Text 27139, 52 rader
Skriven 2012-03-22 21:57:57 av alexander koryagin (2:5020/2140.2)
  Kommentar till text 27123 av Peter Krefting (2:203/0.222)
Ärende: Re: format=flowed (was: Jamnntpd Servers List)
======================================================
Hi, Peter Krefting! How are you?
on Thursday, 22 of March, I read your messsage to Dale Shipp
about "format=flowed (was: Jamnntpd Servers List)"

 DS>> Define please -- what does format=flowed mean?

 PK> Internet email (and thus news) is normally written with
 PK> word-wrapping at around 80 columns. That worked fine when everyone
 PK> was reading them on 80-character terminals, but once people started
 PK> reading them with variable-width fonts in graphical user interfaces
 PK> two decades ago, or so, that started looking bad.

Of course it is looking bad when a formatted text with the width 80
symbols is displaying at a 40 column display. But it only means that
your NNTP client must reformat the incoming messages according to the
local width. We need not any sophisticated terms like "format=flowed".
If we read NNTP news and see broken lines it means nothing else but the
fact we have a bad NNTP reader. At least it is a bad news reader for
this 40 column device.

 PK> format=flowed is a hack that makes it possible to send word-wrapped
 PK> text that can be re-wrapped, it does so by still word-wrapping at
 PK> around 80 characters, but also tucks a space character at the end
 PK> of lines that were auto-wrapped. When displaying that on a
 PK> variable-width display, these lines can then be joined again (and
 PK> re-wrapped). And if you read on an 80-character terminal, then,
 PK> well, it still looks fine.

To add special spaces? What a funny solution.

 PK> At least Mozilla Thunderbird, Opera and Alpine supports
 PK> format=flowed in email and news. And JamNNTPd has an option to
 PK> create format=flowed text from Fidonet postings, and to support it
 PK> on incoming messages. I write this in Opera, which posts it as
 PK> format=flowed over NNTP to JamNNTPd, which removes the
 PK> word-wrapping to post a proper unwrapped Fidonet message in my JAM
 PK> database.

IMHO if you have a 40 column display your reader must have an ability at
first to unformat the incoming (any format width) message and then show
it as a 40 column wrapped text. In other words the problem was created
by 40 column users and their software must solve the problems. There is
absolutely no reason to invent new text formats.

[...The road to hell is paved with good intentions]
Bye Peter!
Alexander (yAlexKo[]yandex.ru) + 2:5020/2140.91
fido7.fidonews 2012 


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