Mark Sapiro sent the message below at 07:55 AM 10/28/2006:

Jon Loose wrote:

...

The ideal would be a single HTML message which combines all of the HTML/plain messages that have been sent to the list, with attachments aggregated and placed at the end of the combined message. This is something quite different than mailman does already - but I felt it was worth raising.

An alternative might be a combination of the current Mime/Plain options, with a single text containing all the messages, with Mime attachments at the bottom for any attachments to the original messages.

I personally wouldn't find either of these options appealing. I hate receiving HTML email. Additionally, all my lists allow only plain text so there would be little advantage to an HTML digest (you could specify color or font for message separators to make them stand out).

With either option, you don't have the ability to directly reply to individual messages from your MUA as you do with the current MIME digest. You have to edit the subject and body of the reply, at least if you want it to be coherent, and you lose threading information for the archives.

I also think that having attachments referenced by hyperlink that I can choose to visit or not as in the current plain digest is preferable to attaching them all at the end of the digest where I have to download them whether I want them or not, and where I might have difficulty knowing which attachments go with which message.

In short, it's a request that I wouldn't put any effort into implementing unless there was overwhelming demand for it. ---------------- End original message. ---------------------

I'm in agreement with Mark here. I find this whole idea horrifying. HTML is for web pages, not e-mail.

Friends don't let friends do HTML e-mail.

Dragon

  Venimus, Saltavimus, Bibimus (et naribus canium capti sumus)

At 7:55 AM -0700 10/28/06, Mark Sapiro wrote:

In short, it's a request that I wouldn't put any effort into implementing unless there was overwhelming demand for it.

There's a much more basic problem -- you'd have to parse the MIME/HTML bodyparts of each of the messages being submitted, convert them to some sort of canonical form, and then wrap them in a larger MIME/HTML message. It's hard enough to understand the formatting used by a single MUA, it's quite another to have to be able to understand the formatting used by all MUAs.

You might be able to get say 70-80% of the way there with a single MUA, but I don't think you could hope to achieve even 50% success with a wide variety of MUAs.

I would not be at all surprised if it's basically impossible to perform this task, at least to any kind of moderately adequate level.

This is the equivalent of being able to write a program that can understand all spoken/written human languages, convert them to a single canonical form, and then put them all together into a single volume.

I don't know if you've ever seen Babelfish or other automated translation tools, but let's just say that, even on their best day, they are only barely adequate for the simplest of translations between the most common of languages. You wouldn't want to try to run the United Nations using such tools.

-- Brad Knowles, <brad@shub-internet.org>

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