- From: Julian Voelcker <asp@tvw.net>
- Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 13:08:02 GMT
- To: Caroline Lambie <Caroline.Lambie@mencap.org.uk>, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Hi, In article <sfd9a547.080@mailsrv.mencap.org.uk>, Caroline Lambie wrote: > The idea is instead of having a traditional email address there is a > photo of the person you need to email and when you click on that the > email address is embedded so it opens up as a traditional email ready to > write and send. It would be be reciprocal so that it also shows the > senders photo when received. Unfortunately you are likely to run into problems. Firstly, you cannot rely on people's systems being configured correctly so that clicking a mailto: link automatically launches their email software - I am continually surprised at how many systems cannot do this. Also, using mailto: links also opens you up to problems with Spammers harvesting the email addresses. The safest alternative is to use a contact form that uses scripting on the server to send out the emails - the form could be launched from a person's picture acting as a link to the form. I think it is possible to get email software to display photos of recipients, however they will have to have a copy of the photo on their system already. An alternative is to send the photo to the user either as a straight attachment or to send the email as a html formatted email either with the photo embedded in it or with a link to the photo, however with the security being tightened up with most email programs many of them will not automatically display the photos, displaying placeholders instead. I hope that helps. Regards, Julian Voelcker The Virtual World (UK) Limited T. +44(0)1285 821 910 M. +44(0)7971 540 362
Received on Friday, 12 December 2003 08:09:54 UTC