Talk:HTML email

Languages

I'm not too familiar with foreign language encodings and such, but apparently. using HTML to encode languages like Japanese is easier and preferred, though I imagine there is a way to send non-ASCII in the original plain text specs? — Omegatron 13:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting, implementation

It should explain how quoting is often ruined by the fixed width of text/plain, like:

> > First message here and it g
oes
> > on to the next line and the
n
> > goes onto the next line, to
o.

> Then a reply is here and it 
> goes onto the next line and 
> then goes onto the next line,
> too.

Then another reply here and 
going onto the next line and 
another line here.

and how HTML handles this with blockquote tags and regular wrapping text. I can't find the conventions or standards behind plain text email, but it seems that the 78 character horizontal limit was set by RFC 2822, to ensure that plain text shows up the same way on different terminals. I have seen a number of other limits proposed, though, from 60 to 80 characters, so I don't know if there are fights about this, too, or what. I assume that they allow for the addition of some quoting > signs, but probably also assume that the writer will be "netiquettely" and only quote the last message. Of course this is a wild assumption, in emails this is not the case, and often on newsgroups, so we get the bad wrapping thing. Also screws up ASCII art, etc. HTML Threading: Conventions for use of HTML in email discusses using semantic blockquote markup to indicate the author of each snippet of text, so that email clients can display email threads efficiently. I have a feeling gmail takes advantage of this for conversation view, but maybe not.

Using HTML in E-mail explains some of the technical aspects of how messages with inline content are coded, which we should include. — Omegatron 04:45, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]