Mailto link problem

[Thomas Dowling]

I don't believe there will be a fix forthcoming from Netscape on this; their
browser is broken as designed.  They have made a point of supporting their
own, non-standard format for mailto URLs: "mailto:person at host?subject of
message".   A more common problem is that people write mailto links for
Netscape, creating illegal e-mail addresses that break other browsers or
mail programs.  I've seen <a href="mailto:person at host" title="subject of
message"> offered as a non-proprietary substitute.  While Lynx is the only
browser I have which supports this, at least it won't break any other
browser or mail client.

Your better bet is probably to explain the problem to your mail
administrators, ask them why they wanted question marks in your addresses in
the first place, and request addresses without them.  Other sites manage to
create addresses like "freund.t", "freund_t", or even "tammy" without
problems.

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: TR Freund <tammyf at iosys.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 1997 11:38 PM
Subject: Mailto link problem



>Hi everyone,
>I just ran across a problem that maybe someone on this list could help
>me with.  We are in the process of getting our library web site up and
>on one of the pages we have a mailto link.  Our institution's email
>addresses have question marks in the username between the last name and
>first inital (freund?t at mptc.tec.wi.us)  When you click on the mailto
>link, the new message window pops up but the email address in the to:
>line is truncated after the question mark.  Hence all that appears is
>the freund and nothing else.  The problem seems to be specific to the
>Netscape browser as it works fine with IE.  Has anyone out there
>experience this?  Does anyone know a solution to fix this problem?
>Thanks!!
>--
>Tammy R. Freund
>mailto:tammyf at iosys.net
>
>"I presume no introductions are necessary."
>Lestat, Interview with a Vampire. The Movie.
>
>