On Sat, 13 Oct 2012, Mouse wrote:
On Fri, 12 Oct 2012, MikeS wrote:
On Fri, 12 Oct 2012, Tothwolf wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Oct 2012, MikeS wrote:
>
>> As regards colour, I hugely prefer the clarity of messages where the
>> new and quoted text are different colours instead of ever-longer
>> lines of >>>>>s.
> I think this reply deserves a screenshot.
[...]
Yup, looks nice; I'm glad you agree.
In context, I think that was a disagreement.
It was not explicit in the text, but I think the context was
sufficiently compelling that it's fair to read into the "clarity
of..different colours" text above that the colour in question was
supposed to be encoded into the on-the-wire form of the email.
You are correct. It was a disagreement, and for the reasons you stated.
And, based on that reading, and on the way the
screenshot in question
shows a coloured display of quotes from a list message that most
certainly did not have anything like colours in the on-the-list form of
the message, that the reply was pointing out that coloured display of
quoted text can be provided as a user-interface option without needing
to affect the encoded-for-transport representation of the message at
all.
Exactly. The syntax highlighting is independent of the message and can be
disabled if I wish.
This then means that the "I prefer colours"
argument has little-to-no
relevance to a discussion of how to format quotes in messages - and,
indeed, is an argument in favour of standard >-marked quoting, because
it lends itself particularly well to such automated treatment (including
other forms of display for those who would rather have something other
than colours).
I've tried Alpine both with and without the syntax highlighting and found
the highlighting did allow for faster message reading because it made it
slightly easier to follow complex threads. That said, I used Pine for
decades without syntax highlighting, so I'm also watching for standard '>'
quoting as one of the visual cues, so I can still use Pine or Alpine
without highlighting without any trouble.
This is not to say that >-style quoting needs to be
what the
mail-sending user sees, of course. Just that it needs to be what's put
on the wire.
I also use Thunderbird, which has a different way of displaying quoted
text. Thunderbird /still/ makes internal use of '>' quoting, but just
doesn't display them. While Thunderbird suits my needs for some tasks and
is easier to work with for certain stuff, its user interface and "fluff"
tends to get in my way when dealing with bulk listserv traffic, which is
why I'm also using Alpine.