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Re: Apple II Software and Support --- FREE

Will Smith (wsmith@NOSPAM.ctron.com) wrote:
: On Mon, 16 Feb 1998 16:19:27 GMT, Doug Browning <vgt507@freenet.mb.ca>
: wrote:

: |>Why do people post html to newsgroups in the first place?

: because some people forget to turn the function off when they read
: mail through their browsers, and others just don't know what they're
: doing (these are the people that don't see the point of people
: complaining unless they can see the problem themselves)....  <shrug>

I'd like to suggest that there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way to post
HTML to Usenet.  The reality is that a lot of people out there are reading
mail and news with Netscape and other HTML-aware newsreaders.

I will occasionally stick in an HTML tag which will be interpreted by
those readers, for instance, if I do a bit of ASCII artwork, I'll
generally precede the artwork with 
<html><tt><pre>
and follow it with
</pre></tt></html>

which SHOULD force those graphic newsreaders into a monospaced font so
that the HTML-aware people can see the artwork.  Everyone else, of course,
can see the artwork just fine, since shell newsreaders work on an 80x25
screen.  But the limited use of HTML tags is not disruptive to text-only
readers.  Enclosing links with <A HREF="http...">site name</A> isn't so bad
either, but it is unnecessary as most HTML-aware newsreaders will just
turn the "http://"; into a link; some even recognize email addresses...or
at least think they do.

Then there is the absolute WRONG way to post HTML, and that is to post
generated HTML files, full of formatting characters (&nbsp; seems to be a
favorite) and darned near unreadable.  Worse yet are those messages posted
in three different formats, with MIME separators between them...first
plain text, then HTML, then some base-64 encoded crap.  That comes from a
"broken" newsreader, and if it keeps up, us Apple ][ types are going to
retaliate by adding 

<html><body bgcolor="ff0000" fgcolor="00ff00"><blink>

to the beginning of all of our posts just to encourage people not to use
their graphic newsreaders... 8-)

--Dave Althoff, ][.
-- 
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