* Travis Crump (pretzalz@techhouse.org) [020517 09:32]: > Michael D. Crawford wrote: > > A usenet moderator pointed out to me that my paragraphs are "flowed" > > when I post to usenet. I think what he means is that my paragraphs are > > all one line terminated by a return, rather than a sequence of lines > > each terminated by a return. > Flowed just means that 72 character lines are terminated by a soft > return instead of a hard return so that when a program like Mutt reads > the e-mail it will see the soft return and treat it as a return and so > it will get proper wrapping, but if a client like Mozilla receives it, > it can remove the soft returns. The point of this is so that the text What's a soft return? My impression was that a linefeed(\012, or \n) marks the end of a line. If you send text without linefeeds in it, it's all on one line. Of course, most things that display such text will wrap it (either at the edge of the display or at the closest whitespace without going all the way up to the edge of the display) rather than making you scroll to the right to read it, but it's common courtesy to wrap your lines at 72 characters (meaning there's a linefeed character there) so that quoting works properly. Generally speaking, quoting means inserting a "> " at the beginning of each line. If all of your text is on one line, it makes the quoting pretty useless. The reason most people suggest 72 is that traditionally, terminals are 80 characters wide, and 72 leaves enough room to be quoted with "> " four times. > takes up the whole message window and also so that wierd things don't > happen when you reply that has the '> ' push the last word of the line > over the limit so that it gets put on a line of its own even though it That's why it's 72, not 80. The general idea is that in any actual discussion, nothing should ever need to be quoted more than 4 levels deep. > but I am not sure what the problem the usenet moderator is having with > it since anyone on the receiving end can disable its display as easily > as you can edit its sending. Well, if you wrap at 72 when sending, nobody will have to edit your lines for you when quoting. If you don't wrap at all, whoever quotes you will have to decide where to insert linefeeds (at their current window width? at 72 characters? 80?) There's a good question about whether someone quoting you should be expected to edit your text while quoting it. (Although everyone agrees it should be trimmed to the portion relevant to what you're replying to.) I don't think the whole text-wrapping issue is as important as certain people make it out to be, but it's a big enough deal to some people, and easy enough to Do It Right what we all might as well. good times, Vineet -- Currently seeking opportunities in the SF Bay Area Please see http://www.doorstop.net/resume.shtml
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