[plug] GUI vs text mail readers

[Leon Brooks]

billk at iinet.net.au wrote:
> At risk of prolonging the thread, this mail list is the only one I am
> subscribed to that enforces plain ASCII mail.

Uh, PLUG doesn't enforce, as such, but demands stridently. A
homeschooling list I am on has many denizens who prefer text - and say
so. Hyperlinks and such are usually picked out of the text by graphical
clients anyway.

Matt could _enforce_ plain text by feeding HTML mail through "lynx
-dump" without too much effort, if it is required. Actually, I haven't
checked to see how Tony B-T's mail archiver deals with HTML.

> Other members of my family use email to communicate which includes
> embedded diagrams/pictures in text, and like to read mail as the
> sender intended (formatted etc).

Attach a gzipped postscript file. It's smaller thn PDF, not proprietary,
the Windows PDF viewers will handle it, and Unix machines are riotously
happy about it. Looks very professional, too.

> Plain ascii just does not cut it except in limited
> circumstances, with the average non-tech user wanting the bells and
> whistles.

Abusing the bells and whistles with a free hand, more often.

> And food for though[t] for those who object to html mail in all
> circumstances - if you have to deal with non-tech management
> regularly, and you send ascii only, and your peers use full
> featured documents (ok, this mostly occurs in M$ environ[ment]s),
> who APPEARS competa[^He]nt, and ["]with it["] to such management?
> - are you willing to bet your carr[^H]eer on being a dinosaur?

_And_ they usually come with spellcheckers... (-:

Actually, the gonzo shipping 20MB PowerDisappoint files around looks
competent - until one of said managers has to pull 20MB down through his
modem at home to his laptop, only to discover that he has the wrong
version of PowerDisappoint - and when that's fixed, he's missing a
critical font...

-- 
If life is merely a joke, the question remains: for whose amusement?