HTML by default in KMail

[Tres Finocchiaro]

I see a lot of constructive criticism around the idea of what users want.

I work in a medium sized organization (5,000 employees, 1,000 email users).
 I've worked tech support for the organization under a Lotus Notes regime,
and now an Outlook regime.  My personal email was originally AOL (in the
early 90s), and since has gone to Hotmail, Yahoo, and now Gmail.  All four
services allow some html markup, and fonts default to variable width fonts.
 I didn't pick them, that's just how they came.

When I say "Rich Text <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Text_Format> is no
longer an optional feature" I base that on the fact that I have never met an
individual outside of a development shop or IT department that prefers plain
text/fixed font emails.  Infact, of our company's 96 IT users, only the
developers even entertain using a font such as Courier New for composing
Outlook emails.  Of those few, its usually an excerpt or snippet that's
equally well suited for an attachment.  The remainder of the email is
usually MS Sans/Arial, etc, with a not-so-uncommon group of individuals that
use Comic Sans.

I am a developer, so I agree with the developers that html formatting is
annoyingly abused and is generally not helpful by any meaning of the word
when receiving emails from the non-computer savvy.  This opinion however is
the vast minority.  I sincerely feel the bloat of HTML distorts the message
more times than not, *but I cannot ignore the fact that the industry is
using it and people are buying it because thats what they want*. (<-- bold).
 Fixed fonts were invented for typewriters, and although we've found {other();}
{purposes();} for* *: *them*, the *New York Times* (<-- Underlined) still
uses variable width font on it's entire newspaper to fit more content in a
smaller area.

@Yuv:  If my comments about installing PINE struck a cord, then I'm sorry.
 I'm not sure what is driving the singled out attacks, and I'm as passionate
as the next person about the usability of KDE, but I think you're going
about it from the wrong direction.  If you feel I threw the first flame then
here's my apology.  Please don't destroy a great conversation.

-Tres
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-devel/attachments/20100809/e4011c97/attachment-0001.htm