Bill, this is the current standard for email software. I don't think you
will be able to control everyone changing the default to your preferences.
It is not even clear that I *can* change the default in Eudora 4.3.2 (Paid
Mode). I just looked in the help system and found what looks like relevant
information under "Styled Text Option". Following instructions there, I
went to Tools > Options, selected Styled Text, and clicked "send plain text
only". I then sent a message with quoted text to myself; it appears with a
gray bar to the left of quoted text instead of > marks, and that tells me
that HTML is still being used to "style" quoted text. I exited Eudora,
re-started it, and repeated the experiment; same result. See below:
There's no HTML in your example. It displays as plain text on my Mac
(using Eudora Light 3.1, which is free). I suspect that the gray bars you
see are your version of Eudora's interpretation of the ">" marks when
displaying the incoming message. The message itself is plain text. If you
click the BLAHBLAHBLAH button at the top of the Eudora message window it
should display it as such.
As for standards, the situation is this:
All mailers are capable of sending in plain text only.
Plain text is the only format that is understood by all mailers.
And besides, plain text is *traditional*.
-- Richard Kennaway, jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk, http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/
School of Information Systems, Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K.
Looks like I can't send HTML even if I try. (Not even the "blah blah"
button for verbose display shows it.)
Since none of us can send HTML, the question becomes, how is that Bill gets
e-mail from CSGnet in HTML format? I sense a conspiracy. It wouldn't
surprise me one bit if the EAB people were behind it.
OK, I stand happily corrected. I'm not sending HTML, and the only people who have to do anything to help Bill out are those who are sending HTML.
That lovely little announcement from Ltd of "The new model & application of THERMOMETER" is an HTML-formatted message. Bill, maybe your 2-column email printing program only has to look at the start of the message body for
<x-html>
<html>
It can dump output someplace else until it reaches
</html>
</x-html>
at the end of the message. You could then strip the HTML, interpret it, throw it away with a log of who sent it and the date, whatever you like. The program would have to be able to back up to the first email header field at the start of that message. It would take some effort, but convenience can be inconvenient to arrange.
Looks like I can't send HTML even if I try. (Not even the "blah blah" button for verbose display shows it.)
The tags were x-html and html at the beginning (each in angle brackets), and
/x-html and /html at the end of the message. Trying again:
Bruce Nevin (2001.01.10 11:40 EST)--
···
At 11:40 AM 01/10/2001 -0800, Bruce Nevin wrote:
Bill, maybe your 2-column email printing program only has to look at the start of the message body for
x-html and html in angle brackets
It can dump output someplace else until it reaches
My older versions of Eudora displayed Bruce N.'s message supposedly with the
stripe (I know what this looks like) as carrots, so it was O.K.
Bruce Gregory (2001.0110.1304)]
Bruce Nevin (2001.01.10 12:41 EST)
Looks like I can't send HTML even if I try. (Not even the "blah blah"
button for verbose display shows it.)
Since none of us can send HTML, the question becomes, how is that Bill gets
e-mail from CSGnet in HTML format? I sense a conspiracy. It wouldn't
surprise me one bit if the EAB people were behind it.
My older versions of Eudora displayed Bruce N.'s message supposedly with the
stripe (I know what this looks like) as carrots, so it was O.K.
Good Lord!! Your problem is even worse than mine! If you don't fix this
problem immediately, you're going to find your mail full of not just
carrots, but lettuce and cucumbers, and worst of all, zucchini. At least my
Eudora shows quoted text as preceded by carets, so I suppose I should be
thankful for that much.
Best,
Bill P.
···
Bruce Gregory (2001.0110.1304)]
Bruce Nevin (2001.01.10 12:41 EST)
Looks like I can't send HTML even if I try. (Not even the "blah blah"
button for verbose display shows it.)
Since none of us can send HTML, the question becomes, how is that Bill gets
e-mail from CSGnet in HTML format? I sense a conspiracy. It wouldn't
surprise me one bit if the EAB people were behind it.
Looks like I can't send HTML even if I try. (Not even the "blah blah"
button for verbose display shows it.)
In the first version where you actually used the angle brackets, the last
sentence I received was the one just preceding it. Nothing else of the post
came through at all. This is not the sort of thing I receive (as you can
tell from that sample I dumped on you).
This is not the sort of thing I receive (as you can
tell from that sample I dumped on you).
Actually, that all displayed just fine. I hope that was clear from the
comments on experiments that I sent back.
How frustrating. Clearly, you're using an HTML interpreter to read what I
sent. Try looking at it with an ASCII editor, like EDIT (in DOS, just type
"Edit <filename>"). Or go to DOS and just List it. Or try to print it by
"copy <filename> PRN". Then you'll see what I see.
By the way, what is "notetab?" I don't find it in my Eudora 3.06. Is it a
feature of a later version?
I would guess that what may have happened is that Microsoft's Outlook
mailer was used without setting the text format to 'plain'. MS sends it out
with an html default. Other MS mail clients can read it but it is not a
standard and comes over as florid html in other systems.
It is best to set Outlook to send plain text when sending to a listserver.
b.
···
[From Bill Powers (2001.01.10.1940 MST)]
Bruce Nevin (2001.01.10 19:26 EST)--
This is not the sort of thing I receive (as you can
tell from that sample I dumped on you).
Actually, that all displayed just fine. I hope that was clear from the
comments on experiments that I sent back.
How frustrating. Clearly, you're using an HTML interpreter to read what I
sent. Try looking at it with an ASCII editor, like EDIT (in DOS, just type
"Edit <filename>"). Or go to DOS and just List it. Or try to print it by
"copy <filename> PRN". Then you'll see what I see.
By the way, what is "notetab?" I don't find it in my Eudora 3.06. Is it a
feature of a later version?
Try looking at it with an ASCII editor, like EDIT (in DOS, just type
"Edit <filename>").
I did just that. HTML is just ASCII, no control characters, so any ASCII display should just show the HTML code. I just opened it with EDIT in a DOS box.
By the way, what is "notetab?" I don't find it in my Eudora 3.06. Is it a
feature of a later version?
I would guess that what may have happened is that Microsoft's Outlook
mailer was used without setting the text format to 'plain'. MS sends it out
with an html default.
In my examination I found two Microsoft products identified in email headers where HTML followed:
Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service
Microsoft Outlook Express
Sounds like part of Microsoft's strategy to pretend that all the internet was part of their product -- which introduced all those lovely security problems that are exploited by all those lovely viruses and worms.
Other MS mail clients can read it but it is not a
standard and comes over as florid html in other systems.
Eudora 4.3 and later reads it fine. (Maybe earlier versions, but 4.3 is the earliest I know about.)
Try looking at it with an ASCII editor, like EDIT (in DOS, just type
"Edit <filename>").
I did just that. HTML is just ASCII, no control characters, so any ASCII
display should just show the HTML code. I just opened it with EDIT in a DOS
box.
Are you saying that you looked with EDIT at the file I sent you and saw no
HTML markup commands? When I looked at the very same file before sending it
to you, it was chock full of such HTML codes. Printing it out simply
printed those codes, plus whatever text there was. I'm at a total loss now.
Are you saying that you looked with EDIT at the file I sent you and saw no
HTML markup commands? When I looked at the very same file before sending it
to you, it was chock full of such HTML codes. Printing it out simply
printed those codes, plus whatever text there was. I'm at a total loss now.
I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you said that you got null where text should have been. No, that's exactly what I saw.
A filter to strip HTML markup leaving formatted text should not be hard to write. But a quick google.com search turned up this one ready made:
It's all moot now; I've disabled the batch file that prints out the .mbx
file when Mary calls for it over our LAN (Linksys Phoneline
Network-in-a-box, which works perfectly at 1 megabit per sec from the
laptop, 10 Mbps between desktops). Now she will just get a copy of the .mbx
file in her Eudora, with the .toc file needed as an index. This won't solve
the "reply" problem, but maybe I'll just get a later version of Eudora Lite
(or something else, suggestions welcome) that doesn't have the problem. Can
Pegasus import existing Eudora files? Never mind -- let's not drag this on.
Thanks to everyone for devoting all the thought to my problem.