HTML Email References : Java Glossary

2008-03-30 by Roedy Green ©1996-2008 Canadian Mind Products
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Email reference

It is a good idea to repeat the email address visibly for people whose browsers don’t support mailto or for people who want to copy/paste the email address into their separate email or database program. It is best to leave out the email: text link if you don’t want bulk harvesters to bombard you with spam. You either should mung the address or show it as a graphic. You can prepare such graphics with Masker.

Rendering Email addresses
Effect	How it Renders	HTML needed
mailto text link	Click to email Roedy Green at myid@mydomain.com
linked graphic	Click to email Roedy Green
embedded graphic	email Roedy Green at	Some browsers (i.e. IE) may not render the transparent background of the email address correctly.
embedded graphic on coloured background	email Roedy Green at	Some Some browsers (i.e. IE) may not render the transparent background of the email address correctly.
public posting in a newsgroup	Roedy Green’s email address is posted at: http://mindprod.com/image/mailto/roedy.png	Roedy Green’s email address is posted at: http://mindprod.com/image/mailto/roedy.png

HTML In Email

Many people use HTML in email. Eudora calls such emails styled. Some call them formatted. Some people love them. Others hate them. Unfortunately no email program I know of will keep track which form each of your correspondents prefer plain or styled, and automatically send them the preferred type.

The arguments against HTML are:

Some people have old browsers that cannot render the HTML in received messages. They see the text interlaced with gibberish.
For people with older email programs such as Outlook 97, the message arrives as an attachment that must be rendered by firing up a browser.
HTML is bulkier. It takes more time to transmit.
Spammers and advertisers love to use HTML, especially images. HTML = spam in many minds. The Pavlovian association blinds them to the legitimate uses of HTML in emails.
There is no proper standard for HTML in emails.

I like HTML myself. The colour, bold, italic and font size, as well as being able to embed an image may my emails much more expressive and personal. HTML is handled with a standard MIME body, just labeled plain/html instead of plain/text. The email program puts this in automatically.

There are a couple of strange email tags you will find only in Eudora HTML email.

CSS
email
HTML 4.01 Specifications: current HTML Standard
HTML Cheat Sheet
mung
Unicode

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