Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 22:18:40 -0500
From: Dave Angel <davea@davea.name>
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Subject: Re: what is wrong with d.clear()?
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On 12/22/2014 09:33 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Dave Angel wrote:
>
>> Or even better:  Don't use html email for forum messages.  It frequently
>> messes up the colors, the font, the formatting (like indentation), or
>> even prevents some people from even seeing and/or replying to the
>> message.  Put the email program in text mode, and just send what you
>> want people to see.
>
>
> I agree, but alas the horse has bolted and the idiots have taken over.
>
> We cannot stop the great mass of people sending HTML mail, but there is no
> reason why we have to *read* HTML email. Even today, most mail clients will
> send a plain text part that contains the same content as the HTML part, and
> any decent mail client can be set to prefer the plain text part in
> preference to rendering the HTML.
>
> For those few cases where there is no plain text part[1], the better mail
> clients (such as mutt) will include an option to dump the raw HTML to plain
> text, minus all the tags.
>
> Last but not least, for the *vanishingly small* number of cases that has no
> plain text part, and the formatting of the text dump is unreadable, or
> where the formatting of the HTML is actually essential to understanding the
> post, then you have a choice of pressing Delete on the message or rendering
> the HTML. But rendering HTML should never be the default.
>
>
>
>
> [1] Or worse, one of those shitty messages that include a plain text part
> that says "Your mail program cannot read this email. Please upgrade to a
> better mail program."
>
>

I have set my regular email program (Thunderbird) to text only for 
years.  But many times the conversion done by the sender's dumb email 
makes his message look good to him, and mine like garbage, with messed 
up indentation, modified characters, and so on.

Further, I really tried to use a tablet, with a newsreader that is 
slowly changing to my wishes.  But I've given up for a few months, and 
only check messages when my notebook compuater (with Thunderbird) is 
available.

Sometime in the hopefully near future, I'll try an Android newsreader 
again, but reading html and responding when there's no quoting was just 
too painful.

-- 
DaveA