Once upon a time, the email marketing platform I worked on had three body content parts in the editor: the text version, the HTML version, and ... the AOL version! Because, once upon a time, sending HTML email to AOL users wasn't possible. This was a lonnnnng time ago, back when I worked for a company called Digital River.
AOL email supported rich formatting, but only with a limited number of HTML tags. This annoyed many. Amazingly, L-Soft (makers of LISTSERV), still have documentation online showing what tags were supported.
Big: <big>
Body: <body>
Bold: <b>
Break: <br>
Center: <center>
Font: <font>
Headers 1-3: <h1>, <h2>, <h3>
Hyperlink: <a>
Italics: <i>
Paragraph: <p>
Small: <small>
Strong: <strong>
Superscript: <sup>
Subscript: <sub>
Underline: <u>
I'm struggling to remember the exact dates and versions. It was just so long ago! Forbes has this article talking about HTML email support in AOL version 6.0. Do they mean full HTML support, or the limited support? I think they mean full HTML email support; that rings a bell, that it was version 6 or 7 that supported full HTML email. CNN suggests that version 4 supported fonts and colors, so let's theorize that it was perhaps version 4 and 5 that supported the limited HTML formatting, and version 6 that supported full HTML. But somehow I've got it in my head that full HTML email support came with AOL version 7, which perhaps fits with complaints here about AOL version 7's email client sending multipart/alternative MIME emails with a text part and HTML part.
It's been a long time since I've seen reference to that "text/x-aol" multipart-MIME formatting!
And on another note, L-Soft (the company) and LISTSERV (the mailing list software sold by said company) still exist? If you were on email lists in the 1990s, you've used LISTSERV. I learned all about VERP, multi-part MIME, and a ton of other things from pulling apart email headers and watching how LISTSERV built and distributed email messages. It's amazing to think that they're still out there, so many years later.
Once upon a time, the email marketing platform I worked on had three body content parts in the editor: the text version, the HTML version, and ... the AOL version! Because, once upon a time, sending HTML email to AOL users wasn't possible. This was a lonnnnng time ago, back when I worked for a company called Digital River.
AOL email supported rich formatting, but only with a limited number of HTML tags. This annoyed many. Amazingly, L-Soft (makers of LISTSERV), still have documentation online showing what tags were supported.
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