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CCP4BB  September 2009

CCP4BB September 2009

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Subject:

Re: attachments

From:

Ethan Merritt <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Ethan Merritt <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:10:22 -0700

Content-Type:

Text/Plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

Text/Plain (101 lines)

On Tuesday 15 September 2009, Ian Tickle wrote:
> Yes, obviously it doesn't provide full equation formatting capabilities,
> as in LaTeX for example, but at least one can type or paste in equations
> containing for example the Greek 'sigma' character (upper or lower case
> of course) or the 'square root' symbol instead of having to spell them
> all out!  For obvious reasons I'm unable to demonstrate non-ASCII text!

Why do you say that?
Typing non-ascii text is the same process whether it's wrapped in HTML or not.
Here's your sigma: ∑ 

In fact, your message complaining about non-ASCII text is itself using
in a non-ascii character set. Here is the header from the message you sent:

Content-Type: text/plain;  charset=WINDOWS-1252

I seriously suggest to use UTF8 instead, since you've already crossed the Rubicon :-)

> The Wikipedia article on MIME (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME) that I
> quoted earlier says:
> 
> "The basic Internet e-mail transmission protocol, SMTP, supports only
> 7-bit ASCII characters (see also 8BITMIME).  This effectively limits
> Internet e-mail to messages which, when transmitted, include only the
> characters sufficient for writing a small number of languages, primarily
> English.  Other languages based on the Latin alphabet typically include
> diacritics not supported in 7-bit ASCII, meaning text in these languages
> cannot be correctly represented in basic e-mail.  MIME defines
> mechanisms for sending other kinds of information in e-mail.  These
> include text in languages other than English using character encodings
> other than ASCII, ...".

This article is seriously out of date.  Most mail transport now handles
8 bit characters just fine.  Actually it does say that in the last sentence
you quote.

> 
> -- Ian
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On
> > Behalf Of Phil Evans
> > Sent: 15 September 2009 12:42
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] attachments
> > 
> > On 15 Sep 2009, at 11:24, Ian Tickle wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > > Phil
> > >
> > > Nothing at all wrong with plain text for simple messages as you say,
> > > but
> > > if you want to communicate a complicated equation (particularly one
> > > containing a lot of Greek letters and math symbols not in the
> standard
> > > ASCII set!) the HTML version is much cleaner and easier to
> understand.
> > > Obviously I would never try to send such an equation to the BB, I'm
> > > talking about private messages.  The problem is remembering to
> switch
> > > back to plain text for run-of-the-mill messages (and knowing
> people's
> > > sensitivities I always try to do that!).  On my client admittedly
> the
> > > option for plain text/HTML sending is in clear view, in a previous
> > > version it was buried deep in the menu options and had to be
> selected
> > > before you started to compose the message, and the same may well be
> > > true
> > > for other clients.
> > 
> > I didn't know you could sensibly do equations & Greek letters in html,
> > but clearly html can be useful. I would have plain text as the
> > default, though
> > 
> > >
> > > The other point of course is that you're never going to be able to
> > > stem
> > > the tide!  There will always be people who will use HTML even for
> > > simple
> > > messages, mostly through ignorance, and it seems to me that if the
> > > HTML
> > > version causes problems as it seems to be doing in your client, then
> > > the
> > > easiest solution is to adapt and select the 'by default view as
> plain
> > > text' option.
> > >
> > 
> > I suppose I also don't understand why people composing html messages
> > would select a tiny font size, or is that a function of the Mail
> > reader rather than the writer (which would seem to defeat the purpose
> > of the writer formatting the message)?
> > 
> > Phil (confused as usual)
> > 
> 
> 

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