[vox-jobs] Database programmer needed / Web programmer needed

[Micah Cowan]

Rod Roark wrote:
> On Wednesday 13 April 2005 10:13, John Marcotte wrote:
> 
>>UNIX/Linux geeks
>>seem to hate HTML and believe that the majority of the world is
>>still using PINE on a regular basis.
> 
> I don't know anyone who believes that.  HTML is very popular
> in Linux-land.   :-)

Though there are still many that prefer to only /receive/ plaintext, and 
will become disgruntled if they are not given the option. I'd recommend 
generating a plain-text equivalent when feasible, and send the message 
as multipart/alternative (both HTML /and/ plaintext in the same 
message). There are people who complain about that as well, but they 
really don't have a toe to stand on.

But this should have nothing to do with the mail managing software: any 
decent mailing list management software can most certainly send HTML. 
The difference is pretty much a simple content header. Anything that 
can't handle that is broken beyond belief.

If I were setting up a mailing list to send out advertisements that 
included graphics, though, I'd probably take pains to ensure that the 
graphics are included as part of the mail message, rather than simple 
links to graphics on your web server (as seems quite popular these 
days). People who still have dialup accounts often read their mail while 
they're offline; and even for those with always-on connections, some of 
the popular mail readers will not download external content by default.

I regret that I am completely unaware of what tools exist to enable you 
to do this, however. I know the standards, but not what implements them.

-Micah