I'm wondering if it would be possible to set up a system for text-only notification e-mails -- the kinds that are sent from OpenTopic automatically.

Something that I learned a few months ago was that spammers can use embedded HTML (especially images and the like) to tell who's viewing their mail, and thus verify the recipients and continue flooding their victims with advertisements.

As a result, I've turned off viewing HTML images in my mail viewer (Apple's Mail.app for OS X). Unfortunately, for many HTML e-mails (especially Infopop mail) this can break the layout and make things difficult to read.

It would be very convenient if there were an option to send text-only notifications instead. At the very least, it'd save a little bandwidth for both sender and receiver, too.

I haven't yet tried it because I have no idea if it would work, but I assume that I could create a new style in the control panel specifically for the e-mails. But that wouldn't change the HTML layout issues...

Thanks,

Dan Carlson, Administrator, Subspace Comms Network
A Proud Mac User Since 1993!

That is a good reason for Text only Emails, though currently I dont believe that There are text only email notifications. Though I wonder if there would be a way to use SMS notifications to that regard.

I know SMS messages are text only. This is definitely something to consider and I will make sure to add it to our list of potential features.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Jonmark Weber
Technology Group
Infopop Corporation

If you leave HTML formatting on but turn off images you will have the problem you are tlaking about. However our notifications do have a "text-only" message as a comment at the beginning of the message.

-Barry

Okay, I figured there might be a comment included in the HTML. But I use Mac OS X's default Mail.app, and there's no way to turn off the HTML reading of e-mail like that. I wouldn't want to do that, anyway.

I just figured that a text-only message option would be a whole lot more convenient for people. Especially to just quote the message rather than duplicate the whole web page style, which takes up space on both the user's mailbox and the sending system at OT...

Dan Carlson, Administrator, Subspace Comms Network
A Proud Mac User Since 1993!

A reason I'd like to have text only emails is because I'm getting one of those lovely Nokia 3650's in the next few weeks which will allow me to receive email wherever I am.

As we use the moderation queue quite extensively so I'd like to be able to receive text only notification summaries on my mobile phone (cell-phone). Unfortunately GPRS (2.5G) tarriffs are quite high here so HTML is not only wasted bandwidth but wasted money.