OT: Getting HTML text into an email message

James Hurley jhurley0305 at sbcglobal.net
Sat Nov 29 20:08:48 EST 2008


>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:13:33 -0600
> From: Ken Ray <kray at sonsothunder.com>
> Subject: Re: OT: Getting HTML text into an email message
> To: Use Revolution List <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
> Message-ID: <C554F63D.17942%kray at sonsothunder.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Since no one responded to this, I'll take a stab...
>
>> But what is the magic? Is there a way in Run Rev to convert an HTML
>> page directly for email?
>
> The problem here is that as soon as you leave the realm of plain  
> text, you
> enter the world of "what does the specific email client support"?  
> That is,
> assuming you want Mail to be the email client here that will be  
> sending the
> message, you need to then play in Mail's sandbox using whatever  
> AppleScript
> is supported in Mail to do this (more on this later). But of course  
> whatever
> you do will only work with Mail; if you want to send an HTML- 
> formatted email
> from Entourage or from Outlook (PC), etc. you'll need to do something
> totally different.
>
> The other alternative (if you don't want to use a third-party email  
> client),
> is to have Rev send SMTP-based email itself, and if you're  
> interested in
> that avenue, there are a couple of libraries out there to help you  
> send SMTP
> email.
>
> Back to Mail... since you're sending a formatted field, I'm  
> assuming it's
> not pictures, so one way to do what you're looking for would be to
> AppleScript the mail message by styling the text in the same way  
> the field
> is styled in Rev... there may be others, but this is the one I'm  
> aware of...
>
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/

Ken,

Thanks for the thoughtful response. As I suspected, there is no  
simple answer, or at least simple enough that I am willing to pursue it.

I found this in an article by Tim Slavin:

"The biggest pain when coding HTML email is that so many different  
software tools are available for reading email, from
desktop software such as Eudora, Outlook, AOL, Thunderbird, and Lotus  
Notes, to web-based email services such as
Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Google Mail. If you thought it was difficult to  
ensure the cross-browser compatibility of your web
sites, be aware that this is a whole new game -- each of these email  
software tools can display the same email in vastly
different ways. And even when these tools do display an HTML email  
properly, accounting for variances in, for example,
the widths at which readers size their windows when reading emails  
makes things even trickier."

Confirming your observation above.

For several years I have volunteered to do election data base work  
for local grass roots organizations. I am not able to disabuse them  
of the fact that web page and HTML email construction is a different  
skill altogether, a skill I don't have. But one thing has led to  
another and I am trying my hand at HTML. I hate it. Sure wish Run Rev  
would come out with its Web edition of Run Rev. That would take care  
of the web page. Then all we would have to do is persuade the world  
to download the app that makes it work.

Jim Hurley





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