a english word a day. See http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Vocabulary_dir/new.html
> ) I need coloring and highlight in the email. I was using Apple's Mail
> program to send out email. At the time, Apple's Mail program does not
> support sending out HTML mail. It has a rtf format based rich text
> instead. However, the rtf formatted mail does not work in yahoo
> groups. So, the effect is that i couldn't do highlighting. I was in a
> mac mailing list at the time (lots of mac fanatics). I discussed
> this... and basically got flamed. (i'm eventually ban'd in the list
> for basically being too controversial)
> But now, Apple Mail support HTML, and ditched its rich-text format for
> email. This essay
> “Plain-Text Email Fetish”
>  http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html
> was originally one of the post there.
> 
> Another story: i have a white american friend, who is a philosopher,
> currently teaching in university. (have several friends who are math
> professors) These peopple usually don't know shit about programing,
> but are nevertheless intelligent and knowledgable. This philosophy
> friend always send me email in html, often with smily icons. I'm like,
> jesus, Paul, what you have a need to fold the whole email or coloring
> parts of it? It annoys me. But i can't really say that to him. It's
> crazy. You can't even begin to tell them what's “wrong”. It's like
> telling your grandma mouse pads not supposed to be coffee mug pads. If
> you actually spend time on these things, you'll have no time to do
> anything other thing in life.
> 
> in terms of modernization, there are many possible improvements with
> emacs. I wouldn't have suggest support html email in rmail since it's
> rather a bigger project and hopeless to convience tech geekers. Nobody
> is actually using rmail for email tese days anyway except a handful of
> geek clique. I myself stopped using any of the classic plain-text
> email programs since early 2000. (pine, rmail, vm, gnus, mutt, unix
> mail) I stopped using them because it just can't do the job anymore,
> despite whatever ideology that email should be plain text. It is my
> guess that most professional programers who grew up with these
> programs, also stopped using them out of necessity.
> 
> if you think this is a good idea, just send a bug report to gnu then.
> In emacs, under the menu “Help‣Send bug report”.
> 
> I'll prob stop discussion this issue.
> 
>   Xah
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
> 
> ☄