In message , Mayayana
writes:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| If you add an inline image that is HTML. If you
|
| No.
|

Then maybe that's why your recipients get an
attachments. You can't do an inline image in plain text.
The image code is HTML.

No. I've just checked the raw code of such an email, and the
four-character string "HTML" is nowhere in it. Sure, the sections are
delimited by separator sections, beginning with "Content-Type:". What
follows that is either "text/plain:charset=..." or (for this example)
"image/jpeg".

| True, there will be a boundary string before and after any embedded
| attachment (image or otherwise). But I can send an email that goes
|
| text
| attachment
| more text
|
I've never seen that, but I guess there's no reason it
won't work. A plain text setting in the receiving client
will look for Content-Type of text/plain and a client set
to read HTML will look for text/html. I don't think it
matters where those are.

But most modern clients won't be able to display the second or
subsequent text blocks as part of the email, after either the image or a
clickable icon for the attachment.

| If you give me an email address (use a throwaway one if you're
| paranoid), I'll send you an example.

We've corresponded before. I wrote to you this
morning. (Or more like mid-afternoon your time.)

I've replied. (I don't think I'd kept your email from last time.)

| No, I've looked at (even edited, occasionally) the raw data form of
| emails, and there's no HTML - or any other tag - in them.

If the section is marked with Contet-Type text/html
then it's HTML. Otherwise it's not. But HTML can be some

Of course, if it says it's HTML, then it is. But there doesn't have to
be any HTML at all.

weird stuff. for instance, email sent from MS Word
typically includes all sorts of nonsense, made-up
tags starting with "mso-" that only mean something
if the recipient uses Outlook.

Indeed. Similar to how Word is atrocious at HTML. (Try this:

HTML
HEAD/HEAD
BODY
FONT COLOR=redsome red text/FONTBR
FONY COLOR=yellowsome yellow text/FONT
/BODY
HTML

Save that as e. g. sample.htm, load it into Word, save it "as HTML", and
be amazed at the size of the result. (Then look at it in Notepad and see
why it's so huge.)

| Well, that's a dual-part email, since you included the plain text "for
| non-html readers" as well. (I'm pretty sure I've seen emails without the
| plain text version, i. e. HTML only.)

I get those occasionally. Mostly commercial
or spammy stuff. It's common courtesy to at
least include a text section that says something
like, "This email needs to be viewed as HTML",
to help people who see a blank email. But that's

I get that from one retailer (7dayshop) where the text part says "our
emails look better in HTML", or something like that - not "needs to be
viewed in", which infuriates me. (Of _course_ they'll "look better" in
HTML if the text part doesn't contain anything but that line!)

become less common as 1) email is more often
commercial and 2) senders more often assume
the recipient is reading it as webmail.

It started out plain text. Then HTML was added.
Both were sent to accomodate people who couldn't
read HTML. Then HTML was phased out because
it's risky. Then webmail became popular and that

Well, it doesn't have to be risky: my client is quite happy to display
the HTML part, but only interprets the formatting part of HTML, not any
code. (Well, I'm not sure if it displays embedded images; it's so long
since I got an HTML email that actually had images in it rather than
links to the online versions.) Since it doesn't run any script, it's
perfectly safe. But I suspect most emailers use something high-level so
don't know if they're relying on script (almost certainly don't even
know what script is), so they often break.

caused a resurgence of HTML, as more and more
people didn't even use real email clients.

Last week I was working for someone who does
software bug testing. She was complaining about
the ads she gets in her yahoo email. I asked her
why she didn't set it up for POP3 in a real email
program and why she didn't use at least a basic
HOSTS file. She'd never heard of either! I asked her
what she used to use for email before yahoo and
hotmail. She didn't remember.

I'm not at all surprised. I think webmail is used by by far the majority
these days.

The conversation came up because she'd emailed
me a webpage from Home Depot. What I saw, reading
as text-only, was a few lines of text and a lot of
space.
Yes, I see a lot of web pages these days that have vast amounts of space
in them. Including many ebay listings; I can only assume they're trying
to conceal the contact details and the like that I presume ebay oblige
them to include.
She works for a software company but didn't
know enough to send a simple link. I realized she
lives in a world of assumed HTML, ads, linked images
and of course, web beacon spyware in her email. She
never noticed.

Again, I'm not surprised.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A perfectionist takes infinite pains and often gives them to others