Re: HTML tags in org, name, etc

[Merijn Broeren <Merijn.Broeren@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoting Peter Shank (shank@xxxxxxxxxxxx):
> When Netscape Communicator displays a mail message with an attached
> vCard, it parses any html tags and displays them as html.  As a result,
> some people include formatting tags in their name, title, organization,
> etc.  The cosmetic effect in a Communicator window can be quite nice,
> but of course the programmatic effect in other applications like
> databases and PIMs could be quite inconvenient.
> 
Indeed. I have written a vCard and vCalendar parser for the Newton
MessagePad. The practice of putting HTML tags in texts that are not
meant to be viewed in a HTML context is indeed objectionable. I am not
sure what to do with these img tags. I feel "justified" in just letting
them parse through unchanged, but am then putting the burden on my
unexpecting users, who see strange incantations pooping up in their PIM.
But stripping them all out is unfeasible as well. MAybe vCard writers
should advise against it. 

> I'm looking for experience and advice from others in this subject.  I
> want some ammunition to convince people that the spec was not intended
> to include html (or any) tags in these and other fields.
> 
Can I tell you that it is amusing to see somebody from Netscape be
concerend with this practice because a vCard from David M. Andrews from
Netscape alerted us to the problem :-). And I see you using html tags in
a rfc822 context too. ;-).

But seriously, we have thought here about this matter as well and we
thought that maybe a value=url parameter could help a parser to decide
to strip out tags or not. Any comments on that direction? 

> Thanks for your thoughts..
> 
> -Peter Shank
> Senior Systems Engineer
> <b>Netscape Communications Corp.</b>     :-)

Regards,
-- 
Merijn Broeren     | 'I want to understand everything. I want to know everything
Rover & Newton     |  and put it all together to see what it means.'
Lunatech Research  | 'Excellent project, it will look very good on your resume.'
e-mail : merijnb at lunatech.com | s-mail : Pb 27532 3003 MA R'dam NL