Hello Rohan, On Tue, 2015-04-14 at 18:03 +1000, Rohan McLeod wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
On Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:45:33 AM Rohan McLeod wrote:
How can I put it ?; unconventional layout others unhappy; conventional layout me unhappy; better others unhappy ! Unconventional layout usually means others delete your messages without reading them.
Yes Craig made that point to, but as mentioned that was the second of two issues identified ; perhaps if the the first one is fixed, the second may not arise.
To reiterate: "There seem to be two separate issues here 1/ the email is not appearing as I intended it to appear 2/ possibly the way I intend it to appear; is not as some might wish it.
It might help for some partial compromise, I have found your recent emails much more readable. Evolution, and probably most email clients, will wrap long lines. On Unix systems, including Linux, long lines wrap well, but interspersed with short lines, or lines of variable length, it can be hard reading. Being aware of how your text will appear helps, including how you use white space. I cope with your liberal sprinkling of semicolons, even if not my style, but when there are a lack of clearly defined blocks, it makes comprehension difficult.
So harking back to Craig's original email: "if your editor is capable of it, you could try piping paragraphs through 'par' to reformat them nicely. it's what i do using mutt & vim "
This solution or something like it would probably work perfectly; with a CLI email client like mutt; but for better or worse I'm addicted to GUI. Now the problem is many people are using integrated or stand alone GUI email clients, which seem to do a poor job of preventing email formatting being mangled by transmission. (I have been sending all of my emails on this thread to myself prior to sending them to the list. Some are mangled some are not.)
Competent software works well, but knowing and understanding on the part of the user is a big aid. This is a big part of why I dislike HTML email, and that trying to reply except by top posting or bottom posting is painful, to put it very mildly.
Since it is unlikely all those GUI email users are about to return to CLI; the question arises how to get all those different GUI email clients to produce emails which would appear the same in a CLI one. It occurs to me that a necessary condition may be that a GUI email client should be capable of sending an email to itself without mangling the format ? What will be a sufficient condition ?
- transmission seemed to lose line wrap for "through 'par'.." and "CLI; the question...."
Understanding where things started, what was supported, and how much has been grossly abused is an excellent start. As to your choices in formatting, remember that you are trying to communicate with others. Sometimes it can be very worth while being cognisant of the conventions, and why they came about. There can be times to run counter, with thoughtful intent.
regards Rohan McLeod
Regards, Mark Trickett