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

[Xah <xahlee@gmail.com>]

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transmission protocol knowledge is not outdated, then email is still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.

Arguably, another format, such as rich text that is espoused by Apple
computer's email progrm ( ~2002 to ~2006 and no support for html
mail), is a better tech than HTML for rich text in email. But for
whatever social reasons it didn't catch on. Html is the de facto
standard today for rich text in email.

I wrote a essay back in 2002 detailing my thoughts on this:

Plain-Text Email Fetish
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/plain_text.html

Also, as i mentioned before, tools used by tech geekers usually have 5
or more so years lagging in catching up with any tech that are being
adapted in the commercial world. For example, HTML email has basically
became the standard in Microsoft since maybe 2002?, and html is widely
supported or in fact default format for commercial web based service
provider since many years ago too.

Emacs's rmail, should adopt the ability to send HTML mail. It is my
guess, that it will adopt it eventually. The question is just how many
more years later?

convenient Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_e-mail


  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄