From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ben McGinnes Subject: Re: is ascii link format canonical? can it be made more linkifiable? Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2018 06:43:33 +1100 Message-ID: <20180206194333.kavoapxfaf36jkpr@adversary.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha512; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="gd6pg3w5zzsm6da2" Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38419) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ej9ln-0002xM-Gl for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:23:24 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ej9iv-00017A-Jy for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:21:19 -0500 Received: from ec2-52-29-175-128.eu-central-1.compute.amazonaws.com ([52.29.175.128]:18196 helo=devious.adversary.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ej9iv-000169-02 for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:20:13 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Emacs-orgmode" To: Samuel Wales Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org --gd6pg3w5zzsm6da2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 09:26:14PM -0700, Samuel Wales wrote: >=20 > [[http://whatever.com]] >=20 > i do not know the standard, but i think that some email clients will > not linkify this because of the brackets. Correct. > are we sure that [] are canonical? not <>? is it the clients that > are wrong? No, it's because the square brackets are valid characters for use in file names and thus can be part of the URL itself. There's no way for a MUA to recognise the difference. You can see this demonstrated here: http://www.adversary.org/test/] And here: http://www.adversary.org/test/]] Angle brackets, however, are not valid in URLs and recognisably used within HTML, XHTML, XML and variants. Since most MUAs achieve their WYSIWIG interfaces via some means of implementing HTML (or a bastardisation of it), the angle brackets are recognised as a means of specifying a particular type of object. Some MUAs will leverage the mailcap file to be more specific with this. Some, of course, won't and some wander off on strange bastardised rich text tangents or custom protocols (insert pointed look at Microsoft Outlook here). Mostly, though, GUI MUAs went for HTML 4.01 and/or an XHTML variant after Netscape Communicator hit the Net in the late '90s and everyone (eventually) followed suit. Along with retaining some simplistic carry over from plain text emails similar to basic text mark-up in org-mode (e.g. *bold*, /italics/, _underline_ and so on). Most of which were de facto standards, not official ones. Basically the geek equivalent of demonstrating how custom and tradition were more pervasive than law (RFCs and MUA design). Regards, Ben --gd6pg3w5zzsm6da2 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- iHUEABEKAB0WIQSkiyjzmoPmPFW48w5Icjp1eQQexgUCWnoFZQAKCRBIcjp1eQQe xvOfAP0WjWi4Cby08BUAuUhp4EmhT/sZFWpNWFSyuzAY/XCegQD+P5ESNMz+nerY DNnCb9rvMgklfnYv/ZMSNiVwT4BfYk4= =HW3u -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --gd6pg3w5zzsm6da2--