Hello everybody,
on Montag, 15. Juli 2019 at 15:26 Gleason <sombr...@mm.st> wrote
re ...working on version 9 — will essential changes be implemented? (was: The
Bat! v8.8.9 MSI (3rd attempt))
this universally accepted quoting is what I don't want to loose.
A quote is a QUOTE, not a table.
You may select a small sample of unkown email clients which do it the wrong
way.
Especially trying to build endlessly nested TABLEs, as TheBat! is doing, it
utter nonsense.
The correct was has been specified already in 1998 in this document to be
found at W3C, HTML Threading: Conventions for use of HTML in email written by
Eric Berman (Microsoft Corporation), Pete Resnick (QUALCOMM Incorporated), and
Nick Shelness (LOTUS).
HTML hat two semantic tags for quoting: BLOCKQUOTE and Q. BLOCKQUOTE is, as
the name says, a block element, while Q is an inline tag.
From the above linked document:
Appendix A: Suggested Implementation Guidelines
This section describes a suggested implementation model for UAs. These are
guidelines only and do not constitute a requirement for compliance.
Editing issues
Quoting during reply/forward
When quoting a message during a reply/forward, it is recommended that the text
be encapsulated with BLOCKQUOTE elements, with a CITE attribute identifying the
message being quoted, and optionally a CLASS attribute defining default style
information. (BLOCKQUOTEs explicitly authored by the user should not have an
CITE, or should have a CITE pointing to the current message, so that they can
be distinguished from message excerpts.)
As a message makes several roundtrips, it may acquire several nested BLOCKQUOTE
blocks. Because most HTML implementations indent BLOCKQUOTE text, the use of
BLOCKQUOTE ensures that recipients that support neither this recommendation nor
CSS1 can still display an appropriate level of indentation to the user.
However, a mail UA may choose to use other elements, such as DIV, if they do
not wish to use BLOCKQUOTE in order to achieve the same grouping of text within
a message (for example, for forwarding a message, where indenting may not be
desired.).
An application MAY choose to enclose all new message text in a DIV block so
that all text is unambiguously tagged. This is not strictly necessary (since
the lack of any explicit element or context indicates that the text is new).
UAs MUST respect this element. When replying or forwarding the message, UA's
MAY change the DIV to a BLOCKQUOTE to avoid needlessly nesting a DIV within a
BLOCKQUOTE.
Editing quoted text
It is common when responding to a message to edit within the quoted block of
text. For example, questions asked within the original message may be answered
one at a time in the response. These edits can fall into two categories: "block
level", where the division between quoted and new text is a block-level
boundary, and "inline", where there is no such division.
If the user was starting a new block in the middle of an existing one (by
hitting enter, for example), the UA must restart the existing style and CITE
block after the BLOCKQUOTE.
For example, if the original text was:
• <BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="dsr--w3-org" CITE="mid:014328a83@389ak3j21h4">
The quick black fox
</BLOCKQUOTE>
and the replying author hits enter before the word "fox", then the resulting
HTML would be:
• <BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="dsr--w3-org" CITE="mid:014328a83@389ak3j21h4">
The quick black
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P CLASS="ericbe--microsoft-com">You mean brown!</p>
<BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="dsr--w3-org" CITE="mid:014328a83@389ak3j21h4">
fox
</BLOCKQUOTE>
The text "You mean brown" will thus appear on its own line and in the style
defined for "ericbe--microsoft-com". Since the new text is not enclosed in any
DIV or BLOCKQUOTE elements, it is considered part of the current message.
Note that this may nest arbitrarily deep, so it may be necessary to close
multiple BLOCKQUOTE elements and then reopen each one, with the right CLASS and
CITE attributes, and in the right order.
[follows an example of inline quoting using the Q tag, so that the quoted text
does not appear in a line by itself]
Try to do that with nested TABLEs (TABLE is meant to be nested arbitrarily
deep), and it will create a madhouse.
What TheBat! does is an abuse of HTML. If there would be an HTML police,
TheBat! would be punished for this violation of fundamentals.
Cheers,
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt am Main
Germany
using: TheBat! 8.8.2.8 (BETA)
OS: Windows 7 (NT 6.1 Build 7601 - Service Pack 1)
CPU: AMD amd athlon(tm) 64 x2 dual core processor 4200+
MEM: 4097 MB ________________________________________________________
'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
