> Many have made interesting suggestions to which mail users have been long > plagued: the breaking up of long lines by MUAs and its devastating side > effect on meaning. Presumably what the authors of those MUAs hope is that > thereby they can lock folks into their proprietary "solution"
>i recently made a discovery which seems to be a workaround this problem for >most environments and most MUAs. To wit if one precedes a line with a ">" it >will not be wrapped! At least not on my gMail MUA. Others can see the effect >on theirs (most of this preserved thread has been so treated and can serve as >a test case) >Thus the prescription would be to precede any long line which should be >preserved with paragraph wrapping, rather than breakup, with a >. >On a side note Google began pushing yesterday another revision of their gMail >MUA. There are some benefits, but unfortunately it has a major killer (at >least for me) in that it does not allow the creation of text-only posts. All >posts must be in their rich-text format and suffer the overhead of being >duplicated in a text only form. >i am attempting to use Thunderbird as a MUA, but it has serious inherent >deficits in using webmail data: all that data needs be replicated. This is no >small task and is not suitable for a small machine or limited bandwidth. >If anyone can suggest another MUA which gets around this problem, perhaps by >being extensible i am all ears. greg ~krsnadas.org -- from: greg heil <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> cc: Chat forum <[email protected]> date: 12 January 2011 11:21 subject: Re: [Jbeta] [Jchat] mailing browser Alan > Yes mine too:-( it is the way of modern mail agents, at least mine, gMail. Is > there another which lets you choose the font for viewing? > i have an audience that i send monospaced text too, poetry if you will, none > of them ever receive it in a monospaced form. One would have to be in a HTML > forum using Monospaced fonts for that to happen. Many fora, such as these, > are text only as the 'attachments' can take up a lot of space and potentially > be dangerous. greg ~krsnadas.org -- from Raul Miller <[email protected]> to Chat forum <[email protected]> date 12 January 2011 02:58 subject Re: [Jbeta] [Jchat] mailing browser On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:59 AM, Alan K. Stebbens <[email protected]> wrote: > For example, this ASCII table presents nicely only because I'm using a > monospace font on it. > ;:'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country' > +---+--+---+----+---+---+----+---+--+----+--+---+---+--+-----+-------+ > |now|is|the|time|for|all|good|men|to|come|to|the|aid|of|their|country| > +---+--+---+----+---+---+----+---+--+----+--+---+---+--+-----+-------+ >Interestingly enough, it was displayed using a proportional font, in my >browser. -- Raul -- from Alan K. Stebbens <[email protected]> to Beta forum <[email protected]> cc Chat forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 22:59 subject Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser On Jan 11, 2011, at 1:24 PM, greg heil wrote: > "watch out for line wraps"... almost a mantra on these fora;-) > Is there a way, perhaps using "mark down", to get around that? Generally it > seems most email client apps seem to mess up the writers intentions:-(( > Perhaps there is a way if only in our fora (not necessarily the wider word of > emailed communication) to move beyond that into at least a modicum of > formatting, without the heaviness of proprietary "solutions". Greg, >Using HTML or RTF in your mail client should prevent the mailer from "messing >up" the presentation. >I use HTML all the time for tabular content so that I can use a monospace font >on that content, even if the prose is my normal, variable width Verdana font. >For example, this ASCII table presents nicely only because I'm using a >monospace font on it. > ;:'now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country' >+---+--+---+----+---+---+----+---+--+----+--+---+---+--+-----+-------+ >|now|is|the|time|for|all|good|men|to|come|to|the|aid|of|their|country| >+---+--+---+----+---+---+----+---+--+----+--+---+---+--+-----+-------+ -- from: Charles Turner <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> date: 12 January 2011 04:51 subject: Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser On Jan 11, 2011, at 4:24 PM, greg heil wrote: > Perhaps a custom posting client agent could me modeled in j7? >Well, not really sure what the issue is here, but thought I'd share this. The >visual audio synthesis language Max/MSP has had this problem with posting its >"patches," short snippets (or longer) of JSON code that is compiled into a >visual representation (eg, the illustration at the bottom of this page): <http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages/msp-ref/fftinfo~.html> >After years of trouble on mailing lists and web fora, they developed a >"uunecoding scheme" that is supported by the application. <http://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=30461> >You can save and copy to the clipboard, and you can also open (or best, open >from clipboard) in this representation. So, not immediately readable in a >post, but simply select, copy, switch to a running J instance, go to the File >menu and select "new file from clipboard. Best wishes, Charles -- from: Björn Helgason <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> date: 12 January 2011 01:21 subject: Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser I am not sure what you are after. >What I am suggesting is more or less user hand controlled solution. And >basically if you want to send code with longer lines. You would make sure that >NB. LC would be well within ordinary line length. You could let an analyzer >make sure that each line is not over length x and if you expect the line >length to be max y then you have to account for adding NB.LC too. So you have >the analyzer check for line length above y - 10 or x and mark them. Then >either do the splitting yourself by hand or have the analyzer do some initial >splitting. Lets say you have y equal to 70 and x equal to 40. >If it is code you are splitting this way it might be better to do it by hand >to make it look nicer even during transport. -- from: Raul Miller <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> cc: Chat forum <[email protected]> date: 11 January 2011 18:58 subject: Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 6:46 PM, greg heil <[email protected]> wrote: > Unfortunately the line length can grow (beyond the limit of perhaps > 64-70 allowed) by the addition(s) of "> ", sigh. >That should not really matter, for code, because you already have to hand edit >it to get rid of the >. It's often easier to go to an earlier instance of the >quoted material and use it directly. > Another convention is in Markdown: where a long line is only ended with two > spaces. A reader could be made using that convention: It would run together > all lines not demarked by two LF's or two spaces. Unwrapping the others. It > would have to rid unused "> "'s - which might be sad if they are needed, > though escaping, in that rare case, is an option. Some mail environments delete trailing spaces on lines. --- Raul -- from: greg heil <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> date: 11 January 2011 16:32 subject: Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser Bjorn >What if the line wrap occurs in the middle, say between the N & the B, or the >B and the L, or ... Mail agents are capable of making hash of anything ... by >introducing randomness. greg ~krsnadas.org -- from Björn Helgason <[email protected]> reply-to Beta forum <[email protected]> to Beta forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 16:14 subject Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser >If it really matters that the result line is not wrapped you might add NB. LC >(Line Continues) if you really want to write a long line NB. LC and split it on many NB. LC lines and send it off NB. LC you can send it off in small chunks -- from greg heil <[email protected]> to Beta forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 15:53 subject Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser Bjorn >The problem is that solution is verbose (for the user) and only works when the >user has a J environment handy, it requires the user to shuttle environments >... i am hoping for a solution for more general readers and problems. greg ~krsnadas.org -- from Björn Helgason <[email protected]> to Beta forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 14:24 subject Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser t=.'if you really want to write a long line' t=.t,' and split it on many' t=.t,' lines and send it off' t=.t,' you can send it off in small chunks' t > if you really want to write a long line and split it on many lines and send > it off you can send it off in small chunks -- from: greg heil <[email protected]> to: Beta forum <[email protected]> cc: Chat forum <[email protected]> date: 11 January 2011 15:46 subject: Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser Raul >Unfortunately the line length can grow (beyond the limit of perhaps 64-70 >allowed) by the addition(s) of "> ", sigh. >Most mail agents wrap like you said at some predetermined value. One can wrap >the whole in html's pre tag which is relatively simple - but tricking or >creating clients to use that convention is much harder. >Another convention is in Markdown: where a long line is only ended with two >spaces. A reader could be made using that convention: It would run together >all lines not demarked by two LF's or two spaces. Unwrapping the others. It >would have to rid unused "> "'s - which might be sad if they are needed, >though escaping, in that rare case, is an option. >Markup symbols are also treated badly by variable width fonts, which are the >norm for most readers. A wrap in a pre tag could make it all constant width, >much much better for the symbology of J like languages. >i do like the idea of piggybacking on internet wide proto-conventions... It >makes for the possibility of reinforcing feedback loops amongst communities. >Markdown is good, though its href capabilities are a bit convoluted compred to >my preferred ~ method: ~ denotes a path, usually a file at a (default) >location. A default TLD may be set with a ~, and dates, times, ftps, emails >etc... >If the reader client were made facile enough it could be generally used, even >if not the vendors own. If it spoke SMTP possibly it could speak to multiple >vendor servers... if it had r/w access to their inbox at a raw level. greg ~krsnadas.org -- from Raul Miller <[email protected]> to Beta forum <[email protected]> cc Chat forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 14:09 subject Re: [Jbeta] mailing browser On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 4:24 PM, greg heil <[email protected]> wrote: > "watch out for line wraps"... almost a mantra on these fora;-) Is there a way, perhaps using "mark down", to get around that? In the general case, no -- each mail client implements its own rules. >That said, if you keep your lines short enough (64 characters wide should be >short enough, 70 might be short enough), no mail client should wrap the lines. >The problem, here, is that discovering line width often means using some >editor other than the one provided by the mail client. >Another possibility involves wrapping the logical line in something that would >recover from extraneous line breaks. For example: ".0 :0-.LF LINE GOES HERE ) However, this is bulky and distracting. >Another possibility involves creating a "J line-end indicator" which would >allow a script approach that ignores the email introduced line ends. To my >knowledge no one has ever bothered with such a thing. There may be other possibilities. -- Raul -- from greg heil <[email protected]> to Chat forum <[email protected]>, Beta forum <[email protected]> date 11 January 2011 13:24 subject mailing browser "watch out for line wraps"... almost a mantra on these fora;-) >Is there a way, perhaps using "mark down", to get around that? Generally it >seems most email client apps seem to mess up the writers intentions:-(( >Perhaps there is a way if only in our fora (not necessarily the wider word of >emailed communication) to move beyond that into at least a modicum of >formatting, without the heaviness of proprietary "solutions". >Just putting the pre tag around an outgoing post can help tremendously. >Yahoos! online rich text mailer is very good. Is there a way to get something >like that working for incoming and outgoing mailings? On the outgoing end i >would like control over a raw html'd post. On the incoming i would at least >like to avoid the "line wraps" so frequently mentioned, and avoid the >"alternative parts"! The deficit may be at the posting client agent end:-| >Perhaps a custom posting client agent could me modeled in j7? If it can sit in >the JUM, anyone with an account, anywhere can post markups (or downs). A >reader client agent likely needs to sit on gigabytes of secure data and thus >likely off the JUM. >The poster only part, only needs the inbox, or about 5 lines of header info >for each post - for correctly linked replies. Or a way to include appropriate >headers. Perhaps bridge apps between receiver and poster agents. >Is there an existing a solution that suffices? i (and others?) have been >frustrated for decades by this state of affairs. The whole may be a snarled >mess, but at least, with conventions or more, it could be ameliorated within a >semi isolated ecosystem. greg ~krsnadas.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
