Mail Wrapping

[steve]

Le 14-08-2010, à 08:34:51 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller (hns at computer.org) a écrit :

> 
> Am 13.08.2010 um 22:35 schrieb steve:
> 
> > Le 13-08-2010, à 19:45:51 +0200, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller
> > (hns at computer.org) a écrit :
> > 
> >> such a thing is quite unlikely to expect from any large phone
> >> manufacturer. Even if they open up an existing design. They
> >> ususally squeeze every bit out of the design to reduce
> >> manufacturing cost and may have very special test procedures. And
> >> they may change internals every now and then to improve their
> >> production process. I.e. you may get version B4 this week and
> >> someone else version C7 in two weeks with differences in the
> >> not-documented area.
> > 
> > Nikolaus, couldn't you wrap your lines to something more standard
> > (72 or so ?) Thanks, I like reading your prose, but those long lines
> > are really irritating.
> 
> Hi Steve,

Hi Niklaus (not in Zürich toniht?)
 
> there are different opinions if the 80 char line wrapping of mail is standard or some
> old-fashioned relict from the 80ies. I have tried to find out what it is but it appears
> to be a problem with some MUAs not correctly handling RFC 2646.

I just read (in diagonal) through rfc 2646. It seems that it clearly
says to stick to lines not longer that 80 caracters.

Anyway, may studies have shown that the reader begins to be less
concentrated when lines exceed 80 caracters, that's *my* main point.

> Here is also some discussion about mailman being responsible or not:
> 
> http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users@python.org/msg49755.html
> which says:
> 
> The problem is that prior to Mailman 2.1.10, the format=flowed and
> delsp=yes parameters were not preserved in the outgoing message.
> 
> I think the OM list uses version 2.1.9  so it could be a bug.

Maybe, but a lot of posters here don't have any problems with 72-80
caracters. I don't see where mailman comes in the game.

> I don't know if my mail client uses these paramters - but it does not have
> an option to do line wrapping when sending.

Bad MUA, change MUA (mutt maybe?) 

> So, wouldn't it be simpler if you reduce the width of your display window?
> Your client should then wrap long lines.

No it's not simpler, imagine that many people wrap at diffenrent
numbers, what should I do? Reduce *my* display every time a mail is
excedding 72-80 caracters? I'd become crazy.

> BR,
> Nikolaus
> 
> PS: I have tried to format this mail manually, but it is quite a pain...

I understand that. But bottom line, you're using a mua that sucks, if it
doesn't give you the possibility to wrap lines at the lenght *you*
choose. Have a try at mutt [1], you'll be happy.

Personaly, I use mutt with vim as a text editor, and a simple {gq},
wraps the whole paragraph as I want, awsome :-)

[1] http://www.mutt.org/


Best regards,

--
steve