On Jun 15, 10:36, Mark Champion wrote:
> Peter,
>
> Sorry for causing any trouble. I only recently joined this group and I
> wasn't aware of this groups' desire for 80 character line lengths limits.
Well, the convention is actually for less than 80; there's no set rule but
commonly-mentioned lengths are between 78 and 72.
> I never intended to suggest that all email revolves around MS Outlook.
That was just my jibe, not to be taken too personally :-) BTW, though I
wrote that "we had this discussion a few months ago", I realise you may not
have been on this list at the time.
> I use it because it works well for me. I know that the mail readers in
> Netscape and IE both support autowrap and the ability to size the
> window as desired. When this approach is used for email, the added
> > > (or | | or whichever) characters only appear at the beginning of each
> paragraph, so they don't scramble the contents of the email. So, nesting
> can continue forever, if desired. I (and others) think this is a big
> advantage - especially in mail groups where replies bounce back and
> forth. But, it's just suggestion.
Most people I know would disagree. The idea is to indent paragraphs, a
long-cherished system on Usenet and mailing lists. Just as it appears in
the paragraph above (you must have turned wrapping on before you composed
it -- thanks for that :-)).
> BTW, would it cause you any problems to turn wrap on? This way you
> could handle any line length you encountered.
I *HAD* wrap turned on -- that was my point about losing the indentations.
I could see what you typed in 78-column form, but there would be others on
this list who wouldn't be able to do that; and when you turn the wrap on,
the wrapped lines still don't get indented/quoted as God intended.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Received on Thu Jun 15 2000 - 15:25:32 BST