Safari, Mountain Lion and emailing pages

Question

Safari, Mountain Lion and emailing pages

I suppose I'll get used to the tabs in Safari on Mountain Lion, but one thing that seems a huge step back is the ability to email ANY web page from Safari. Oh, yes, I know you can email pages, and I know where the command is, and I know when you're sending it it looks fine in the email window, but have you seen what happens when it arrives with the recipient?

On some web pages, the text is extracted from the page and presented, but images and layout are lost, and a link to the page is included instead. On some other web pages, the recipient just gets a jumble of text extracted from the web page (everything, like navigation lists and other links, like something from the 1980s) and they have to scroll WAY down to find the relevant text, say of the story you were trying to send. This never happened in Safari with Lion, or any previous OS, as far as I know (maybe OS8.6?) but it happens in Safari 6 on Mountain Lion. This feels all wrong, like this function on Safari has gone eleven steps back.

Did nobody test this feature before ML was launched? I mean, like REALLY test it, see what happened when the recipient received the emailed web page? Obviously not.

You know what Steve would say.

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 2:04 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 2, 2012 6:18 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

I've now discovered what the basic flaw is here. If you have Mail set to Plain Text as default in Preferences (as many do, like me) you cannot email a web page and expect it to arrive as you see it in your browser. You must first change the format of the message to Rich Text. Before Mountain Lion this was not necessary. So in many ways you might say that while the new OS has introduced some extra elements it has made this simple function unncessarily complicated by adding an extra step for plain text users. Like I said before, did nobody test all the possibilities before releasing this?

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Answer 2

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Aug 2, 2012 6:38 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

I can't see the problem here, Colin.

Obviously, if your mail reader is set to plain text you can't expect to see webpages displayed properly in plain text.

By default, Mail is set to display as rich text, isn't it?

Seems like a none-problem to me.

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Answer 3

Aug 2, 2012 7:27 AM in response to softwater

I've used plain text all my life because I'm a journalist and newspapers don't like press releases and other copy arriving in Rich Text (reformatting needed and so forth). So up until Mountain Lion I've been able to send full web pages by email set to Plain Text. I've checked with lots of people who would have been receiving forwarded web pages from me and they confirm this. Now it doesn't work any longer. I have to change the format to Rich Text before forwarding an email. So, contrary to what you say, it is a problem. A small one, admittedly, but an extra step needed that wasn't needed before, for me, and others who prefer, or have to use, plain text.

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Answer 4

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Aug 2, 2012 7:28 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

If it's a web page, why would you try to email a copy of the page instead of just emailing the link to the page?

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Answer 5

Aug 2, 2012 7:50 AM in response to Lanny

For the same reason anyone would. To give the recipient instant access to the content. In journalism you're often trying to get someone's attention very quickly, and sometimes people can't be bothered clicking on a received link. The function is obviously there because people use it. Just trust me on this one - I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't need to.

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Answer 6

Brucku

Level 1

4 points

Aug 5, 2012 6:32 PM in response to Lanny

Lets not forget that in Safari 6 - they took out the best email option "EMAIL A LINK TO THIS PAGE" and now they only have "EMAIL THIS PAGE" email this page is awkward and odd - the link to the page was so much more useful and now its missing.

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Answer 7

Aug 5, 2012 11:03 PM in response to Brucku

That facility, to email the link only, is now in a tiny drop-down menu in the Mail message window, to the right. Yes, I know, you'd never know unless someone told you. Intuitive? Not any more, folks.

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Answer 8

Brucku

Level 1

4 points

Aug 6, 2012 3:13 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

Thanks!! Luckily it remembers your last choice for this menu setting - so you only have to fix it once per computer.

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Answer 9

Aug 6, 2012 5:07 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

Thank you !

That solved my problem

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Answer 10

Nov 4, 2012 3:52 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

Many thanks for this great advise; it worked well for me and solved my weeks long problem ;-))

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Answer 11

TheCraw

Level 1

9 points

Mar 7, 2013 11:51 AM in response to Colin McClelland1

This thread seems to be dealing in the area where I am having a problem. I can easily from Safari email the link to a page but if I choose in the mail side to have it as pdf it simply goes into mail and just sits there and keeps displaying the message loading in the mail message it opens.

If I do it from safari by going to the print menu and selecting from the PDF area of the print dialogue mail pdf it will open a mail message with the pdf showing as an attachment. Similar happens if I choose to send it as a web page. Does not seem to matter on either if I have it set to rich text or text in the mail same behaviour.

Any idea with what might be going on. thanks

Am using lated Mountain Lion 10.8.2

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Answer 12

TheCraw

Level 1

9 points

Mar 7, 2013 12:14 PM in response to TheCraw

This is craw again, don't worry about answering this question. I created another account and went into it and checked if I had same problem in that account and I did not.

I came back into this account and did the update for Java as it was now showing in my updates. Tried the email from this thread to see if it was a problem and it all seemed to work. Also had flipped the mail to text only and then back to rich text.

No idea what fixed it but it is now working the way it should .

Must of been gremlins.

regards

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Answer 13

Mar 7, 2013 12:28 PM in response to TheCraw

You always gotta look out for the gremlins ;-)

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