kmail: sending/receiving messages in HTML

[Jesper Juhl]

Benjamin Lee Solosy wrote:
 
> P.S.  Overall, I remain impressed that there seems to be so much
> resistance to
> HTML e-mail.  (In many cases, the biggest annoyance for many seems to be
> ~undesired HTML messages~ (i.e., spam), rather than HTML messages per se.
> But there are, of course, others who simply dislike HTML messages
> altogether,
> even from friends.)  Oh well, we all seem to have our individual
> preferences. Fortunately, we have a very wide variety of choices available
> to suit our diverse wishes.
> 
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I can give you my reasons for
disliking HTML mails.

1) I access my emails from a lot of different places; at work, from home,
sometimes when visiting friends - depending on where I am and what sort of
connection I am able to establish I use various different email clients and
sometimes I use a shell and sometimes a GUI to read mail. Not all of the
mail-readers I use are equally well suited for HTML mail, so I prefer plain
text as I can read that everywhere.

2) HTML mails are usually bigger than plain text mails due to the
formatting. This means it takes up more space in my mailbox and, it takes
longer to retrieve (especially when I'm reading mail from my handheld
computer over a 9600baud modem).

3) I find it easier to read mails written in plain text than HTML mails.
When people use HTML to change font type, size, etc my eyes have to adjust.
Some people overdo the formatting and make huge font changes or change the
color of the text which makes the mail very annoying to read. Even mails
where the changes to formatting are small can be irritating - maybe it's
just me, but I prefer a single font with the same size, color, typeface etc
for the *entire* text.

4) Some mail clients have a bad habbit of pulling in external content linked
to in the HTML mail without asking. I don't want to have to worry about
this and be forced to check all configuration options to make sure this
does not happen every time I use a new mail client.

5) Not all email clients generate identical (some don't even generate
entirely *valid*) HTML. This means that even if my email client can display
HTML mails I can't be sure it can read *all* HTML mails that people may
send me. Plain text does not have this problem.


> [For the record:  I prefer HTML for sending and receiving messages, simply
> because it is more expressive.  (More can be done with HTML than without
> it.)
Yes, more can be done with HTML, but in the case of email I am the oppinion
that less is more.


/Jesper Juhl

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