NNTP: to wrap lines or not to wrap?

[phanisvara]

for a while have been using these forums via NNTP, which makes life much easier for me. i've changed my openSUSE mailing list subscriptions to a new email address created for this purpose, and now have all SUSE related stuff at one place in opera, via IMAP & NNTP.

i've seen different posts, in different forums here, claiming that messages with line breaks are both the only way, and an infernal aberration. for me it doesn't make much difference, i can read both easily since my screen resolution isn't so high that line-broken posts appear too narrow, or too low, so that posts w/o line breaks run off the screen.

i've been searching a bit for this topic, but couldn't find anything; probably because this hasn't been discussed as a topic in itself, but comes up once in a while when somebody gets fried because things don't fit well on their display.

i'm afraid there isn't one answer that fits / pleases all, but still i want to ask the opinion of others who, for the most part, have spent much more time in these forums than i did.

--
phani.

[robin_listas]

On 2010-10-25 10:36, phanisvara wrote:

> i'm afraid there isn't one answer that fits / pleases all, but still i want to ask the opinion of
> others who, for the most part, have spent much more time in these forums than i did.

I don't know what is the problem. Perhaps somebody that sees it can point to sample posts so that
others can go and look how we see it. And mention what software works or doesn't. Or post photos
somewhere, perhaps.

I can imagine a problem if a post is sent with hard returns at, say, 80 chars, and and the receiving
side another program insists on wrapping at 65. But the problem then is the receiving software...

A similar problem would happen if, as above, post is wrapped at 80, and gateway wraps it again at
65. That would have two solutions: gateway not wrapping, or doing it at a larger value than 80, or
specifying a standard wrap value for both - but that is a problem because mail/news clients like
thunderbird can not adjust different wrapping values for different accounts. I just had a look and
did not find the wrapping value.

Worse: I typed "wrap" in help search, came out blank.

Ah! I found it. Config, advance options, general tab, config editor, pass the warning, search for
wrap: there is one for html mail (72 by default) and another for mailnews, which currently is 100.

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" at Telcontar)

[DenverD]

i don't think there is a "correct answer"...i wrap mine at 70 because
(i think) that was the default that Thunderbird was born with...or,
maybe i set it....don't know.. ;-)

i know there are some web users with super wide monitors who like to
swivel their heads side to side to read one line spread across three
(1 meter wide) monitors....and, they don't like my post...so, they
should skip them.

well, the definitive answer is here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp

where you will find line wrapping not mentioned, so do as you wish and
those disturbed can always ignore/kill-file you...big deal.

i may change my wrap to 69, thats a good number which doesn't require
side to side head movements. ;-)

--
DenverD
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]

[phanisvara]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:09:37 +0530, Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> I don't know what is the problem. Perhaps somebody that sees it can point to sample posts so that
> others can go and look how we see it. And mention what software works or doesn't. Or post photos
> somewhere, perhaps.

i don't see a problem either, but remember (dimly) a conversation where people got pretty excited, claiming that one party was stuck in long outdated usenet habits, the other stupid M$-followers and HTML addicts. (the question of including HTML in messages or not came up in the same thread, but that's not a question for me: in technical lists & forums, you don't win arguments by font size or background color.)

i've switched to opera for my list and forum subscriptions, using kmail for personal mail. i've tried both, line breaks and flowing text for NNTP submissions, and both works fine for me. now i'm wondering which choice would inconvenience others less.

--
phani.

[phanisvara]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:31:59 +0530, DenverD <DenverD@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> i know there are some web users with super wide monitors who like to
> swivel their heads side to side to read one line spread across three
> (1 meter wide) monitors....and, they don't like my post...so, they
> should skip them.

hehe...

> well, the definitive answer is here:
> http://forums.opensuse.org/faq.php?faq=novfor#faq_nntp

thanks for the link, haven't seen that yet.

> where you will find line wrapping not mentioned, so do as you wish and
> those disturbed can always ignore/kill-file you...big deal.

right, so i keep my text flowing on NNTP, to use the available space on the HTML interface, otherwise only a portion is used--unless i hear complaints that it's unreadable for some...

--
phani.

[Rikishi42]

On 2010-10-25, phanisvara <listmail@phanisvara.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:09:37 +0530, Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
>> I don't know what is the problem. Perhaps somebody that sees it can point to sample posts so that
>> others can go and look how we see it. And mention what software works or doesn't. Or post photos
>> somewhere, perhaps.
>
> i don't see a problem either, but remember (dimly) a conversation where people got pretty excited, claiming that one party was stuck in long outdated usenet habits, the other stupid M$-followers and HTML addicts. (the question of including HTML in messages or not came up in the same thread, but that's not a question for me: in technical lists & forums, you don't win arguments by font size or background color.)
>
> i've switched to opera for my list and forum subscriptions, using kmail for personal mail. i've tried both, line breaks and flowing text for NNTP submissions, and both works fine for me. now i'm wondering which choice would inconvenience others less.
>

Not the one you just made. Your posts are the only ones who's lines don't
wrap here.

:-)


--
When in doubt, use brute force.
-- Ken Thompson

[phanisvara]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:34:07 +0530, Rikishi42 <skunkworks@rikishi42.net>
wrote:

> Not the one you just made. Your posts are the only ones who's lines don't
> wrap here.

i know that my lines (via NNTP) aren't wrapping at the moment, and was
asking if that inconveniences anyone. what are you using to read these
posts? i can easily switch to wrapping them, like i'm doing now. is that
better for whatever thingy you use to read NNTP?

--
phani.

[malcolmlewis]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:34:07 +0530, Rikishi42
<skunkworks@rikishi42.net> wrote:

> Not the one you just made. Your posts are the only ones who's lines
> don't wrap here.

i know that my lines (via NNTP) aren't wrapping at the moment, and was
asking if that inconveniences anyone. what are you using to read these
posts? i can easily switch to wrapping them, like i'm doing now. is
that better for whatever thingy you use to read NNTP?

It is more pleasant on the eyes

--
Cheers Malcolm ��� (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.32.23-0.3-default
up 1 day 18:41, 4 users, load average: 0.12, 0.08, 0.05
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 260.19.12

[Rikishi42]

On 2010-10-26, phanisvara <listmail@phanisvara.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2010 03:34:07 +0530, Rikishi42 <skunkworks@rikishi42.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Not the one you just made. Your posts are the only ones who's lines don't
>> wrap here.
>
> i know that my lines (via NNTP) aren't wrapping at the moment, and was
> asking if that inconveniences anyone. what are you using to read these
> posts? i can easily switch to wrapping them, like i'm doing now. is that
> better for whatever thingy you use to read NNTP?

I use slrn. I don't care eighter way, because it has an option to wrap the
content itself. I just indicated that I don't need to do that most of the
time.

This message was indeed wrapped.


--
When in doubt, use brute force.
-- Ken Thompson