Re: AOL 6.0 and HTML mail

[Gurth <Gurth@xxxxxxxxx>]

According to CamaroGen1@aol.com, on Sun, 14 Oct 2001 the word on the street was...

> i will just stop posting then, as i have been on this list over a year,
> and people have just now started complaining about this thing called
> HTML, and i have no idea what you are talking about,

HTML is the "language" used to create World Wide Web pages with -- basically, it 
consists of tags inserted into the text, so that the text becomes bold, or 
italic, or to insert an image into the page, and so on. A few years ago, some 
mailers started using HTML in e-mails as well, as this allows you to do stuff 
like different fonts, bolt text, etc. in the e-mail you send.

The main problem with this is that many mailers are _not_ HTML-compatible[1], so 
those will have trouble displaying the message. Exactly what they do with it will 
vary, but many will simply display the raw contents of the post, so the recipient 
gets to view text with lots of codes in it, making it hard to read.

A second problem is that HTML-mailers tend to send two messages in one: one with 
the HTML formatting to make it look nice, and another with all the formatting 
removed. In short, they're wasting bandwidth by saying the same thing twice (it's 
a bit like faxing someone and then phoning them to say the exact same things you 
put into your fax), and the non-HTML version of the message is often only barely 
readable as well :(

[1] The reason being that HTML is not a standard for e-mail, so there is no 
requirement to be compatible with it.

> and no one has been able to tell me what to change......  as i have NOT changed
> anything with my email, nor would i know how if i wanted to.

See Steve Long's post, with my notes on it following below.

> i guess i'll just be a lurker..

No need to be that drastic; there are some fixes for this, but they do require a 
little effort on your part.


According to SteveL1979@aol.com, on Sun, 14 Oct 2001 the word on the street was...

> On this issue, the following was posted on another ML that I'm on. I
> haven't tried the method suggested, since I have AOL 5 and haven't
> switched, but it may help some of you.
[snip suggestions]

Apparently, it's not that easy. On the ShadowRN list, someone who kept posting 
HTML as well discovered he had to do steps 3 and 4 twice to get rid of the 
formatting, IIRC.

The easiest solution appears to be to install AOL 5, as that can live happily 
next to AOL 6, and use that instead. However, IMHO you may be better off 
installing a real mailer (say, Pegasus or Eudora) and taking up Jeff's offer of a 
POP3 account on millenniumsend.com.

-- 
Gurth@xs4all.nl        -        http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
  If only it were almost easy.
->       NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso        <-
->     The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com      <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L++ E W-(++) N o? K w+(--) O V? 
PS+ PE(-)(+) Y PGP- t@ 5++ X(+) R+++(-)>$ tv+ b++@ DI- D+ G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998