Re: linux bewbie lame question
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:06:19AM -0600, Kent West wrote:
> Andreas Janssen wrote:
> >Kent West (<westk@acu.edu>) wrote:
> >>Mild Netiquette Training:
> >
> >4] Use line wrapping
>
> Is my text not wrapping? I'm using mozilla-thunderbird, and I have it
> configured to wrap plain text messages at 72 chars. However, I compose
> my mail with the HTML editor, but when I hit send and am asked if I want
> to send HTML or Plain Text, I always choose Plain Text when sending to
> this list.
>
> When I get the list's version of my posted message and read it in
> moz-thunderbird, it looks fine. When I use mutt to read the message (I'm
> using IMAP, so I can get to the same message from both email clients
> while it's still on the server), the message wraps fine and is readable.
>
> But at least two folks have added this "use line wrapping" to my "Mild
> Netiquette Training" list, which makes me suspect that my messages
> aren't wrapping.
>
> I want to "do the right thing", so let me know one way or the other
> please, and if I'm not wrapping, I'll take any hints as to why not when
> it seems that moz-thunderbird is correctly configured.
It looks fine to me. What's happening is that your mailer is using the
format=flowed extension (RFC 2646, standards track). This involves it
putting "format=flowed" in the content-type, ending every line in a
paragraph except the last with a space, and otherwise wrapping lines
normally. format=flowed allows mailers that are aware of it to
intelligently wrap paragraphs in replies without fear of corrupting
preformatted text.
In other words, what your mailer is doing is *good*. Mailers that are
unaware of format=flowed degrade to displaying the text normally
wrapped. The people who've complained at you are using mailers that are
aware of format=flowed and have a wide area available for displaying
text. I'd say that if they see wide text as a result then it's their own
problem. :) Perhaps these mailers can be configured not to unwrap
format=flowed text so vigorously?
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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