Re: [Nmh-workers] 78 column limit

[norm]

Ralph Corderoy <address@hidden> writes:
>Hi Norm,
>
>> That's disconcerting. For more than a decade now, the default for my
>> editor was for no line wrapping. I inserted new lines to generate my
>> own formatting. But some recipients complained that my Emails are
>> "jagged". This was caused by their Email client inserting its own line
>> endings.
>
>Are you sure that's the cause?  You "inserted new lines" how?  With
>fmt(1) or similar, or manually?

With  my own Java program.

> If you're using a fixed-width font and
>they're reading it proportionally then two lines of 72 characters may
>look different lengths to them.  Add on any variance because you're
>splitting lines and not fmt(1) or vim, e.g. gqap, and that may be
>"jagged".
>
>> So I gave up trying to control the format in which recipients see my
>> Email.  Just last week, I wrote the code to make line wrapping be the
>> default whenever I'm editing a file in my drafts folder whose name is
>> all digits.
>
>By that you mean each paragraph is one long line logically but the
>editor breaks it at a decent point, e.g. end of word, to make it easier
>to view?  If so, you need to be careful of the 998 limit that Ken's
>pointed out;  sendmail for one, IIRC, is an MTA that will break
>over-long lines, inserting a `!' at the end of each line that continued
>originally.
>
>> So... do I conform to standards or make my my recipients unhappy? In
>> passing I note that almost all the Email I get, not from
>> address@hidden, has very long lines.
>
>I send text/plain with lines no longer than 72 and blank lines between
>paragraphs.

That's what I had been doing for years. And I did get complaints.

>I've not had complaints of jaggedness but it certainly
>wouldn't adjust to fit the width of the recipient's window.  The
>long-lined emails you're receiving may say in the MIME-headers that the
>text is to be `flowed', i.e. re-formatted to fit the viewer's display;
>I'm not sure which part of nmh can handle that, mhl through mhshow?
>
>Cheers, Ralph.

    Norman Shapiro