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From: louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Rich Text and comp.sys.next
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.045426.28457@ni.umd.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 04:54:26 GMT
References: <4196@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <130125@gore.com>
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In article <130125@gore.com> jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) writes:
>2.  It annoys me that everybody, including NeXT, is going out of their way to
>improve the appearance of electronic communications, while sacrificing
>user's editing habits.  I've been bitching about being unable to use Emacs
>to create messages ever since I started using the machine, in 0.8 days.
>Result from NeXT: none.  Result from me: I don't use NeXT Mail.  I have
>MMDF installed instead of sendmail, and I use msg to read and write mail.
>Msg respects users' preferences for various editors, while Mail sticks you
>with the Text object.

I don't use NeXT Mail either.  I have MH installed instead of the Mail
Application, and use MH and emacs to read and write mail.  MH respects
users' preferences for various editor, while Mail sticks you with the
Text object.

>No matter how spiffy your newsreader is, I'm not likely to use it unless it
>lets me use Emacs to compose my messages.

Ditto.  I'd be a happy camper if Emacs could do something useful with RTF
so I could trash Edit completely.  I can't use Emacs to compose my messages
(or any other editor, at my choice, for that matter), then I won't use 
the spiffy Mail application.

I rather like the approach that XMH uses: a nice graphical/visual front-end
to a mail system which is still useful when calling in from home to check
your mail.  This capability is an *absolute* necessity, not to mention the
much greater functionallity available in MH for organizing messages into
folders and selecting messages with complex and flexible mechanisms. 

With the Mail App, you're stuck with what you get.  Unusable interface when
not at the screen, and an incompatible file format that thwarts your attempts
to use "less powerful" tools.

"Lip service" indeed.

louie