[Bug 25234] New: Clarify that HTML email always should be rendered in no-quirks mode.

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=25234

            Bug ID: 25234
           Summary: Clarify that HTML email always should be rendered in
                    no-quirks mode.
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: PC
               URL: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec
          Assignee: dave.null@w3.org
          Reporter: xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no
        QA Contact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-admin@w3.org,
                    public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org

SITUATION: 

 For HTML mail, the effect of DOCTYPE falls in 3 categories,
   with well known implementations in each category:

   A) DOCTYPE ignored, falling back to no-quirks, is implemented by
      * Web mail apps (because app itself is in no-quirks) Examples: 
        # Microsoft Outlook.com
        # Google Gmail
      * Mozilla Gaia of Firefox OS (because it’s a offline Webmail app?)

   B) DOCTYPE ignored, falling back to quirks mode. Implemented by:
      * Mozilla Thunderbird 
        (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=335499)
      * Microsoft Email app for Windows 8.1

   C) DOCTYPE treated same as in Web browsers:
      * Microsoft Windows Live Mail 2012 (latest release: 2014)
      * Microsoft Windows Mail,
      * Microsoft Outlook Express,
      * Apple Mail for OSX
      * Apple mail for iOS

PROPOSAL:

For HTML mail, the DOCTYPE should be ignored, falling back to no-quirks
rendering. THus doctype should not be required. This should be said in new
section somewhere in the spec.

COMMMENT:

 Mail is a "date stamped" format that is stored inside private mailboxes. Thus
legacy issues are probably seldom.  For online webmail, the rendering mode
probably almost always depends on the rendering mode of the Web app.

Thus, all in all, the only reliable way forward is to make all HTML mail use
no-quirks mode and only no-quirks mode. HTML mail is the number one production
equipment for HTML and we gotta make it so that mail applications by default
and with ease can produce conforming HTML. For many Web authors, it would be a
benefit if it this way became simpler to get the same rendering mode etc across
email readers.

Please see bug 25232, which proposes a general approach for de-emphasizing the
DOCTYPE and instead emphasizing the rendering mode.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the QA Contact for the bug.

Received on Wednesday, 2 April 2014 16:45:22 UTC