Mail readers (was: Re: Portupgrade troubles, interactive ports)

[Bart Silverstrim]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 3:42 PM, Jerry McAllister wrote:

> Yup.  I do it manually - just hit that nice big Enter/Return key 
> between
> a couple of word when I get out around that far.

Which is why, on my mailer, quoting you gives a full line then one word 
then a line...it kind of reminds me of a person I knew in college who 
typed his first multipage essay with the hard linefeeds at the end of 
each line instead of the end of each paragraph, then made a change near 
the beginning and foobar'd his formatting for the whole document... :-)
>
> That's all too complicated.  It is really because many people read
> their mail on text only readers - such as on a console without
> much gui stuff or whatever.   So, the stuff either just wraps at
> lousy places and runs stuff together or it ignores all the html
> or other markup junk that clutters up the message file and splats
> it all out on the screen just as it gets it which is hard to read.
>

In the FAQ (and the conversation I had with the person on the OS X 
lists), it isn't HTML, and it isn't a GUI thing.  Format=flowed works 
in several console programs, from what the FAQ said.

Re: HTML, the FAQ said:
No. Nothing. Format=flowed applies solely to plain-text messages. HTML 
messages already have something functionally equivalent to f=f: the 
<BLOCKQUOTE> attribute, which... um... quotes blocks of text. When f=f 
mailers that also can handle HTML encounter <BLOCKQUOTE> text, it’s 
usually marked up with the same excerpt bars we’re familiar with from 
f=f. Format=flowed isn’t actually at work there, but since <BLOCKQUOTE> 
text flows nicely when you resize a window, the effect is the same.

> A return in there usuall doesn't mess up the gui Email readers.  They
> tend to ignore it.  But it sure helps text based Email readers.
>

Actually, it is displaying oddly in my MUA...because of the hard 
returns mixed with the f=f.

Incidentally, can others on the list verify where my mail is wrapping?  
I was working with someone offlist to see if, in Mail.app, my wrapping 
is affected by the size of the composition window when I send the 
message.  I noticed that quirk in a few other OS X apps when working 
with printing documents...WYSIWYG taken to an extreme :-)

-Bart