On 07Apr2021 07:22, John Niendorf <j...@startmail.com> wrote:
>How do you all deal with HTML email?
Composing HTML is a can of worms. I'd need to dig into the list archives
- it has been discussed.
Displaying HTML uses 2 main settings:
The .mailcap entry for text/html with the "copiousoutput" flag. For
example:
text/html; exec 2>&1 && env DISPLAY= unhtml %s; copiousoutput
"unhtml" is a personal script which invokes whatever I prefer to use to
transcribe HTML as plain text. Currently it invokes:
lynx -stdin -dump
That way I don't have to hack my mailcap much, better to hack the script
if I shift tools, eg to w3m.
The other setting is the alternative_order setting, which says which
Content-Type to prefer of a multipart/alternative message. These usually
have a text/plain and text/html part (though of course they course have
other things, eg a text/markdown part). My default setting is:
alternative_order text/plain text/html
which prefers the plain text version, sidestepping the HTML altogether.
However, there are plenty of platforms which are HTML first and provide
either very poor plaintext equivalents of empty ones, or ever just stuff
the raw HTML into both parts. Absolutely rubbish quality of
implementation, but there you go.
So in fact I choose the alternative order per message:
# alternative-order criteria
message-hook . 'unalternative_order *; alternative_order text/plain
text/html'
message-hook '~h "X-Mailer: Apple Mail" ~X 1-' 'unalternative_order *;
alternative_order text/html multipart/mixed text/plain'
message-hook '%f htmlers | ~f @no-re...@cc.yahoo-inc.com | ~f @outlook.com
| ~f live.com | ~f @facebookmail.com' 'unalternative_order *; alternative_order
text/html text/plain'
So far all messages I set up the default. Then for Apple Mail I put the
HTML first because of the way Apple Mail packs attachments, which is
weird. Then for an elite set of negligent idiots I put HTML first
because I _know_ that they shift a plaintext version and the plaintext
is always rubbish.
That last criterion is email from outlook.com, live.com, facebook.com,
yahoo's PR/info people, and whomever I have explicitly added to my mutt
"htmlers" group.
Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <c...@cskk.id.au>
