@gymtonic: Hi, John Smith here. Nice to meet you!

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

John Smith, such a common name used in nearly EVERY example, yet, I've never met anybody called John Smith...

gymtonic

@justrick: It would be nice to be able to compose/reply using HTML in Outlook.

yowhatup

@justrick: Outlook has always had the ability for multiple signatures built in.

Norcross

Awesome-o... I keep hoping to find something similar for Outlook!

justrick

@edmicman: I knew someone would bring out the HTML signature hate :)

Obviously some people can misuse such a feature and make reading e-mails a pain. Otherwise you can add bold, italics, underlines or a small logo of your company to the signature that makes it look much more elegant than a block of text.

Ted Avery

@edmicman: Well some people like displaying their creativity.

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

@justrick: You should be able to do this in Outlook. Open Word or Notepad or the like and type up your sig with html. Save it as .html document. Go to Tools>Options>Signatures. Browse to find the .html file and set it for your sig. I did something like this years ago with Lotus Notes.

Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another dude

@yowhatup: Ummmm, hasn't Outlook always had the option of composing messages in HTML?

edmicman

Ughhhh....why?!? There's nothing I hate about Outlook more than message signatures with stupid fonts, colors everywhere....and embedded graphics?!? Seriously?? Even worse is the stationery crap with background images and such.

This is a horrible thing to bring to webmail. I thought we were beyond things like this and Incredimail...

Email signatures are great, but why can't you just have a simple 4 line text block with your name and basic contact info?

edmicman

I have to agree that signatures in emails (other than some simple contact info) are on balance more of a vanity thing than useful, and can get pretty annoying... (grin)

__________________

jsmorley

@Gina: do you know [www.retaggr.com] ?
email signature is only one of many features
plus it's server side solution so the signature works everywhere, it's very tweakable
the no.1 feature is probably the (ultra) widget which gathers all your profiles around the web in one place
think of it as a lifestreaming in a widget
it's really cool
for a preview - here's mine [www.retaggr.com]

keynell

EPIC!

thanks

unruled

Awesome! I've been wishing for something like this for so long. Thanks LH!!!

Swiftshark

@Jrsy is the dude, playing the dude, disguised as another du...:

my name is Will Do.

no, I'm not joking.

Sigh...

Parapraxis

@edmicman: I agree. I don't like HTML signatures or e-mails. It used to cause a lot of problems for me while in school and on accounts that couldn't handle it. To quote Wikipedia's article on HTML, "Use of HTML in e-mail is controversial because of compatibility issues, because it can be used in phishing/privacy attacks, because it can confuse spam filters, and because the message size is larger than plain text." Things are better now with most web mail accounts, but I'd still prefer it if all e-mail were in plain text and on my personal web pages, I request that people only send me plain text messages and provide a link to a web page that gives reasons why plain text is better. Sure, not everyone goes crazy with HTML mail or signatures. I'm sure you can make a nice looking and simple HTML signature as Ted Avery notes. And from my quick look, WiseStamp seems to be able to do that. But I also agree that a 4x80 plain text signature should be sufficient. That's what I use at work and I can get my name, title, company, full mailing address, office building/room, e-mail, phone, and fax in that space. I can't imagine people really needing more than that. *shrug* Maybe the preference for plain text is just me though, and as times change, HTML e-mail is going to be the standard. Who knows?

Dronak

I'm using Better Gmail 2 v0.7 with the Gmail Redesigned skin and this doesn't seem to be working with my Gmail account. This is working with my Yahoo Mail though.

vinylkemist

@gymtonic: The only guy I ever knew named John Smith used his middle name (Stephen) because he got tired of getting the fish eye at hotels.

infmom

And putting HTML in your email will increase your "spam score" by as much as 5 points. Probably not a problem if you only send email to private persons who are also using webmail, but if you're trying to get something (for example, a C.V.) delivered to a Fortune 1000 company, a higher spam score means a much higher likelihood that your email will never be seen by a human.

Use HTML for its intended purpose, folks: Pretty Web pages.

Deadhacker

I've been using Gmail Signatures from Jerome Dane to add HTML signatures to my gmail emails.

[blankcanvasweb.com]

macuser1

Nice addition to GMail. I like the ability to switch between two signatures easily. The only thing I wonder is if it's worth the risk of sending it to emails that don't accept HTML.

dimatx

Thunderbird?

Darkmatter91

@gymtonic: I was always partial to George P. Burdell myself...

[en.wikipedia.org]

dataguy

HTML? Colors? Fonts? Argh! Get off my lawn and give me my plain-text.

hometoast

One problem that I have with Gmail that Google has yet to correct is that I still cannot embed images within my email. I can include images as attachments and I can include images linked to hosted URL's, but I cannot insert an image inline that is included (uuencoded?) within the message.

WiseStamp is an interesting app, and it is very well implemented, but it suffers form the same plight. If I want to include an image, I must host the image somewhere and provide the link. Maybe that's typical, but why can I not have an image embedded, self-contained in a message?

jbarr

I would love to have one of those signatures, but I know I receive email through work software that butchers all the images, and makes an otherwise professional signature look plain silly. I think if all emails were guaranteed to be received in HTML, I'd be all over this 100%.

@gymtonic: I knew a guy named John Smith. I always thought that had to be a drag.

kikolani

Am I the only one, or does this extension break Better Gmail 0.7?

RichardThisbe

vinylkemist: Disable all "V" marked options in "Compose" tab of Better Gmail. Will work

AlstonZeiram

I've never understood why someone would put their email address in their signature. Really? You don't have a reply button?

HalseyDadlike

@JS I agree with you to some point, people do tend to go over board with their own sig. But now-a-days the web is going 2.0 and creative (not overly-down) is the way to go. People want to make eveything they can web 2.0 based. Look at many sites now-a-days, most are redesigning to get the apeal of more people, who like the more interactive feel.

ShamimTrypticon

WOW! I was just looking for a solution to this issue. I almost decided to port my beloved web based gmail account to an IMAP client. I was going to search lifehacker for a recommendation for a good email client, and BAM! This is the latest Lifehacker post. You guys are always right on target!! Love it!!

BriceFanuimor

Cant emphasize enough, this was needed!

I was using the MyBlogLog HTML Signature till now, this is a much better option!

Viki

Thank goodness...hope this works, because most of the time Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures does not...cannot wait to get rid of it, as I need these sigs for my business accounts in gmail...Thanks!

tpullano

[prints and puts up]

ext212

@jbarr:

Have you tried this? [digg.com]

XenoMorphPT

@Deadhacker:

Well said. I hammer this home to everyone I know. HTML in email is not smart from both presentation and a security point of view.

deano6699

HTML signatures can go hang. What I really want for gmail is multiple plain text signatures that I can associate with different accounts.
At that point, they can leave gmail untouched and I wouldn't complain.

deano6699