I've often asked myself this same question. As you mentioned, there are three settings in the group management area:
- Force HTML emails
- Normalize HTML emails
- Plain text only
Oddly enough, it is possible to check any combination of these three boxes and save without an error. If that is done, I don't know which setting[s] take precedence. It would take a minimum of seven different trials to find out.
Then in the subscriber settings, we have the following:
- Individual emails
- Full-featured digest
- Plain digest
- Daily Summary
And there's one final option not here but relevant...viewing the messages on the web with no email delivery at all...for a total of five. Some of these will contain hyperlinks, some not.?
Then, as you noted, we have the scenarios where the original message may or may not contain a lot of colors, links, etc...or just plain text. To test all these combinations would take 7 x 5 x 2 = 70 different trials, minimum. I don't know anybody who has done this.
Other settings in your group will change the footer content and what hyperlinks appear therein.?A further complication -- as if we needed one -- is that many email clients can be configured to strip out HTML, even if the original message contains it.
It might be nice to have a "sister group" to GMF where we can try out some of these features and address these questions once and for all (I suspect Mark already has one set up). But even if we did, the answer would no doubt be complicated and unlikely to truly satisfy to your group members.?
I hope this helps, but it probably doesn't.
Bruce
Bruce