>>I think e-mail should be text only. What if, instead of that crap Outlook produces, which is a mishmash of malformed html, Javascript viruses, self-installing enclosures etc.
It were replaced by a rich text that were something like a CSS-style HTML, validated, and preparsed, and compacted for rapid rendering. It would have no hooks in it for viruses or code launching, though it would have clearly marked hypertext links. The question I am getting at is what is bugging you the most? 1. spam which is often associated with formatted mail 2. Trojans that exploit MS email. 3. cutsie pie dancing bears 4. sloppy implementation 5. slow email downloads 6. Puritanical objection to any variation in colour and font. It is unmanly. 7. want it impossible to embed images, not just for you but for everyone. No one has a legitimate interest to embed images. Let us say your answer is all 7. My response is the solution is not to revert to plain text for email. It won't happen. The solution is to move forward and fix the implementations. It is one thing to demand all mail sent to you have no formatting, but quite another to demand all mail sent by anyone to anyone have no formatting or embedded images. I think a modern email system should let your correspondents automatically know of your eccentricity so that mail will automatically be stripped to the bone before sending it to you. My ISP has this quirk and gets irate if I ever slip and send him a formatted mail. I would love it if Eudora remembered that for me and automatically prevented me from doing that. Formatted email has quite legit functions. For example the Health Action Network Society has an optional mailing list that will let you know of any upcoming events relevant to alternative health. The mail looks like a little poster for the event. -- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. http://mindprod.com Again taking new Java programming contracts. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
