Outlook 2007 - New time travel device.

Would it be possible to find out what justification there is for Outlook 2007 to use Word to render HTML instead of IE7? It is obviously not technical reasons and I am interested in finding out what commercial/political reasons there are for ensuring HTML email from other products won't display properly.

First Source Below wrote:

As I type this post I still can't believe it. I'm literally stunned. If you haven't already heard, I'm talking about the recent news that Outlook 2007, released next month, will stop using Internet Explorer to render HTML emails and instead use the crippled Microsoft Word rendering engine.

Sources:
Microsoft takes email design back 5 years
Open Letter

I hadn't heard about that before, but I can believe it considering some of the rendering issues I've seen during the beta.

If true, it's frankly idiotic.

Yeah, if this is true, it would be really interesting to have the reason explained.

<troll warning>

Since IE is so integrated into the operating system, this might be a security measure.

Well isn't it simple?? It uses Word because in some ocasions you need to edit. And that's a option you don't have in IE7.

littleguru wrote:



WBurggraaf wrote:Well isn't it simple?? It uses Word because in some ocasions you need to edit. And that's a option you don't have in IE7.

How did it work in outlook 2003?

Opening an email in Outlook opens the Message View window, showing the content of the email either in some plaintext area or IE.

Writing an email in Outlook (without Word installed) opens Outlook's own message editor that uses IE to compose HTML messages, otherwise the same ol' textarea.

Writing an email in Outlook with Word uses Word's HTML engine, it's not the best, but since I don't use HTML email on principle (and there's no real reason to use HTML emails for 95% of all messages out there) I don't really care.

My hope? It'll stop people from using HTML email in the first place.

1) F*ck HTML mails.
2) Virtually all HTML mail I get is displayed correctly in Outlook 2007.

This is a good way to make email clients less compatible with eachother.

As a result, we now have a new standard to adhere to: half-arsed HTML/CSS which will be both rendered and formatted just for Word.

It wasn't easy in the past, since earlier versions of Outlook used IE6, but with IE7 HTML email support would have been so much easier. Now they have to go and make it twice as difficult by using Word exclusively for HTML.

Word is not a web browser, don't try to make it one.

WBurggraaf wrote:

And that's a option you don't have in IE7.

Sorry but that's nonsense.

CONTENTEDITABLE

littleguru wrote:

I'm in favour of HTML e-mails although I don't use the provided "power" very much. Sometimes formatting something as bold is very very useful

You can do that with plaintext using underscore _emphasis_ or *important* marks, it's less intrusive too.

littleguru wrote:

or to format sourcecode as sourcecode is very useful.

For that there's sites like NoPaste or PasteBin (think: ImageShack for large text files, with syntax coloring)

And anyway, you can do all of that with rich-text emails, not HTML emails.

To me, HTML email means "embedded MIDI music and Outlook Express 'stationary'"

Jack Cade wrote:



WBurggraaf wrote: And that's a option you don't have in IE7.

Sorry but that's nonsense.

CONTENTEDITABLE

Ok thats a troll answer I gues. Because IE7 is a "browser" and not an "html editor".

WBurggraaf wrote:



Jack Cade wrote: WBurggraaf wrote: And that's a option you don't have in IE7. Sorry but that's nonsense. CONTENTEDITABLE

Ok thats a troll answer I gues. Because IE7 is a "browser" and not an "html editor".

CONTENTEDITABLE is a feature of IE's engine. IE is the browser; the engine, Trident, is multi-purpose.

Practically every engine out there supports "design mode", Dreamweaver uses Opera, for example. I think VS uses a modified version of Trident too.

WBurggraaf wrote:



Jack Cade wrote: WBurggraaf wrote: And that's a option you don't have in IE7. Sorry but that's nonsense. CONTENTEDITABLE

Ok thats a troll answer I gues. Because IE7 is a "browser" and not an "html editor".

Not a troll answer at all. How do you think FreeTextBox works? You know, the thing you typed your reply into

WBurggraaf wrote:

Well isn't it simple?? It uses Word because in some ocasions you need to edit. And that's a option you don't have in IE7.

Now Outlook 2007 uses Word to preview mails while previously it was using IE however when you create a new message or reply it will use Word like any previous Outlook version.

For me the reason for which Outlook 2007 uses Word to preview the emails is that it uses Word for writing them. If previously people were sending e-mails created with Outlook's Word then those mails wouldn't have appeared in the same manner to other people with Outlook (because Outlook would have rendered them with the IE engine).

While it is a good choice for businesses (where most employees send and receive mails created with Outlook) I still find this a bad choice for the end user: Word is not capable of rendering emails at the same level of IE. Also now MS developers not only will have to worry about rendering problems on IE (and as everybody knows IE has more than enough problems), they will have also to worry about rendering problems on Word. Full CSS2 support on word? Maybe in 2020!

Oke maybe you don't like my answer .

I know it is even not my favourite choice. But the only thing I need in this is to understand why they did it.

I do understand the tech behind your sugestions and answers. Microsoft wants to keep it easy because they have a full working product. Why create an extra one? Because to give it all you need in IE7 you have to put some extra code behind it even its maybee simple.

WBurggraaf wrote:



Microsoft wants to keep it easy because they have a full working product.

That is yet to be seen. There doesn't seem to be much conversation about this from the Microsoft side.