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Designing a modern email

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Re: Designing a modern email

#61

Post by FireBeyond »

joshuacc wrote: post #40

And once again, the anti-HTML zealots are out in force, declaring that just because they don't like HTML email, no one else should be permitted to receive HTML email. A counterpoint: I subscribe to several HTML newsletters, and the fact that they are in HTML is a huge advantage to me. It means that JavaScript Weekly (Peter Cooper's newsletter) isn't just a mass of URLs. And it means that I can quickly preview the new…

Kinda impressive how many zealots, near-luddites HN has - I think some of the opinions on this topic are more passionate than OS or editor wars.

Re: Designing a modern email

#62

Post by nivla »

acuozzo wrote: post #49
nivla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? How do you account for broken links due to message truncate or unicode rendering? What about aligning various sections of the message? Controlling the font size of header, body and footer? HTML has as much history in emails as it does in the web. Taking HTML out of email is as hard as trying to take the Smart Phone out o…

> Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? Yes, I do. > How do you account for broken links due to message truncate or unicode rendering? I've never encountered a broken hyperlink due to message truncation or Unicode rendering. My terminal emulator is set to use the UTF-8 character-set. Please provide an example or demonstration of this. > What about aligning v…

>Please provide an example or demonstration of this.

There are two limits that this standard places on the number of characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than 998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding the CRLF. [1]

>What kind of alignment are you referring to here?

>Controlling the font size of header, body and footer?

I am talking about visual separations within the message. In pure text, everything carries the same weight, same font and same color. From the link of the site in the header to the unsubscribe at the bottom gets prominently displayed to you.

>Incorrect.

Well I couldn't find any reliable information to counter that. However as far I can remember, HTML emails have existed in the early days of Hotmail and Yahoo.

[1]http://mailformat.dan.info/body/linelength.html

Re: Designing a modern email

#63

Post by subsection1h »

FireBeyond wrote: post #61
joshuacc wrote: post #40

And once again, the anti-HTML zealots are out in force, declaring that just because they don't like HTML email, no one else should be permitted to receive HTML email. A counterpoint: I subscribe to several HTML newsletters, and the fact that they are in HTML is a huge advantage to me. It means that JavaScript Weekly (Peter Cooper's newsletter) isn't just a mass of URLs. And it means that I can quickly preview the new…

Kinda impressive how many zealots, near-luddites HN has - I think some of the opinions on this topic are more passionate than OS or editor wars.

    Kinda impressive how many zealots, near-luddites HN
Disliking HTML email makes someone a near-Luddite?

Re: Designing a modern email

#64

Post by subsection1h »

nivla wrote: post #30
acuozzo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I read the entire post from beginning to end. I still wholeheartedly believe that nobody wants e-mails like this. Yes, I'm speaking in absolutes and yes, I don't give a damn. > If you don't want them, it doesn't mean nobody does. Correct. I chose to speak in absolutes to make a point. > There's also an unsubscribe link at the bottom. That's wonderful, but I'm pretty sure the terminal emulator I'm running Alpine…

Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? How do you account for broken links due to message truncate or unicode rendering? What about aligning various sections of the message? Controlling the font size of header, body and footer? HTML has as much history in emails as it does in the web. Taking HTML out of email is as hard as trying to take the Smart Phone out o…

    Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to
    copy-paste confirmation and password reset links?
You've seriously never used an email client that makes plain text URIs clickable?

Re: Designing a modern email

#65

Post by 3825 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #19
3825 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like plain text as well but I dislike the fact that it looks so ugly. Why do we need to insert line break at 72 (or something) characters? Can't we wrap text emails?

There's an RFC that nobody uses for rich-text e-mails. [edit] found it! http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1523

Perhaps I need to think about what I don't like about html-formatted emails. I can't really put my finger on anything. I am not against html when I think about it. It just feels like it is not the right tool for the job. (I know I am doing a pretty poor job at explaining myself. Sorry!)

Re: Designing a modern email

#66

Post by nivla »

subsection1h wrote: post #64
nivla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? How do you account for broken links due to message truncate or unicode rendering? What about aligning various sections of the message? Controlling the font size of header, body and footer? HTML has as much history in emails as it does in the web. Taking HTML out of email is as hard as trying to take the Smart Phone out o…

Curious, without HTML do you expect everyone to copy-paste confirmation and password reset links? You've seriously never used an email client that makes plain text URIs clickable?

To be honest, I have never paid attention to it. However, I believe its not in the standard or RFC to automatically convert http:// and mailto:// text into clickable links. Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if there are email client that doesn't support it.

Re: Designing a modern email

#67

Post by efedorenko »

Demiurge wrote: post #51
dsabanin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication can include colors, images and videos. I don't see any reason why these can't or shouldn't be available inside an email. The more ways you have to convey the information, the better, imo.

Why do you think so many books don't use colors, images and other ways to convey information? Why do you think comments on this website don't let you use colors, images and videos?

Colors and images were used long before text to convey information. Then they were used together with text (see first books). Using just text without colors and images is a relatively new invention caused by technical limitations, and it didn't last long.

Re: Designing a modern email

#68

Post by FireBeyond »

subsection1h wrote: post #63
FireBeyond wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda impressive how many zealots, near-luddites HN has - I think some of the opinions on this topic are more passionate than OS or editor wars.

Kinda impressive how many zealots, near-luddites HN Disliking HTML email makes someone a near-Luddite?

No - not at all, but making absolutist claims about it, and about how no-one should have to "endure" it, does - and there are multiple comments of that nature in this thread.

Re: Designing a modern email

#69

Post by Groxx »

joshuacc wrote: post #40

And once again, the anti-HTML zealots are out in force, declaring that just because they don't like HTML email, no one else should be permitted to receive HTML email. A counterpoint: I subscribe to several HTML newsletters, and the fact that they are in HTML is a huge advantage to me. It means that JavaScript Weekly (Peter Cooper's newsletter) isn't just a mass of URLs. And it means that I can quickly preview the new…

Or just send multipart emails. Best of both worlds (except bandwidth).

Re: Designing a modern email

#70

Post by aidenn0 »

3825 wrote: post #65
aidenn0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an RFC that nobody uses for rich-text e-mails. [edit] found it! http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1523

Perhaps I need to think about what I don't like about html-formatted emails. I can't really put my finger on anything. I am not against html when I think about it. It just feels like it is not the right tool for the job. (I know I am doing a pretty poor job at explaining myself. Sorry!)

I don't like them either, for the exact same reason!
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