15 Jun
2000
15 Jun
'00
1:36 p.m.
Peter,
Sorry for causing any trouble. I only recently joined this group and I
wasn't aware of this groups' desire for 80 character line lengths limits.
I never intended to suggest that all email revolves around MS Outlook.
I use it because it works well for me. I know that the mail readers in
Netscape and IE both support autowrap and the ability to size the
window as desired. When this approach is used for email, the added
> (or | | or whichever) characters only appear at
the beginning of each
paragraph, so they don't scramble the contents of the
email. So, nesting
can continue forever, if desired. I (and others) think this is a big
advantage - especially in mail groups where replies bounce back and
forth. But, it's just suggestion.
BTW, would it cause you any problems to turn wrap on? This way you
could handle any line length you encountered.
Mark Champion
Sony Electronics
206-524-0014
mark.champion(a)am.sony.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Turnbull" <pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 1:30 AM
Subject: Re: Tek 4014/5 emulation
On Jun 14, 17:58, Mark Champion wrote:
Regarding the line length, I presume most users
use "word-wrap" for their
email readers. This allows the reader to
format the screen as desired
(similar to the way web browsers handle text). I believe all HTML
compatible email programs have this capability.
No they don't; and in any case many list members don't use "HTML
compatible" or even MIME-aware readers. HTML has no place in email. Email
does not revolve around M$ Outlook :-)
As you see from the above, you lose the quoting when most software does the
wrapping after the event. It's an accepted convention to keep lines short
-- and I seem to remember we had this discussion a few months ago?
The big advantage of handling email this way is
that when the line
lengths increase due to the > or > > or > > >
which stack-up with each
reply, the email remains completely readable and well formatted. (I'm sure
everyone has received the email which is littered with tons of > > > > >
>
> > and barely intelligible.)
Well, I find the nesting usually makes it easier to retain attribution --
and I've never seen any software which can handle post-wrapping and keep
the correct indentations. Particularly since not everyone uses the same
quoting characters (I use "> " but others may use "<" or
":" with or
without a following space).
If this is a general problem for other readers,
let me know and I will
add the line breaks for any additional posts to this group.
Yes please.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York