existdissolve.com » Microsoft

Emails in Outlook 2010…Ugh.

existdissolve — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:17:19 +0000

At work, we recently kicked off an effort to make sure that all of the emails coming from our applications are Outlook 2010 compliant…meaning that they render in a reasonably acceptable manner–at least as emails go. On the surface, this doesn’t appear to be that big of a deal. However, for us it is, because the prior version for which we tested emails was Outlook 2003.

So what’s the problem? Well, if you didn’t hear, Microsoft made the brilliant move of deciding to switch their email-rendering engine from IE (Outlook 2003 and before) to Word. In short, this means a massive decrease in support for HTML standards, CSS support, etc. In fact, the move is so counter-standards that an entire movement has been started to try to pressure Microsoft into fixing the problem…so far, nothing.

But arguments about the “smartness” of this change aside, the facts on the ground still require that my co-workers and I fix some emails. So far, my experience has been that in terms of layout, not a huge amount of revision has been necessary. What has caused issues, however, is the lack of CSS support. If you ever find yourself needing to get an email looking decent in Outlook 2010, here are some helpful pointers that I’ve discovered along the way.

Pick a Class, Any Class…But Only One!

For any normal rendering engine, you can easily apply multiple classes to HTML elements, allowing for a really nice level of specificity. Outlook 2010? Not a chance. You can specify one class, and one class only; the first in your “list” will be acknowledged, and the rest will be ignored. Not a huge deal, but something of a pain if you have complicated email stylesheets and a lot of code to wade through…

No Element Matching

In CSS, you are *supposed* to be able to apply style rules to elements simply by referencing the element. So for example:

td {border:solid 1px silver;padding:4px;border-collapse:collapse;}

This will apply a 1px, silver border to ALL table data elements, give a generous 4px of padding, and apply the collapse on the border-collapse attribute. In Outlook 2010, however, this simply doesn’t work. If you want all your td’s to have a particular style, you’ll need to either apply an inline style to all of them, or at least create a named class and apply it to all of them. Does this suck? Yes, absolutely.

Weird Margins

The other day, I was wrangling with this bit of code:


     
          Here's some content
          Here's some more

Pretty simple, right? Well, for some reason, in Outlook 2010 a gigantic margin was added to the text in each table data. I never quite figured out what caused it, but I did figure out a solution. I simply cleared out the margin on my “table” class, and the table data margin went away. Stupid.

Conclusion

So far, these are some of the things I’ve found to watch out for. I’m sure I’ll find some more, and if I do, I’ll follow up on this post with some more pointers. I guess in the face of such horrible decision made on Microsoft’s part, I can at least be grateful that I have something pointless to blog about

Microsoft Word is the Devil

existdissolve — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:10:05 +0000

I've made clear in the past my great distaste for Microsoft Word and the "formatting" which it injects into WYSIWYG fields. I could write scores of pages about my dislike, but I'll let the following example speak for me. Keep in mind that the following is for 19 words.

The first meeting (a one-time small group in a restaurant) will be scheduled for the week of March 29.

Yep. 19 words…

removeChild() and IE7

existdissolve — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:31:36 +0000

Just a quick post

I've been working on a pretty simple bit of code where one "row" of information is removed and added to a different table of information. Pretty simple stuff.

However, I ran into a issue with IE7 (go figure, right?). When using the "removeChild()" function, IE was not always removing the element specified. I debugged my code to no end, and couldn't find any issues.

Now I'm not sure if this is an actual bug, or an error in implementation on my part, but I ran across a post that seems to indicate that the best way to handle removeChild() in IE is to recursively remove all of the element's children, ending with the element itself (most other browsers don't seem to care, and just remove what you ask for!).

So really, I'm saying anything new, but just getting Google a bit more information to work with to other poor slobs looking for this answer.

Here's where I found the solution:

And here's the recursive function:

function removeChildSafe(el) {
    //before deleting el, recursively delete all of its children.
    while(el.childNodes.length > 0) {
        removeChildSafe(el.childNodes[el.childNodes.length-1]);
    }
    el.parentNode.removeChild(el);
}

Will Chrome Kill Firefox?

existdissolve — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:08:57 +0000

I've read alot of articles on the interblog in which people claim that Google's new browser, Chrome, will hurt Firefox, rather than Internet Explorer. The biggest reason for this, the protagonists claim, is that given that Internet Explorer users are the least likely to change their browsers, the majority of acceptance of Chrome will come from others…hence the hit to Firefox.

But is this really accurate? I don't buy it. The way I see it, the argument made above is true, but in reverse. It is undeniable that people who use IE, besides being horribly misguided in their choice of browsers, are less than likely to switch to a new browser. But it is equally true, IMO, that those who use Firefox are already predisposed to using more than one browser. So rather than a huge pile of competition, Chrome represents just another option.

Of course, if Chrome turns out to be really flippin' cool (which I don't see yet…) and vastly superior to all other options, it is probably more accurate that ALL browsers are in trouble. The time is not far away when Google will be placing proprietary OS's on new computers and, just like the Behemoth Microsoft before it, its browser will be there as well. When this day comes, all other browsers are in for a thrashing, for Google has already positioned itself as a global force in internet apps–if it can translate this to the desktop, Chrome will be the new IE. Hopefully they won't give us another IE6…

The Day to End All Days

existdissolve — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:47:07 +0000

Well, in case you live in a hole somewhere, the next three weeks are shaping up to be huge. In less than two weeks, God-fearing Americans will celebrate the day-before-Lent (Fat Tuesday) by more or less determining the identities of the Democratic and Repulican presidential nominees. In another week and two days, lovers across the world will commemorate their passions with cheap chocolates and over-priced floral arrangements.

Yet few realize that an even more momentous event will occur between these big days. But this event will be truly earth-shaking, and it will hit February 12th.

No, it's not the most recent Jack Van Impe prediction for the return of Christ, and it is not the release date of what is going to be the incredibly awesome sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight.

Nope. February 12th is none other than the death of Internet Explorer 6.

Okay, that was a bit dramatic, and not entirely accurate. Despite fervent prayers in support of IE6's digicide, IE 6 has proven, historically, to be more difficult to kill than it is to design a website for (and that's saying something!). Rather, February 12th marks the date when Internet Explorer 7–IE 6's better (but still not great) replacement–will be pushed through automatic Windows updates to millions of unsuspecting internet users.

Why, you may ask, was this not happening well before now? Well, the answer is as ridiculous as the software behind it. Before February 12, a download of IE7 required authentication of one's copy of Windows. That's right–you had to prove you had paid for an overpriced operating system in order to get a subpar internet browser. However, prompted by "security concerns" (which, incidentally, have been known about for years now…) with IE6, Microsoft has, in its overwhelming beneficence, decided to make IE7 a part of automatic Windows updates without the need for an OS authentication.

From a web design standpoint, this is huge. Currently, about 30% of internet traffic occurs through the blinders of IE 6. This means that well over 70% of one's coding has to be directed to deal with all of IE6's foibles, simply because IE6 sucks and people do not know that there is something that isn't terrible to use for browsing the internet (like Firefox ). With IE7 being rolled into auto updates, however, those people who do not know better will become a backhanded blessing. After all, if they restart their computer more than once a month (and since they're using Windows, there's a pretty good chance they're going to be doing this ALOT), Windows will finally do something right and automatically upgrade their browser to IE7.

Of course, there is a downside. Because of how terrible IE6 is, a TON of IE6 specific code is out there and many companies have–for whatever innane reason–committed themselves in the long-term to IE6's nuerosis. So if they were to auto upgrade to IE7, all of their IE6-specific code would break and they would have to upgrade it to something in conformance with accepted web standards (yes, a crazy suggestion, I know!). Therefore, Microsoft has provided instructions on how auto upgrades to IE7 can be disabled to enable these companies to continue in their terrible ways of code.

Personally, I think that if Microsoft is truly concerned about security, they should force out IE7 in the auto updates without the ability for bypassing. For the companies whose code will inevitably break, it is their own fault. Non-standards coding–regardless of whether or not it is one's own fault–needs to be eliminated from the web. If a bunch of code breaks in the pursuit of standards, so much the better. While I understand the desires of these companies to not have to redo a bunch of code, they must realize that they cannot continue supporting IE6 exclusively in perpetuity. It is simply unrealistic, and the sooner they come to grips with this reality, the sooner they will be able to truly utilize the web for all it is capable of delivering.

So anyway, I propose that Februrary 12th be recognized as a world holiday. I shall christen it "Return to Sanity Day", and I would like to see everyone get the day off so that they can, of course, browse the internet in a standards-compliant browser. (plug: Get Firefox)

IE8 Beta and Kicking Microsoft to the Curb

existdissolve — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:44:39 +0000

Ok, so for those who know me, I've never exactly been the biggest fan of ANYTHING that Microsoft has forced upon the genearl computing public. IMO, Word is about the best thing that they've done, and even that is pretty lame.

Obviously, I have complained more than once about how Microsoft does (or maybe I should say "doesn't do) the web. However, because of the fact that the majority of people still use this inferior browser, I've tolerated it.

Well, this last week, the beta of IE8 came out .

(Warning: To install IE8 you will have to install it over the top of IE7–you can't run them side-by-side. However, IE8 does allow for the emulation of IE7, which is a reasonable compromise)

Over the last couple of weeks, I've done a fair bit of reading about IE8, and even blogged about it . So it was with some anticipation that I signed up for the beta. On the whole, the improvements are positive. The interface itself looks a bit better (less off-color-ish than IE7 and IE6) and cleaner. There are a bunch of add-ons (called "Actions") that can be downloaded, and for what is the first time (I think), developers can actually begin developing their own addons to ship to the general public (huh, Firefox was doing that from day one). Also, IE8 comes built-in with "Developer Tools" that are somewhat like Firebug for Firefox which allows for DOM inspection, javascript debugging etc, albeit severely less robust than Firebug.

The big negative, however, is that it has extremely terrible support for the web, especially–and ironically–Microsoft-specific sites. I tried logging into my Hotmail account (more about this below) in IE8, but it would not load. I got the same results with some visits to other Microsoft-related sites.

This is interesting, for one of IE8's biggest "tease" features is that it would encapsulate a more standards-compliant web experience without "breaking the web." However, it looks like this is happening anyway. Now obviously, this is only beta, but it is somewhat ironic that the answer to the IE-upgrade problem does exactly what everyone feared would happen with an upgrade, and that this problem is most notable on Microsoft-developed sites…

Anyway, back to the original statement. I've had it with Microsoft. I look at what Microsoft puts out, and then at what is avaible for free and open-sourced for the possibility of customization and extension through personal development–and all I can do is shake my head. Not only does the latter often behave in far superior ways, but there is no proprietary crap that has to be traversed just to use it.

So, in my own form of personal revolt, I am cutting as many ties to Microsoft as possible. The Hotmail account I've had for years? I'm not using it anymore. Messenger? Nope. But lest anyone think that my reaction is simply the result of being disgruntled, rest assured that my reasons are sound. Hotmail is an archaic, slow and feature-less mail client. I finally reached my breaking point with spending dozens of minutes everyday waiting for the pathetic interface to load, not to mention being randomly logged out while in the middle of composing an email message for which there is no auto-save option (arggghh…).

And Windows Live Messenger is even worse. Like Hotmail, it is slow and extremely limited in functionality. And have you ever tried to send a file with it? Don't bother: the 50k file will take several minutes to reach it's destination, just a bit longer than it will take to attach it to a Hotmail message.

So, yeah, if you want to reach me on IM, go to Google Talk. (My Hotmail is still forwarding to my new address: existdissolve@gmail.com, however).

Well, there it is. I'm done with Microsoft on the web. I think I will put my energies into companies like Google and Firefox that are actually creating useful and progressive products that have an eye toward the future, a far cry from the self-satisfied, but ever rapidly self-marginalizing approach of Microsoft that believes it can dictate to the world what the web should be. News Flash, MS–you have never done the web well, and you never will. Get over it.