[MlMt] MailMate status (All things HTML)

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

Hi again,

I just noticed that every occurrence of various symbols have been 
prefixed by `\` in my previous email. Look out for that if you use any 
of the instructions. I've fixed it below to make it easier to copy/paste 
the instructions.

Also, I don't seem to be able to reproduce this problem. I think some of 
my planned changes might fix it, but it would be nice to know why/how it 
happens. Let me know if someone spots the trigger.

-- 
Benny

On 8 Aug 2015, at 1:20, Benny Kjær Nielsen wrote:

> Hi MailMate users,
>
> before the weekend I wanted to provide you with the current status of 
> MailMate. It has been a few weeks since the latest beta/test version 
> of MailMate (r5107/r5108), but it's not because I have been on 
> vacation that long. The main reason is that I've been working on some 
> of the oldest short-comings of MailMate related to the handling of 
> HTML and this has involved quite a lot of changes.
>
> I don't have any major new **complete** features for you to test yet, 
> but I do have a new update for you. Its primary purpose is to ensure 
> that I haven't broken a lot of things while working on the HTML 
> issues. It can be fetched as a direct download 
> [here](‘http://updates.mailmate-app.com/archives/MailMate_r5109.tbz) 
> (r5109). It's not available via the Software Update preferences pane, 
> because currently I don't want anyone to download it if they are not 
> ready to report any new issues.
>
> I cannot make any promises on when these features are complete. Right 
> now I have to focus on fixing a bunch of minor issues to make MailMate 
> ready for a public El Capitan capable release.
>
> The following are the features I've been working on. It's a bit early 
> to announce all this, but I expect we can keep their existence on the 
> mailing list for now :-)
>
> ### Inlining of HTML
>
> This is the important one. MailMate is going to continue having a 
> plain text editor, but it'll be possible to inline HTML messages when 
> forwarding and replying. When MailMate generates an HTML body part 
> then the original HTML is inlined and that should work at least as 
> well as any HTML capable email client. The plain text in the composer 
> is going to show the plain text variant of the inlined HTML, but it'll 
> be non-editable (for obvious reasons). If the user tries to edit the 
> plain text then MailMate offers to drop the inlined HTML body part 
> (essentially providing the current behavior). This can be suppressed 
> such that it happens automatically.
>
> There is a hidden preference to enable it, but the feature is still 
> incomplete. The main issue is related to HTML emails containing 
> so-called related body parts (inlined images). In other words, this is 
> not quite ready for testing yet. Sorry.
>
> ### Styling
>
> Until now MailMate has generated unstyled HTML. This is great because 
> then the default styling of the email client of the recipient is in 
> charge — displaying all incoming emails in the same way. 
> Unfortunately the default styling s\*cks in many email clients 
> resulting in MailMate messages looking ugly, e.g., without any styling 
> of quoted blocks (Apple Mail) or an ugly font (Outlook webmail). 
> Ironically, there are no such issues when sending a plain text message 
> without an HTML alternative.
>
> I've implemented it such that a default theme can be configured, but 
> I've also added that each signature can be bound to a specific theme. 
> Some details are still missing and this is also not quite ready for 
> testing. Sorry.
>
>> The feature is enabled for this email which means that this paragraph 
>> should have a vertical blue line in most (all?) HTML capable email 
>> clients — including Apple/iOS Mail.
>
> ### Code styling
>
> This is probably the most complete feature. It's mostly missing GUI 
> settings. It is based on a new bundle named Pygments which currently 
> has to be fetched manually:
>
> 	mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/MailMate/Bundles
> 	cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/MailMate/Bundles
> 	git clone https://github.com/mailmate/pygments.mmBundle
>
> It is also necessary to tell MailMate to use a specific command in the 
> bundle for code styling:
>
> 	defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmBundleCommandForCodeStyling 
> -string E4464365-9FE3-487C-8B39-D3B0F632F1D8
>
> Finally, it's possible to configure the style used. This is equivalent 
> to the default:
>
> 	defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmDefaultPygmentsStyleName 
> colorful
>
> The possible values are:
>
> 	manni igor xcode vim autumn vs rrt native perldoc borland
> 	tango emacs friendly monokai paraiso-dark colorful murphy
> 	bw pastie paraiso-light trac default fruity
>
> If I remember correctly those with a dark background do not yet work 
> well.
>
> Oh, and here is an example of the feature in use:
>
> ~~~c++
> 	// This is C++ code
> 	for(int i=0; i < 42; ++i)
> 		printf("Hello world\n");
> ~~~
>
> And this is what I wrote to get that:
>
> 	~~~c++
> 		// This is C++ code
> 		for(int i=0; i < 42; ++i)
> 			printf("Hello world\n");
> 	~~~
>
> ### Math styling
>
> The last feature is also mostly complete, but unfortunately it 
> probably has limited use cases, because it's not supported by all 
> receiving email clients. Then again, if you know who you are writing 
> then it's a pretty cool feature.
>
> Again, first manually install a bundle:
>
> 	mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/MailMate/Bundles
> 	cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/MailMate/Bundles
> 	git clone https://github.com/mailmate/asciimath.mmBundle
>
> And enable the feature like this:
>
> 	defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmBundleCommandForMathStyling 
> -string A5574670-971A-47B4-86F8-A2901F252613
>
> It's also necessary to manually install `asciimathml` (ideally, the 
> bundle command should do this like it does for the Pygments bundle):
>
> 	sudo easy_install asciimathml
>
> The bundle provides you with the ability to have inline math, 
> $sum_(i=1)^n i^3$, by writing this: `$sum_(i=1)^n i^3$`. Larger 
> sections of math can be done like this
>
> 	$$
> 	sum_(i=1)^n i^3=((n(n+1))/2)^2
> 	$$
>
> which looks like this
>
> $$
> sum_(i=1)^n i^3=((n(n+1))/2)^2
> $$
>
> The ASCIIMath markup language is described 
> [here](http://asciimath.org). And I repeat, this feature does not work 
> well in many receiving email clients. Apple/iOS Mail is doing fine 
> since they are also based on Webview, but other HTML engines do not 
> support MathML (which is what the bundle command generates). Webmail 
> clients like Gmail and iCloud remove the MathML markup generated 
> making the math disappear even if using Safari (which does support 
> MathML).
>
> (It's implicit in the above, but it's possible to create your own 
> bundle with a different syntax highlighter or a different math 
> generator and then configure MailMate to use them.)
>
> That's it. Have a nice weekend and remember that all of the above is 
> work in progress. Right now I'm mostly interested in side-effects of 
> my changes affecting the regular use of the composer.
>
> -- 
> Benny
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