I’m sure like many others here, I’d be interested to see these sites you’re serving in Flash to Windows users only.

Links?

If you are running Windows right now, you are an Internet Explorer developer, you are an Outlook developer. Enjoy! Stop complaining. You asked for it and you got it. A complete disaster. I’ve been a Web developer since 1994 and I can say with authority that y’all were warned not to build on Microsoft’s sandbar. They are the same as they ever were only worse, because they’ve almost entirely stopped shipping products. There has been nothing to build on for the past decade from them.

Right now, the Web developers who are going to get all the work from 2010-2020 are building HTML 5. If you are learning how to make Word documents for Outlook right now then good luck to you. I don’t even make HTML for Windows; it cannot render it. For Windows you make Flash because it’s the only thing that just works. It’s the only way to play MPEG-4 on a stock Windows box. For years it was the only way to show a PNG. Now Flash 10 has advanced typography … that is like 10 years away on Windows. It takes less time to make a Flash clone of your site than it does to make an HTML version that is compatible with IE 5.5-8. If you play Microsoft’s game you will get burned. So don’t play it.

Again, if you’re running Windows you have no right to complain. You’re part of the problem. You’re making Windows-1252 text files with DOS line breaks and you’re sending them to me as freelance Web work and I’m firing you for it. Get a Web-compatible computer! Next year is the Web’s 20th anniversary. There is no excuse.

HTML shouldn’t be used for mails anyway, but plain text. So I couldn’t care less.

I disagree. I use email a lot for work – not as marketing in any way, shape or form, but to communicate with colleagues. Being able to use even basic formatting, such as bold text, colour-coding (especially for quoted and nested-quoted text), images, bullets and so on all aids communicatoin, and allows me to get the message across more effectively than if I was limited to plain text.

If I am just sending an email internally, I can use Outlook Rich Text mode, but that’s a proprietary standard so no use for anyone not on Outlook – the only option then is to use HTML.

OK, there is another option – I could type it up in Word and send it as an attachment, but that just puts more hurdles in the way and makes it even less efficient.

There is nothing wrong with HTML emails in principle. What is wrong with them is (a) abuse by marketing types, and (b) the appalling standard of HTML authoring and rendering in the various email clients out there.

HTML shouldn’t be used for mails anyway, but plain text.

That is an argument worth having, (seperatly from this one) but I think you will find that most of the arguments for ‘plain-text only’ are remarkably similar to the arguments for a proper rendering engine for HTML.

Those who keep bleating on about “you shouldn’t use Outlook” are also off-base. Millions of people use it, mostly because someone else has made that decision for them, and telling them to change is not an option.

@jcartledge
No, I would estimate that the majority of web developers have to develop a report to be sent by email at least once a year. Besides, if we don’t fight this now, things will only get worse – we politely asked Microsoft to change their mind when they first pulled this stunt, but clearly they didn’t listen.

With regard to earlier references to EU sanctions; I would rather live with the EU imposing sanctions that appear slightly bizarre, than with the totally ineffectual sanctions imposed by the US courts for a much larger infringement.

Uh… “spruik”?

Verb

(transitive, Australian) To promote a thing or idea to another person, in order that they buy the thing, or accept the idea

Actually that term is apparently more localized than I realized till now.