OT: HTML and email styles (was Re: Detecting End-of-File using READLINE command)

[Fairlight]

About time for a subject change after most of this has gone under a false
pretense for a day now.

With neither thought nor caution, George Simon blurted:
> So, I did not do anything different from the message I posted yesterday
> about html quoting and today, except that I specifically told Outlook not to
> use Word as the editor.  So it has nothing to do with html or plain text

I told you about not using Word as the editor several months ago when we
went through this.  In one ear, out the other, I can only assume.  If you
use Outlook's built-in editor and select the quoting, it works fine.

> because I have always had the setting on Outlook to use plain text.   Maybe
> Word changes the plain text default to html, I don't know.

Well what format are you saving out in from Word?  That should tell you
right there.

> Unfortunately, I must use Word as my editor (company rules), so unless I go
> into the defaults and change the settings each time I post to the list... I
> guess I won't be doing much posting.

And they would know...how?  It's not like it's stamped in the headers
which editor was used to compose the message.  Only the MUA itself is
denoted.  If they have the time and resources to audit every system's
default settings on a regular basis, tell your IT department to save their
wasted money and just mail it to me, okay?

> As far as top posting, I find it much easier to read a message that is top
> posted than to have to scroll all the way down to read what the poster has
> to say.  Especially when it is a long post.

They invented scrollbars, PgUp, and PgDn for a reason.  This is like
complaining that you have to drive all the way to the grocery store to get
ingredients for dinner.  It's silly.

> Just wondering again here but, if top-posting is such a no-no, why does
> Outlook default to that method?  I find no way of changing that, except to
> scroll all the way to the end of the message.  It's OK on short messages but
> when the original message is written by someone like Lujak, that can take
> several minutes, especially if there are responses!

Luljak.  But don't worry, at least you were in the neighborhood.  You
should see some of the spellings I've seen.  Someone actually managed to
spell it "bastard", but I don't think that was a spelling error.  :)  It's
far easier to just use my nickname, honestly.   I'd legally change my name,
but the paperwork is hell.

And Outlook defaults to that because they put the cursor at the top of the
textarea widget instead of at the bottom.  It's as simple as that.  If you
start editing a file in vi, it starts at the top of the file (barring a
variant like vim that can keep track of the last edited line and put you
right there next time in) as well, but that doesn't stop people from moving
the cursor, George.  Cursor movement has been around for decades.  In all
your years using M$' GUI applications, I find it hard to believe you missed
the single keystroke CTRL-END that puts you right at the end of a document
in an instant.  It really isn't difficult, nor is it new.  It's been
present as a relative standard since the DOS 'EDIT' days.  Works fine here
in Word 97.

> As a parting note, I've received several private messages on this subject.
> Here is one of them, without revealing the identity of the sender, which is
> representative of most of the others:
> 
> "George, I've been happy reading your emails all along. I'm sick of the
> whining about HTML. It's  a shame they live in there own tiny world.
> 
> filePro as a major data base engine is disappearing out of the market place
> faster than "D"  batteries @ Home Depot with a Hurricane coming. Its a
> shame, I am starting to see where they are a dead end street."

filePro itself has nothing to do with email nettiquette or style.  Tieing
the company and product together with the email-based behaviour of some of
the community is just plain silly, no matter the behaviour in question.
That's like saying SCO took the direction it did because back in '93 I was
young, immature, and hotheaded enough to lambast them repeatedly on USENET.
Sorry, doesn't work that way.

And they can be sick about us whining about HTML all they like.  Apparently
their -own- small world doesn't encompass USENET, which consists of over
52000 newsgroups, and which claims as one of its basic nettiquette policies
that posts should be made ONLY in plaintext unless you're posting a binary
to a *.binaries group.  We're -gentle- here compared to what you'll get on
USENET if you post in HTML, depending in which group you're brazen enough
to flout the policy.  I've seen some people put down -really- hard and
fast.  We're at least still bothering to read your posts here, George, and
even respond.  Consider yourself fortunate in that, and be content--because
it likely won't get much better.

> The fact is John, that 90% of the world loves HTML.  People in general love
> to attach pictures, use fancy fonts, use emoticons, etc., etc, in their
> emails.  Preferring plain-text to HTML is like preferring black and white TV
> to color.  I guess some people do, but I prefer color.
> See you around.

95% of all statistics are made up.  "Fact" is a wee might strong a term to
stamp on that, to boot.  So is "loves".  And of those that tolerate-to-like
HTML, nobody that has seen the internal results and has a clue likes the
HTML generated by M$ products, which is usually guaranteed to be bloated
by up to 93%.  I've literally worked on a 23K HTML document generated by
FrontPage, and when stripped of all the crap that wasn't needed in order to
gain the same appearance (adding nothing as an alternative...just trimming
cruft), got the filesize down to 1.7K.

HTML, all told, is actually a really -crappy- standard to rely on for
formatting.  I can only assume you haven't dealt with the internals of it
very extensively, and only use it from the user-end side of a GUI
application.  Your arguments seem to indicate this, anyway.

As for pictures, fonts, emoticons, etc., sure--that stuff is greatly adored
by 16yr olds who have no concept of what a disk quota is or why it's
impolite to bombard someone with a 2.7MB email.  

Emoticons are an attempt by newcomer developers to "polish" something
that's been done more adequately in plaintext for decades (and frankly,
usually look like hell in graphical form and are more ambiguous half the
time).  It was yet another attempt to keep the masses from having to think.

I can see the occasional need to send a picture as a supplemental
attachment (say, as a clarification for a technical specification), but I
surely don't want it inline as an OLE-type thing.

And font portability is a huge Pandora's Box you don't even want to open.
Read any decent documentation on cascading style sheets for HTML or GUI
design theory, and realise that 1) not every system even -has- the same
fonts installed, 2) fonts render (and may also be named) differently
between say, Mac, Windows, and X-Windows, and are just a really Bad Idea
to hardwire because you can't guarantee how it will actually look on the
receiving side on non-identical systems.  This is one reason locking
fonts and font sizes on web sites is a bad idea that surpasses annoying.
I've seen them set so small that sites are wholly unreadable without a
magnifying glass, and my vision isn't perfect but it's not THAT bad.
But hardwiring things like that leaves someone no room to alter it with
the text size settings on the local end.  Add to that the facts that
some people are colour blind, some have other vision problems, and you
don't have to strain to read plain old console Courier like you would the
proportional fonts with really poor kerning, and changing fonts becomes
even less useful and appealing.

In short, anyone that's even cursorily read anything about either web site
or GUI program design -should- know that hardcoding fonts isn't wise.  If
they don't, they should do a little research.  Very little is needed to get
the idea.

What it comes down to is that when you send something to a non-private
forum, you're subject to a set of guidelines, conventions, and even hard
and fast rules.  Even -I've- had to bow to some of those, and I think it's
well-established just how anti-conformist I am.  Those of you who persist
in defending your views are welcome to do so.  Whether anyone will bother
to read them if they're couched in odd non-plaintext formats is entirely
another story.  You're not going to change a few decades of historically
based tenets of online behaviour though, no matter how hard you try.
People will continue to complain until you comply or depart, most likely.
And you're making this (and other) resource(es) less valuable to yourself
in the process by not playing by established guidelines, when some to many
may just start dismissing you out of hand, having tired of the whole thing.
I've been down that road personally, and I can tell you it's not worth
bucking the system in the end.

You may prefer your colour telly to black and white, George, but they don't
even let you bring Walkman's into the classroom--much less a TV of -any-
flavour.  IOW, it's a case of decorum; flout it to your own detriment.
It's your choice, and potentially your loss.

And if you don't get it after this, then it's no use continuing to try and
help you and I'm out of the discussion.  I've already said my piece.

Bests,

mark->
-- 
Bring the web-enabling power of OneGate to -your- filePro applications today!

Try the live filePro-based, OneGate-enabled demo at the following URL:
               http://www2.onnik.com/~fairlite/flfssindex.html