RE: Mailto

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ann Navarro [mailto:ann@webgeek.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 1999 1:18 PM
> To: braden@endoframe.com; Bill Rhodes; Andreas Thorstensson; 'Francesca
> Galera Molina'; www-html@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Mailto
>
>
> At 01:13 PM 1/20/99 -0500, Braden N. McDaniel wrote:
>
> >True. But "common browser/email client combinations" will probably handle
> >these extensions just fine. It's the older, less-common software
> that might
> >have difficulty.
>
> They don't.
>
> Anecdotal evidence: Just wrapped up teaching an Intro to HTML course for
> the HTML Writers Guild. 112 students. Over 40% could not get
> their "mailto"
> forms to work, even WITHOUT using non-standard syntax to include subjects
> and what-not.

"Mailto" forms are indeed more poorly supported than the more conventional
"mailto" hyperlinks, so lumping them together is a little misleading. I
wasn't thinking of forms when I composed my previous response.

> All were using NN 3.x and IE 3.x (or higher in both -- most using 4.x
> generation), and current popular email software including Eudora, Outlook,
> Outlook Express, and Communicator. If that's not "common browser/email
> client combinations", I don't know what is.

Just going from memory here, I don't think IE added support for "mailto"
forms until version 4 (maybe there was a patch to IE3 to add this, but I'm
not certain). And, yes, it would depend on what e-mail client you were
using, too.

Using an e-mail client with Navigator other than Netscape's has always been
a dicey proposition; but I'd expect the Navigator/[Messenger|Netscape Mail]
combination to be fairly reliable in this regard.

I agree with you that use of "mailto" for forms is best avoided for the
reasons you mention; however, conventional "mailto" hyperlinks are
significantly more reliable (though, granted, not 100% reliable).

Braden

Received on Wednesday, 20 January 1999 14:48:12 UTC