[whatwg] Comments to Web Forms 2.0 downloaded 2004-09-18 (HTML email)

[Mikko Rantalainen]

Mattias Waldau wrote:
>  >>>> flame start
> 
> How can you say that "I don't read HTML mail.". A lot of other people do 
> and once email programs get their security act together, probably 
> everyone will.

I don't read HTML mail either. No, the reason isn't that HTML mail is 
insecure or that it increases the amount of spam I get (I get very much 
anyway). I don't read HTML mail because it decreases usability. Every 
HTML mail I've seen looks different; font sizes, color and link styles 
are differ. Plain text mail, on the other hand, looks all the same 
(excluding the fact that some people top-post but that problem still 
remains with HTML mail too).

> All I want is to be able to send a receipt that looks exactly like the 
> webpage, and I cannot see why that should be forbidden.

Use PDF if you want something that looks exactly like something else. If 
the receipt looks like a form and it is rendered in a context that is 
able to contain such form (a HTML page or an email message, for example) 
but it doesn't behave like a form, then it's definately a poor UI.

The receipt I get from local grocery store doesn't look like the 
collection of bar codes from the items I bought. I still believe that 
the very same receipt has some meaninful relation to those items.

-- 
Mikko