Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
,[Pierre Willaime:] | I would like to format plain text emails to in- | crease readability and information separation. The | idea is to go beyond markdown and to have more | visible elements. `-- Markdown is intended for conversion into HTML and other formats (see Pandoc), while remaining a read- able plain-text file, which is compromise. You don't need this compromise if the ASCII is your only intended output. My own quest for the formatting of ASCII files ended up in GNU Troff, which can do all the standard ele- ments of sturcutured documents, such as: 1. Basic formatting, such as paragraphs, hyphen- ation, justification 2. Lists: bulleted, dashed, automatically num- bered. 3. Footnotes[1] 4. Sections and subsection. 5. Tables. 6. Wrapping of text around rectangular areas. For a small demo to begin with, see the CoreOps newsletter, which I typeset with GNU Troff: http://inversed.ru/CoreWar/CoreOps_02.txt I have typeset this e-mail in GNU Troff, so make sure to view it in a monospace font. 1. Yes, indeed.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 2023-02-05, TRS-80 wrote: > >> 2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to >> automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap >> between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters >> line. > > #+begin_src emacs-lisp > (defun my-insert-line-justified (left-text right-text) > "Insert justified line. > Spaces between LEFT-TEXT and RIGHT-TEXT will be calculated > automatically, based on 72 character overall width." > (let* ((left-chars (length left-text)) > (right-chars (length right-text)) > (spaces-count (- 72 left-chars right-chars)) > (spaces-string (make-string spaces-count ? ))) > (insert left-text spaces-string right-text))) > #+end_src (set-justification-full)
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Pierre Willaime writes: > Le 31/01/2023 à 21:14, Greg Wooledge a écrit : >> A .signature file is only written once, so it doesn't matter how >> tedious it is to produce the desired formatting. > > But you are right, .signature file is only written once and I am looking > for a simple way to write email with some minimal ASCII formatting. This > is why I am looking for an automatic solution. As Greg already stated, you only need to calculate spaces if the content will be changing (i.e., date or other field(s)). Otherwise just write what you want statically in signature file as mentioned. > I do not want to do ASCII art, I am only searching a simple way to do > something close to the debian-annouce emails. > > > The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/ > Updated Debian 11: 11.6 releasedpr...@debian.org > December 17th, 2022https://www.debian.org/News/2022/20221217 > > > How this header is generated? > > So do someone knows: > > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > --- Since you mentioned Emacs (in OP). One answer has been posted already about how to do so interactively. Here is how to do so with ELisp: #+begin_src emacs-lisp (insert-char ?- 72) #+end_src > 2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to > automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap > between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters > line. #+begin_src emacs-lisp (defun my-insert-line-justified (left-text right-text) "Insert justified line. Spaces between LEFT-TEXT and RIGHT-TEXT will be calculated automatically, based on 72 character overall width." (let* ((left-chars (length left-text)) (right-chars (length right-text)) (spaces-count (- 72 left-chars right-chars)) (spaces-string (make-string spaces-count ? ))) (insert left-text spaces-string right-text))) #+end_src > 3- a simple way to do boxes (no present in debian-annouce header) If you put together both things I provided above (perhaps along with some '|' characters), you should be able to figure this out for yourself. As others have pointed out, consider doing so tastefully/sparingly. -- Cheers, TRS-80
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
> Pierre Willaime posted > > > For example I am looking for a convenient way to > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > # > ## some title here ## > # I have a python program that does this $ python3 msgbox.py Skunk Bucket from Nan Tucket Skunk Bucket from Nan Tucket Available at http://csphx.net/python/msgbox.py I'm not an EMACS user so I wouldn't know how to interface the program with EMACS -- Stanley C. Kitching Human Being Phoenix, Arizona
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:06:44PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote:
> >1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-")
> >---
>
> Are you using emacs? I'm *sure* there must be a quick short-hand to do
> this. I use vi, and the keys to press are
>
> 72i-
>
> I actually write something like this frequently, and it's fast enough
> that I've never bothered to shorten via macro or similar.
>
> >2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to
> >automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap
> >between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72
> >characters line.
>
> With vi, for a whole line, it's simply the command :right, assuming
> you've configured the desired textwidth (':set tw=72'. My
> configuration sets this automatically for mail buffers).
>
> I'm not sure how to do it for only a portion of a line but I'm sure
> it's reasonably straightforward (and a little less sure that this
> holds true for emacs as well)
Type the right-hand bit, right justify it, then type the left hand bit
using substitute/overwrite mode (R) instead of insert mode (i etc).
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Pierre Willaime wrote: ... > I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and > information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have > more visible elements. For example I am looking for a convenient way to > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > # > ## some title here ## > # ... uhg! please don't! there are tools that will do whatever picture drawing you like, but ascii docs alone should be as simple as possible. if you want more formatted stuff there are all sorts of things like groff, nroff, TeX (latex, texlive-latex), mathjax, etc. it is bad enough that people post stuff and then include all the rest of the message below (otherwise known as top posting) as i sure don't need to see unformatted html in a text group. for your own use in your own documents i don't care what you do but once you post to usenet there are some general conventions that are reasonable. songbird (not having long .sigs is one of them... (4 lines max) but if you've done it properly i won't see them at all... :) <-- smiley may or may not be a close paren
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 10:50:59AM +, Jonathan Dowland wrote: > On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:06:44PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote: > > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > > --- > > Are you using emacs? I'm *sure* there must be a quick short-hand to do > this. I use vi, and the keys to press are > > 72i- It was in this thread already (and a variation of the Vim Ways, too): C-u 7 2 - I don't know currently the Emacs incantation to right-justify a line Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:06:44PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote:
1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-")
---
Are you using emacs? I'm *sure* there must be a quick short-hand to do
this. I use vi, and the keys to press are
72i-
I actually write something like this frequently, and it's fast enough
that I've never bothered to shorten via macro or similar.
2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to
automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap
between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters
line.
With vi, for a whole line, it's simply the command :right, assuming
you've configured the desired textwidth (':set tw=72'. My configuration
sets this automatically for mail buffers).
I'm not sure how to do it for only a portion of a line but I'm sure it's
reasonably straightforward (and a little less sure that this holds true
for emacs as well)
--
Please do not CC me for listmail.
👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland
✎j...@debian.org
🔗 https://jmtd.net
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue 31 Jan 2023 at 23:06:44 (+0100), Pierre Willaime wrote: > Le 31/01/2023 à 21:14, Greg Wooledge a écrit : > > A .signature file is only written once, so it doesn't matter how > > tedious it is to produce the desired formatting. That said, I would > > imagine relatively few people have octothorpe boxes around text in their > > .signature files these days. Even back in the 1990s, that would have > > been considered a bit on the tacky side. > > Of course, I misspoke about the signature. I often see *some* formatting > (such as some text aligned to the left and some other text aligned to > the right, same line). > > But you are right, .signature file is only written once and I am looking > for a simple way to write email with some minimal ASCII formatting. This > is why I am looking for an automatic solution. > > I do not want to do ASCII art, I am only searching a simple way to do > something close to the debian-annouce emails. > > > The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/ > Updated Debian 11: 11.6 releasedpr...@debian.org > December 17th, 2022https://www.debian.org/News/2022/20221217 > > > How this header is generated? No idea. I guess you might ask someone who generates them. > So do someone knows: > > > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > --- I would type ESC 7 2 - which does, and reflects, the same as C-u 72 -, but is less awkward to type. > 2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to > automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap > between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters > line. That's beyond my paygrade: I don't do conditionals or computations in emacs. So how would I tackle it to make it a little less painful: First, I'd type the dashes, which give your eye the alignment to use. Next, I'd type the left and right parts, but making sure that there were two spaces between them. I would define a macro, or preferably have defined it already and bound it to some keystroke (it needs to be a single keystroke to be sensible): C-e C-r SPACE SPACE RETURN SPACE C-e Every time you execute the macro, the line will lengthen by one. The macro should be as easy to use whether you lengthen each line as you type it, or leave it all to the end of the block. If you're completely ham-fisted, you'd need the inverse macro, which would have the last SPACE replaced by C-d. That macro would be bound so that you couldn't easily repeat it by accident, as it's destructive. (It will search backwards for /any/ double space.) > 3- a simple way to do boxes (no present in debian-annouce header) I thought I'd already covered that in https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2023/01/msg00792.html but the buffer has to be in the correct mode to get octotherps rather than comment characters appropriate to some other language that emacs thinks the buffer contains. (I'm assuming the ELPA people have got automated linedrawing characters covered. I've never ventured there.) Cheers, David.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Greg Wooledge wrote on 01/02/2023 at 16:00:59+0100: > On Wed, Feb 01, 2023 at 02:40:30PM -, Curt wrote: >> On 2023-02-01, The Wanderer wrote: >> > >> > Can you double-check what (Debian) package that's in? I'm not finding >> > any package or file named anything like either of those two things, in >> > current Debian testing and stable. >> >> You use the built-in package manager: 'M-x package-install RET >> ascii-art-draw RET'. > > ... what in the HELL is that? An emacs command? Does emacs have its > own packages? Yes, (m)elpa et al. Actually quite useful, because many features are not debian-packaged (yet?). -- PEB
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 2023-02-01 at 10:00, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Wed, Feb 01, 2023 at 02:40:30PM -, Curt wrote: > >> On 2023-02-01, The Wanderer wrote: >> >> > >> > Can you double-check what (Debian) package that's in? I'm not finding >> > any package or file named anything like either of those two things, in >> > current Debian testing and stable. >> >> You use the built-in package manager: 'M-x package-install RET >> ascii-art-draw RET'. > > ... what in the HELL is that? An emacs command? Yes. > Does emacs have its own packages? Apparently so. I didn't expect that, but I can't say I'm especially surprised. I do think it would have been appropriate to specify that, but in the initial reply at least there *was* mention of emacs in the quoted context, so I can see why that might not have been done. For this response, there wasn't any mention of emacs at all - and in that case it would *definitely* have been appropriate to specify e.g. "the package manager built in to emacs" instead of just "the built-in package manager", since the default context at hand (by virtue of where this conversation is taking place) is "Debian". -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Wed, Feb 01, 2023 at 02:40:30PM -, Curt wrote: > On 2023-02-01, The Wanderer wrote: > > > > Can you double-check what (Debian) package that's in? I'm not finding > > any package or file named anything like either of those two things, in > > current Debian testing and stable. > > You use the built-in package manager: 'M-x package-install RET ascii-art-draw > RET'. ... what in the HELL is that? An emacs command? Does emacs have its own packages?
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 2023-02-01, The Wanderer wrote: > > Can you double-check what (Debian) package that's in? I'm not finding > any package or file named anything like either of those two things, in > current Debian testing and stable. You use the built-in package manager: 'M-x package-install RET ascii-art-draw RET'. >The Wanderer > > The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one > persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all > progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw > > > --hGCJdb4M3Un9Q2DPGx5HntuduPChnXD3c > Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" > Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature > Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" > > > --hGCJdb4M3Un9Q2DPGx5HntuduPChnXD3c-- > > --
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 2023-02-01 at 09:22, Curt wrote: > On 2023-01-31, Pierre Willaime wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> -- >> Warning: I hope you will forgive me for this email not really related to >> debian. I just think people from this community could likely have good >> advice about this question. >> -- >> >> I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and >> information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have >> more visible elements. For example I am looking for a convenient way to >> "draw" some ASCII boxes such as >> >> # >> ## some title here ## >> # >> >> (I am using emacs comment-box feature in a buffer to do this and I >> replace ; by #, I suppose there is nicer way to do this). >> >> I often see email signature using this kind of formatting. >> >> Do you know dedicated tools or text editor to do such things the easy >> way on an everyday basis? >> >> >> Have a nice day > > I haven't read all the answers, so I may be redundant (so to speak): > > You can you use the 'ascii-art-to-string' function in the 'ascii-art-draw' > package. You first create a string with the text you wish to surround > with a box, then call the function on that string. Can you double-check what (Debian) package that's in? I'm not finding any package or file named anything like either of those two things, in current Debian testing and stable. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 2023-01-31, Pierre Willaime wrote: > Hi, > > -- > Warning: I hope you will forgive me for this email not really related to > debian. I just think people from this community could likely have good > advice about this question. > -- > > I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and > information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have > more visible elements. For example I am looking for a convenient way to > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > # > ## some title here ## > # > > (I am using emacs comment-box feature in a buffer to do this and I > replace ; by #, I suppose there is nicer way to do this). > > I often see email signature using this kind of formatting. > > Do you know dedicated tools or text editor to do such things the easy > way on an everyday basis? > > > Have a nice day > > I haven't read all the answers, so I may be redundant (so to speak): You can you use the 'ascii-art-to-string' function in the 'ascii-art-draw' package. You first create a string with the text you wish to surround with a box, then call the function on that string.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 07:49:18PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote: I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have more visible elements. If you do this, please have some consideration for how screen readers will handle your message. I am not an expert on them (and so I ask you go and look elsewhere for information/confirmation) but I believe if you use symbols which have a semantic meaning other than for drawing boxes, you risk your message being unintelligible to screen reader users. On the other hand there are unicode symbols that are specifically for drawing boxes which, and again I stress please fact-check me here, will not cause such problems. -- Please do not CC me for listmail. 👱🏻 Jonathan Dowland ✎j...@debian.org 🔗 https://jmtd.net
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 01/02/2023 01:49, Pierre Willaime wrote: I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and information separation. The following message is result of ascii export from Emacs Org mode, the source file is attached. Export backend is customizable. https://list.orgmode.org/87bktn8f3y@gnu.org/ [ANN] EmacsConf 2022 Call for Participation. Sun, 17 Jul 2022 20:00:01 -0400
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Pierre Willaime writes: > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > --- > > 2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to > automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap > between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters > line. > > 3- a simple way to do boxes (no present in debian-annouce header) Since you mentioned Emacs, I'd say artist-mode for the lines and boxes. See the manual but mouse-2 for a menu where you can select, say, a rectangle or line and mouse-1 to draw. Shift with those for straight lines and squares. To right justtify a paragraph or region, well, I didn't find anything ready to go except the little function below. Works great though. Fill-column controls the right margin, default is 70. (defun right-region (from to) "Right-justify each nonblank line starting in the region." (interactive "r") (if (> from to) (let ((tem to)) (setq to from from tem))) (save-excursion (save-restriction (narrow-to-region from to) (goto-char from) (while (not (eobp)) (or (save-excursion (skip-chars-forward " \t") (eolp)) (justify-current-line 'right)) (forward-line 1) From https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/3540/how-to-right-align-region-and-or-line
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 05:14:01PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: > On Tue, 31 Jan 2023 23:06:44 +0100 > Pierre Willaime wrote: > > > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > > --- > > In emacs, ctl-u 7 2 - In vi 72a-ESC :-) Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, 31 Jan 2023 23:06:44 +0100 Pierre Willaime wrote: > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > --- In emacs, ctl-u 7 2 - -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 05:32:07PM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> Again, a programming language can easily take an input string, measure
> its length in characters, and produce an output string that looks like
> a "box" around the input string. (Less easily if full Unicode is in play.)
Here's a simple bash function:
tbox() {
local len=$((${#1}+4)) row=''
while ((${#row} < len)); do row+=$row; done
printf "%.${len}s\n# %s #\n%.${len}s\n" "$row" "$1" "$row"
}
Add that to your .bashrc and source it (or however you prefer to deal
with bash functions), and then:
unicorn:~$ tbox 'hello world'
###
# hello world #
###
Feel free to adapt it however you see fit.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 11:06:44PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote: > I do not want to do ASCII art, I am only searching a simple way to do > something close to the debian-annouce emails. > > > The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/ > Updated Debian 11: 11.6 releasedpr...@debian.org > December 17th, 2022https://www.debian.org/News/2022/20221217 > > > How this header is generated? I see 3 constant fields and 3 variable fields in there, so I'm guessing this header is generated by software. Like, someone is using an *application* to write those announcements, so that they're stored in a database, formatted in a consistent way, propagated to that URL you see in the header, and so on. Might be a web-based app, might not. > 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") > --- In the programming language used to write whatever application is generating those announcements, I'm sure there are several ways to produce a string of hyphens of a given length. But you seem to want to use a text editor, rather than an application. In a text editor, you either press - 72 times, or you hold - down until approximately the right number of hyphens appears (and then fix it up), or you paste a line of hyphens from an outside source, or you have some kind of macro or other editor-specific feature. If you do periodic announcement emails, perhaps you have one from last month (or last week, or whenever). You could copy the top of that one and then edit it. Or at least copy the formatting characters. > 2- a simple way to align some text to the right In many languages, printf. If it's not printf, then it'll be some other function or method that's designed for producing very simple formatted text strings. In a text editor? Type a bunch of spaces. > 3- a simple way to do boxes (no present in debian-annouce header) Again, a programming language can easily take an input string, measure its length in characters, and produce an output string that looks like a "box" around the input string. (Less easily if full Unicode is in play.) In a text editor? See previous answers.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue 31 Jan 2023 at 15:03:30 (-0500), Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 01:42:10PM -0600, David Wright wrote: > > The question then is why emacs uses ; as a comment character. > > Because of LISP. > > https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Comments.html I had assumed people write their emails in text-mode. Cheers, David.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 1/31/23 23:07, err...@free.fr wrote: On 1/31/23 19:49, Pierre Willaime wrote: (...) For example I am looking for a convenient way to "draw" some ASCII boxes such as # ## some title here ## # (...) the package 'figlet' is what you want hum, sorry, figlet is for drawing big letters there is another package for drawing box, not remember wich name
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Le 31/01/2023 à 20:44, Jude DaShiell a écrit : > chafa may help https://hpjansson.org/chafa/ Thanks! Not exactly what I am looking for (cf. my other answer) but very useful.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On 1/31/23 19:49, Pierre Willaime wrote: (...) For example I am looking for a convenient way to "draw" some ASCII boxes such as # ## some title here ## # (...) the package 'figlet' is what you want
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
Le 31/01/2023 à 21:14, Greg Wooledge a écrit : > A .signature file is only written once, so it doesn't matter how > tedious it is to produce the desired formatting. That said, I would > imagine relatively few people have octothorpe boxes around text in their > .signature files these days. Even back in the 1990s, that would have > been considered a bit on the tacky side. Of course, I misspoke about the signature. I often see *some* formatting (such as some text aligned to the left and some other text aligned to the right, same line). But you are right, .signature file is only written once and I am looking for a simple way to write email with some minimal ASCII formatting. This is why I am looking for an automatic solution. I do not want to do ASCII art, I am only searching a simple way to do something close to the debian-annouce emails. The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/ Updated Debian 11: 11.6 releasedpr...@debian.org December 17th, 2022https://www.debian.org/News/2022/20221217 How this header is generated? So do someone knows: 1- a simple way to draw a line (without pressing 72 times on "-") --- 2- a simple way to align some text to the right (that is to say to automatically calculate how many spaces are needed to fill the gap between the text on the left an the text on the right for 72 characters line. 3- a simple way to do boxes (no present in debian-annouce header)
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 07:49:18PM +0100, Pierre Willaime wrote: > # > ## some title here ## > # > > (I am using emacs comment-box feature in a buffer to do this and I > replace ; by #, I suppose there is nicer way to do this). > > I often see email signature using this kind of formatting. A .signature file is only written once, so it doesn't matter how tedious it is to produce the desired formatting. That said, I would imagine relatively few people have octothorpe boxes around text in their .signature files these days. Even back in the 1990s, that would have been considered a bit on the tacky side. If you're seeing it "often", then I suppose you're hanging with different communities than I am. Consider that the standard etiquette rules for .signature files, as they were taught to me back in the 1990s, recommended that a .signature be no more than 4 lines (and of course a line must *always* contain fewer than 80 characters, with exceptions only for pasted shell commands, command output/errors, configuration file contents, and so on).
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue, Jan 31, 2023 at 01:42:10PM -0600, David Wright wrote: > The question then is why emacs uses ; as a comment character. Because of LISP. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Comments.html
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
boxes specializes in that. chafa may help those that get your ascii boxes put those characters into the printable set. Jude "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) . On Tue, 31 Jan 2023, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > On Tuesday, January 31, 2023 01:49:18 PM Pierre Willaime wrote: > > ... I am looking for a convenient way to > > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > > > # > > ## some title here ## > > # > > > Do you know dedicated tools or text editor to do such things the easy > > way on an everyday basis? > > I know there are (or at least have been, even back in the days of dos) such > tools (I can't remember any names atm). > > Try googling for "ascii art". > >
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tue 31 Jan 2023 at 19:49:18 (+0100), Pierre Willaime wrote: > > I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and > information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have > more visible elements. For example I am looking for a convenient way to > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > # > ## some title here ## > # > > (I am using emacs comment-box feature in a buffer to do this and I > replace ; by #, I suppose there is nicer way to do this). The question then is why emacs uses ; as a comment character. If you're composing an email, I would expect to see another prompt: No comment syntax is defined. Use: unless you'd set up comment syntax for Text. I would only expect a ; or % or # box, or whatever, when emacs knew what language syntax was in the buffer, or has been given one already in its setup. Cheers, David.
Re: ASCII formatting for plain text email
On Tuesday, January 31, 2023 01:49:18 PM Pierre Willaime wrote: > ... I am looking for a convenient way to > "draw" some ASCII boxes such as > > # > ## some title here ## > # > Do you know dedicated tools or text editor to do such things the easy > way on an everyday basis? I know there are (or at least have been, even back in the days of dos) such tools (I can't remember any names atm). Try googling for "ascii art". -- rhk (sig revised 20221206) If you reply: snip, snip, and snip again; leave attributions; avoid HTML; avoid top posting; and keep it "on list". (Oxford comma (and semi-colon) included at no charge.) If you revise the topic, change the Subject: line. If you change the topic, start a new thread. Writing is often meant for others to read and understand (legal documents excepted?) -- make it easier for your reader by various means, including liberal use of whitespace (short paragraphs, separated by whitespace / blank lines) and minimal use of (obscure?) jargon, abbreviations, acronyms, and references. If someone has already responded to a question, decide whether any response you add will be helpful or not ... A picture is worth a thousand words. A video (or "audio"): not so much -- divide by 10 for each minute of video (or audio) or create a transcript and edit it to 10% of the original. A speaker who uses ahhs, ums, or such may have a real physical or mental disability, or may be showing disrespect for his listeners by not properly preparing in advance and thinking before speaking. (Remember Cicero who did not have enough time to write a short missive.) (That speaker might have been "trained" to do this by being interrupted often if he pauses.) A radio (or TV) station which broadcasts speakers with high pitched voices (or very low pitched / gravelly voices) (which older people might not be able to hear properly) disrespects its listeners. Likewise if it broadcasts extraneous or disturbing sounds (like gunfire or crying), or broadcasts speakers using their native language (with or without an overdubbed translation). A person who writes a sig this long probably has issues and disrespects (and offends) a large number of readers. ;-) '
ASCII formatting for plain text email
Hi, -- Warning: I hope you will forgive me for this email not really related to debian. I just think people from this community could likely have good advice about this question. -- I would like to format plain text emails to increase readability and information separation. The idea is to go beyond markdown and to have more visible elements. For example I am looking for a convenient way to "draw" some ASCII boxes such as # ## some title here ## # (I am using emacs comment-box feature in a buffer to do this and I replace ; by #, I suppose there is nicer way to do this). I often see email signature using this kind of formatting. Do you know dedicated tools or text editor to do such things the easy way on an everyday basis? Have a nice day
