Re: Mail layout and fonts

Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Emanuel Berg]

flav@epita.fr writes:

> I am using gnus for read and send my mails. I try to
> compose mail with a little layout and fonts
> enhancement. I read the manuel (C-h m i gnus) and
> I look on the web. But I did not find. I think
> a must change the mime type of the email but I am
> not so sure.

It is a bad idea. If you are an esthetic person, put
your efforts to the web with HTML and CSS, then move
on to LaTeX where you can do really impressive stuff
(with activity + time, as always).

If you do HTML mails, it is throwing pearls to the
pigs as many people will be annoyed with it (the HTML
- here I mean the HTML in itself, not your particular
efforts), furthermore some people will have configured
their clients not to show it (i.e. those will just
show the text part of your message), and those few who
do not mind or care will just read the message to get
what it is communicating and won't bother with the
decorations anyway.

That doesn't mean it is easy to write good e-mails
(with text only) and that everyone is equally good at
it because it is so basic in terms of technology.
On the contrary: because the technology is so basic,
the limitation is inherent in the technology, and not
put on the user, for whom the sky is the limit.

So put your enthusiasm for writing better mails where
it belongs, in the plain text world :)

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Elias Mårtenson]

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I disagree. Sometimes you are working in an organisation where Outlook is
the main means of communication. If so, you need to (unfortunately) post
messages that conforms to this style. This includes including the entire
email chain below your message, as well as your own messages being HTML
formatted.

I wrote an entire package to do this; formatting the emails using
emacs-muse, and rewriting the DOM of the email chain. In case anyone is
interested, here's the code: https://github.com/lokedhs/gnus-outlook-style

It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
does not have a HTML parser so I need to call out to an external program
for that. I'll be happy to provide advice for anyone that wants to try it
though.

Regards,
Elias

On 15 April 2015 at 00:52, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> flav@epita.fr writes:
>
> > I am using gnus for read and send my mails. I try to
> > compose mail with a little layout and fonts
> > enhancement. I read the manuel (C-h m i gnus) and
> > I look on the web. But I did not find. I think
> > a must change the mime type of the email but I am
> > not so sure.
>
> It is a bad idea. If you are an esthetic person, put
> your efforts to the web with HTML and CSS, then move
> on to LaTeX where you can do really impressive stuff
> (with activity + time, as always).
>
> If you do HTML mails, it is throwing pearls to the
> pigs as many people will be annoyed with it (the HTML
> - here I mean the HTML in itself, not your particular
> efforts), furthermore some people will have configured
> their clients not to show it (i.e. those will just
> show the text part of your message), and those few who
> do not mind or care will just read the message to get
> what it is communicating and won't bother with the
> decorations anyway.
>
> That doesn't mean it is easy to write good e-mails
> (with text only) and that everyone is equally good at
> it because it is so basic in terms of technology.
> On the contrary: because the technology is so basic,
> the limitation is inherent in the technology, and not
> put on the user, for whom the sky is the limit.
>
> So put your enthusiasm for writing better mails where
> it belongs, in the plain text world :)
>
> --
> underground experts united
> http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
> _______________________________________________
> info-gnus-english mailing list
> info-gnus-english@gnu.org
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnus-english
>

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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[invalid]

On 2015-04-15, Elias M??rtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> wrote:
> I disagree. Sometimes you are working in an organisation where Outlook is
> the main means of communication. If so, you need to (unfortunately) post
> messages that conforms to this style. This includes including the entire
> email chain below your message, as well as your own messages being HTML
> formatted.

That seems a little extreme. Just because other people are Windows victims
doesn't mean you have to stoop to their level.

I've been working in IT since it was called DP and before there were things
like email or HTML. Since the first sad day HTML was used in email I have
never had anybody complain about me responding to HTML email with a text
email. If I had to guess I would bet this is because the people who use HTML
emailers are too dumb to have any idea what they're doing and are also
incapable of detecting whether some piece of mail they get is in ASCII text
form or not.

Furthermore nobody has complained that I try to post inline or bottom post
although I occasionally do top-post on short replies.

> I wrote an entire package to do this; formatting the emails using
> emacs-muse, and rewriting the DOM of the email chain. In case anyone is
> interested, here's the code: https://github.com/lokedhs/gnus-outlook-style
>
> It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
> does not have a HTML parser so I need to call out to an external program
> for that. I'll be happy to provide advice for anyone that wants to try it
> though.

What an enormous waste of time and possibly talent... 

>> If you do HTML mails, it is throwing pearls to the
>> pigs as many people will be annoyed with it (the HTML
>> - here I mean the HTML in itself, not your particular
>> efforts),

The conclusion is correct but you have the analogy bass-ackwards. 

>> So put your enthusiasm for writing better mails where
>> it belongs, in the plain text world :)

Absolutely agreed.

Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Adam Sjøgren]

Elias writes:

> It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
> does not have a HTML parser

Newer Emacsen have, right? I think shr.el/eww.el uses libxml2 to do so,
"under the covers"?


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "I har jo brug for en mand til at samle det hele -           Adam Sjøgren
  inden I går endnu mere i opløsning!"                   asjo@koldfront.dk


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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Elias Mårtenson]

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On 15 April 2015 at 20:01, Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> wrote:

> Elias writes:
>
> > It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
> > does not have a HTML parser
>
> Newer Emacsen have, right? I think shr.el/eww.el uses libxml2 to do so,
> "under the covers"?
>

Unfortunately, no. In order to be able to rewrite the content I need to
parse the HTML into a DOM document, make changes to the structure and then
write it out to HTML again. There is no Emacs package that can do this.

For example, one of the things I need to do is to be able to extract inline
image attachments so that the image references can be properly rewritten in
the newly formed message.

If an Emacs package to do HTML structural manipulation became available, I
could get rid of the entire external program which would make the whole
package a lot easier to install.

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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Elias Mårtenson]

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On 15 April 2015 at 19:35, invalid <address@is.invalid> wrote:

> On 2015-04-15, Elias M??rtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I disagree. Sometimes you are working in an organisation where Outlook is
> > the main means of communication. If so, you need to (unfortunately) post
> > messages that conforms to this style. This includes including the entire
> > email chain below your message, as well as your own messages being HTML
> > formatted.
>
> That seems a little extreme. Just because other people are Windows victims
> doesn't mean you have to stoop to their level.
>

Indeed. It not only seems extreme, it _is_ extreme. However, in certain
industries this is pretty much required. The alternative is to run Outlook
or Evolution or some other email application that can handle it.


> I've been working in IT since it was called DP and before there were things
> like email or HTML. Since the first sad day HTML was used in email I have
> never had anybody complain about me responding to HTML email with a text
> email. If I had to guess I would bet this is because the people who use
> HTML
> emailers are too dumb to have any idea what they're doing and are also
> incapable of detecting whether some piece of mail they get is in ASCII text
> form or not.
>

I welcome you to work in the banking industry for a while. If you do this
there you will likely be accused of trying to hide the history since
looking down at the email chain (which is pretty much guaranteed to contain
tens of images, mostly screenshots of the things people talk about) is the
only way people can get an understanding of what is being discussed.
Messages are full of references to messages further down in the chain. When
a new person is briefed on a case they get a copy of the last email in the
chain with a comment "Please read this to get up to date on the current
issue".

Like it or not, this is how people work in these industries and if you're
able to avoid it, great. That means that you are lucky enough to not need
what I built. I certainly wish that I didn't have to use it myself, but
it's either that or not use Gnus. I choose the latter.


> > I wrote an entire package to do this; formatting the emails using
> > emacs-muse, and rewriting the DOM of the email chain. In case anyone is
> > interested, here's the code:
> https://github.com/lokedhs/gnus-outlook-style
> >
> > It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
> > does not have a HTML parser so I need to call out to an external program
> > for that. I'll be happy to provide advice for anyone that wants to try it
> > though.
>
> What an enormous waste of time and possibly talent...
>

True, I have spent far too many hours tuning this thing, including adding
special hacks around the HTML generation to make sure the output looks good
in Outlook (the HTML renderer in Outlook is based on IE6, I believe).

That said, compared to the amount of time I would have wasted having had to
use a different email client, it's definitely worth it.

Regards,
Elias

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How to summarize an e-mail thread? (was: Mail layout and fonts)

[Michael Strey]

Hello,

Please allow me to chime in here.

On Mi, 2015-04-15, Elias Mårtenson wrote:

[...]

> I welcome you to work in the banking industry for a while. If you do
> this there you will likely be accused of trying to hide the history
> since looking down at the email chain (which is pretty much guaranteed
> to contain tens of images, mostly screenshots of the things people
> talk about) is the only way people can get an understanding of what is
> being discussed. Messages are full of references to messages further
> down in the chain. When a new person is briefed on a case they get a
> copy of the last email in the chain with a comment "Please read this
> to get up to date on the current issue".

I do not work in such a hostile environment and therefore do not need
Elias' solution.  Nevertheless, from time to time I would like to have a
solution to summarize a lengthy e-mail thread to create a report for
somebody else.

After a short time looking around I just found the following solution
for this problem:

  In the summary buffer T #, O f <file name>.
  
The result is a text file in correct chronological order.
Though attachments are not included and so aren't other mime parts.

Elias, is your solution suited for the occasional use?

Any other proposal?

Best regards
Michael Strey

-- 
http://www.strey.biz * https://twitter.com/michaelstrey


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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Emanuel Berg]

Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> writes:

> I disagree. Sometimes you are working in an
> organisation where Outlook is the main means of
> communication. If so, you need to (unfortunately)
> post messages that conforms to this style.
> This includes including the entire email chain below
> your message, as well as your own messages being
> HTML formatted.

That never happened to me, and God willing it
never will.

I see it even left you post-traumatized because you
don't quote like us but instead answer hanging in the
air and then leave the replied-to post in its entirety
below you post.

Also, it doesn't matter if anyone uses Outlook or Gnus
or any other client for that matter. Well, of course
it matters in the sense that those with style and
precision use Gnus. But it doesn't matter how quoting
should be done, how the signature should be done
(below a double dash and a space, i.e. "-- " as
described in section 4.3 of [1]), and so on. Mails are
interface agnostic - or should be.

> because Emacs does not have a HTML parser so I need
> to call out to an external program for that. I'll be
> happy to provide advice for anyone that wants to try
> it though.

Emacs have several web browsers - for example the
high-quality piece of software Emacs w3m. Emacs w3m is
in the Debian repositories but isn't shipped with
Emacs. But Emacs comes with eww which should be good
but with many less man-hours put into it compared to
the mature Emacs w3m. Anyway I don't see how any of
this would work without (probably several)
HTML parsers?

[1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3676.txt

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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Emanuel Berg]

invalid <address@is.invalid> writes:

> I've been working in IT since it was called DP

= data processing (when was that :))

> and before there were things like email or HTML.
> Since the first sad day HTML was used in email
> I have never had anybody complain about me
> responding to HTML email with a text email. If I had
> to guess I would bet this is because the people who
> use HTML emailers are too dumb to have any idea what
> they're doing and are also incapable of detecting
> whether some piece of mail they get is in ASCII text
> form or not.

Indeed. There was a time when there was such an
enthusiasm for the web some people suddenly though
*everything* should be like the web. HTML in mails is
in line (pun) with that.

I think the web is great as its original idea with
mostly hypertext with the occasional multimedia item
where there is a clear purpose, e.g. links to animal
sounds if it is a page about wildlife so you can learn
to distinguish an elk from a red deer, etc. - other
than that, the web shouldn't look like computer games,
computer games shouldn't look like the web, and so on.

> Furthermore nobody has complained that I try to post
> inline or bottom post although I occasionally do
> top-post on short replies.

I have complained a couple of times when people don't
do inline but it only computer people I tell this
because then it looks bad if they don't do it.
For "civilians" I can't say I care but in terms of how
difficult it is (isn't) of course anyone could learn
to do it.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Elias Mårtenson]

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On 16 April 2015 at 00:28, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I disagree. Sometimes you are working in an
> > organisation where Outlook is the main means of
> > communication. If so, you need to (unfortunately)
> > post messages that conforms to this style.
> > This includes including the entire email chain below
> > your message, as well as your own messages being
> > HTML formatted.
>
> That never happened to me, and God willing it
> never will.
>

Yes, you are lucky. Please see my previous email for some further
elaboration. :-)


> I see it even left you post-traumatized because you
> don't quote like us but instead answer hanging in the
> air and then leave the replied-to post in its entirety
> below you post.
>

Actually, that has a different cause, that being the fact that I'm replying
to this list
using Gmail which sadly hides the entire quotation when replying.


> Also, it doesn't matter if anyone uses Outlook or Gnus
> or any other client for that matter. Well, of course
> it matters in the sense that those with style and
> precision use Gnus.


I agree.


> But it doesn't matter how quoting
> should be done, how the signature should be done
> (below a double dash and a space, i.e. "-- " as
> described in section 4.3 of [1]), and so on. Mails are
> interface agnostic - or should be.
>

I agree, but when you're a single person in an environment consisting of
tens
of thousands of people it's either adapt or find a different career. As
much as
I like Gnus and proper email quoting, and I also like my job so I'm willing
to put
in the work needed to allow me to combine the things I like.

My assumption is that there are at least one more person out there is my
situation, which is why I posted my reply.

That said, I still do my part inproving standards. Outlook litters the HTML
full of
non-standard tags (which come from the MS-Word HTML generator that I believe
Outlook uses for creating the mail content). When I process the email chain
I
happily remove all of that before reconstructing the HTML reply chain prior
to
adding my reply on top. This is another reason I need a structured HTML
parser.

Emacs have several web browsers - for example the
> high-quality piece of software Emacs w3m. Emacs w3m is
> in the Debian repositories but isn't shipped with
> Emacs. But Emacs comes with eww which should be good
> but with many less man-hours put into it compared to
> the mature Emacs w3m. Anyway I don't see how any of
> this would work without (probably several)
> HTML parsers?


I've looked at them. Unfortunately they do not parse the HTML into a
structured
document, but rather directly into output suitable for rendering to the
screen.
I can't use that to reconstruct the original HTML.

Regards,
Elias

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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Emanuel Berg]

Elias Mårtenson <lokedhs@gmail.com> writes:

> Indeed. It not only seems extreme, it _is_ extreme.
> However, in certain industries this is pretty much
> required. The alternative is to run Outlook or
> Evolution or some other email application that can
> handle it.

Another alternative is not to be a banker :)

Besides now that you nox'd your profession and assumed
income you have to contribute monetarily to the GNU
movement, or else...

:)

> Like it or not, this is how people work in these
> industries and if you're able to avoid it, great.
> That means that you are lucky enough to not need
> what I built. I certainly wish that I didn't have to
> use it myself, but it's either that or not use Gnus.
> I choose the latter. ... That said, compared to the
> amount of time I would have wasted having had to use
> a different email client, it's definitely worth it.

Yes, in principle it is a good approach. I say "in
principle" because sometimes it isn't possible to
bridge that gap satisfactorily. You get a half-baked
result which can be even more frustrating. Say that
Outlook is 50% the way you want it. Adapted Gnus is
80% the way you want it. When you use the 80% you are
constantly reminded of those lacking 20%, and in your
mind they start to grooo000w. Soon you are at 50%
again, only this time you are aware of your failure as
well which makes it 40% or 30%. But if you bridged the
gap 95%-100% then your efforts are well spent
- congratulations.

-- 
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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Adam Sjøgren]

Elias writes:

> On 15 April 2015 at 20:01, Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> wrote:

>> Elias writes:

>>> It takes a bit of an effort to get to run properly, mainly because Emacs
>>> does not have a HTML parser

>> Newer Emacsen have, right? I think shr.el/eww.el uses libxml2 to do so,
>> "under the covers"?

> Unfortunately, no.

Which of the two questions are you answering? There is no HTML parser in
Emacs, or shr.el uses libxml2 to parse HTML in Emacs?

[...]

> If an Emacs package to do HTML structural manipulation became available, I
> could get rid of the entire external program which would make the whole
> package a lot easier to install.

So, what you need is such a package, and not merely an HTML parser,
which all the HTML renderers in Emacs surely employ :-)


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Few things are less comforting than a tiger who's up        Adam Sjøgren
  too late."                                             asjo@koldfront.dk


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Re: Mail layout and fonts

[Emanuel Berg]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> So, what you need is such a package, and not merely
> an HTML parser, which all the HTML renderers in
> Emacs surely employ :-)

The HTML renderers are perhaps not that modular so you
can just pick them apart, extract the parser and put
it to do something else. That sounds nice though...

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Re: How to summarize an e-mail thread? (was: Mail layout and fonts)

[Elias Mårtenson]

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On 15 April 2015 at 23:18, Michael Strey <mstrey@strey.biz> wrote:

Elias, is your solution suited for the occasional use?
>

No, I'm afraid that my solution is not for occasional use. It's entire
purpose is to allow a Gnus user to play in an Outlook-dominated environment.

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