[thelist] Re: HTML vs text email

Maximillian Schwanekamp lists at neptunewebworks.com
Wed Nov 10 17:34:31 CST 2004


Robert Hanson wrote:

> BTW - what if they're reading your html formatted email "off-line" where
> the images are not available?  Or they set up their email client to not
> load/display images?  How does your message look then?  (try it out and
> see)

Using multipart mime type gets around that handily with "embedded" 
images.  In a nutshell, instead of having <img 
src="http://example.com/images/widget.jpg" ...> you include the image as 
an attachment, and have something like <img src="cid:my-attach-52454"> 
where 'my-attach-52454' is the Content-ID of the attached binary file. 
The email message as a whole has a content type of multipart/related.

> For what it's worth, the email client I have at work does not display
> images in any html-formatted email, and often these types of email messages
> appear as long vertical columns about 10-15 chars wide - totally
> unreadable.

That's a problem that comes from poor HTML email formatting.  Kinda like 
some websites look on a PDA or webphone.

Is the email client in question Thunderbird?  TB wisely blocks images in 
HTML messages that are loaded from a remote location, but will display 
messages with embedded HTML images.

Prolly I'm gonna get flamed on the basis of bandwidth consumption or 
something.  No defense on that count!  As always, it is best to Know 
Thine Audience.

-- 
Maximillian Von Schwanekamp
Dynamic Websites and E-Commerce
NeptuneWebworks.com <http://www.neptunewebworks.com/>
voice: 541-302-1438
fax: 208-730-6504



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