<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/18/2012 6:15 PM, Axel wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:50073579.7050304@gmail.com" type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
I don't think that this "sacrifice compatibility" is something we
need to actively <i>drive.<br>
</i><br>
In fact this process of eroding "major compatibility" is already
an ongoing one, but actively and instigated "from the other
side". Since Microsoft has decided to drop Triton and use Word as
HTML rendering engine in Outlook 2007; please have a read at this:<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-answers-outlook-2007-critics-on-rendering-engine-changes/229">http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-answers-outlook-2007-critics-on-rendering-engine-changes/229</a><br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p><strong>Q: "Are there any plans to add support for the other
HTML and CSS standards to Word’s engine?"</strong></p>
<p><strong>A:</strong> "The Word team is continually examining
HTML and CSS support based on customer feedback."</p>
</blockquote>
so here is the deal and my thought process behind this - if we add
simplified editing support for CSS3 features like gradients,
border-radius and box-shadow, this won't "break compatibility"
with word, but you get <b>better usability and high fidelity </b>within
<b>Thunderbird corporate environments and with private Thunderbird
users</b>; for the web based email clients it wouldn't be hard
to gradually add support for these features (they would just have
to be a bit more cautious "ripping out" "undesired" layout) [-
also, have a look at what they make of emails authored with
Outlook.]<br>
<br>
At the same time, Word as text editor integrated within Outlook
is doubtless "A Neat Thing" which enables outlook users to very
simply generate highly complex layouts that can be truthfully
transmitted within the boundaries of the platform (basically,
Exchange networks). <br>
<br>
</blockquote>
This is getting off-topic, but let me tell you another viewpoint
that reads between the lines (and incorporates some cynicism). At
the time this announcement was made, Microsoft was commencing work
on IE8, which is roughly the first IE version that can be considered
to have decent modern HTML/CSS support. I recall some of the press
around the decision to use Word's engine in Outlook mentioning
something to the effect that it would help Word-Outlook
compatibility, which is vital to Microsoft's userbase. My
interpretation of the announcement amounts to "a modern Trident
screws up the HTML that Word uses, so instead of dealing with people
complaining that their old emails no longer work right, we're just
going to keep using a crappy renderer to keep our users happy."<br>
<br>
Microsoft is in the very unenviable position that
backwards-compatibility is absolutely vital to significant segments
of its userbase; whatever their press releases about what they want
to do in the future say, the fact remains that it's not really an
option for them.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:50073579.7050304@gmail.com" type="cite"> I
would really like a similar level of "ease of use" when creating
emails that are sent between Thunderbird users, and whether we
think this is a good or bad thing, we should agree that HTML is
the platform, and CSS is the way to do the layout - why stick to
deprecated standards?<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Outlook isn't the only problematic email client. Gmail support is
also surprisingly abysmal--it only supports inline CSS, nothing in a
<style> tag! Here's a page which gives you an idea of who
supports what: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/"><http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/></a>.
Executive summary: webmail clients are moderately crappy (which is
probably due to the fact that they really have to sanitize
everything), anything Outlook-based is crappy, most mobile clients
(excluding Windows Mobile and the Android gmail client) appear to be
very good, and desktop clients are in between.<br>
<br>
Also, according to that, it seems the Outlook 2013 preview doesn't
improve on Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2007. So your claims of "Outlook
is working on this" are just not true.<br>
<br>
Desktop clients have it easy: we can just take our favorite
rendering engine and bolt some content security controls onto it,
which means advanced CSS/HTML support is very cheap. Webmail clients
can't leverage that fact, because the needs of the legacy web are
such that the content security policy they get is way too loose.
Sandboxed iframes might be able to solve the problem, but I don't
think they're powerful enough to disable access to external
resources, which makes it a bit weak. Even if they are, it's not a
sufficiently widely supported to be usable yet, which means it's a
solution that's a few years away at best.<br>
<br>
True HTML/CSS support is not a simple task; we're spoiled in that we
get this for free, but a large number of email clients don't.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Joshua Cranmer
News submodule owner
DXR coauthor</pre>
</body>
</html>