Wish: viewer-margin-right and non-flowed text
NM Public
Pine 4.60+.
I (and I think most people) can read a lot faster when the line
length is pretty short, so I like to use a setting like this:
viewer-margin-right=65c
This makes the Pine viewer display messages using lines of at
most 65 characters. This works great if I'm viewing one of the
following:
* an HTML message
* a flowed message
* a non-flowed message that was composed with a wrap-column
less than 65
Unfortunately, there are still lots of people sending non-flowed
messages that wrap at something like 72 or 80 characters. My
wish is that there be a setting that could be specifically for
non-flowed messages, e.g.:
viewer-margin-right-non-flowed
If this feature existed I would probably use setting like this:
viewer-margin-right=65c
viewer-margin-right-non-flowed=0
This way the non-flowed messages would use as much of the screen
width as they need and I would rarely need to view the
RFC-3676-discussed "embarrassing line wrap"!
Thanks for considering this!
Nancy
--
Nancy McGough ~ <http://www.ii.com> ~ <http://deflexion.com>
IMAP, pine, procmail, data deflexion, infinity, and more
> > > Please keep the discussion in the group < < <
Eduardo Chappa
[Nancy's idea deleted for brevity]
:) This way the non-flowed messages would use as much of the screen width as
:) they need and I would rarely need to view the RFC-3676-discussed
:) "embarrassing line wrap"!
Dear Nancy,
I think that the real issue that you have is not with the "embarrasing
line wrap", rather with your inability to reflow displayed text. Ever
since I read RFC 3676, I thought that the author was not complaining about
"embarrasing line wrap" (which I thought as an artifact made for the sole
purpose of justifying an RFC) but with the inability that that person had
to distinguish paragraphs of written text. In this sense, flowed text was
created to help *computers* figure out where paragraphs are located in the
text, but for human beings like you or me such situation is obvious. We do
not need spaces or a lack of them to tell us where paragraphs are located.
Because of this, I think that what Pine is really missing is a "justify"
command in the viewer screen. This could be accomplished by allowing the
cursor to be movable, instead of being fixed in position. If you could
move the cursor, you could point it to a paragraph, which Pine could
justify, just for purposes of you being able to read it.
Do not take this as an "I oppose your idea", rather as my view on your
problem. Of course your idea would solve a big percentage of the problem
for you too.
--
Eduardo
Patches/Help: http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/
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Chris Lawrence
> If this feature existed I would probably use setting like this:
>
> viewer-margin-right=65c
> viewer-margin-right-non-flowed=0
>
> This way the non-flowed messages would use as much of the screen width as they
> need and I would rarely need to view the RFC-3676-discussed "embarrassing line
> wrap"!
I'd simply like an option to turn off the processing of flowed text in
the same way that viewing full headers does, but without the full header
function.
I too really struggle with flowed text - above around 70 columns I
cannot read the text properly. I read text quickly in visual 'blocks'
and long, thin paragraphs slow me right down. There's also the
annoyance than when replying and looking for the bit of text I was
interested in, it has moved because the reply is not showing the text
flowed so I have to find it again.
I can't explain why I read this way, I just know that Pine went from
working with me for years, to suddenly working against me and almost
being an obstacle in normal use.
In the end I do a lot of reading with full headers on just to get
unflowed text, but of course I have to wade past the headers. I've
considered going back to the latest Pine version before the flowed text
parsing was enforced, just to get around the problem.
The full headers option clearly shows that the capability exists to not
flow text, I just wish I could disable it separately! Drives me mad
how this little option is missing!
--
Chris
NM Public
>
> In the end I do a lot of reading with full headers on just to
> get unflowed text, but of course I have to wade past the
> headers. I've considered going back to the latest Pine version
> before the flowed text parsing was enforced, just to get around
> the problem.
With my Pine settings, turning on full headers (via the H
command) does not help. I still end up looking at ugly
embarrassing-line-wrapped messages. I'm curious how you've
configured your Pine so that typing H gets rid of embarrassing
line wrap. Here are my settings that I think are relevant to this
issue:
[ ] quell-flowed-text
[X] enable-full-header-and-text
[X] enable-full-header-cmd
viewer-margin-left = 1
viewer-margin-right = 70c
quote-suppression-threshold = 0
How do you have these set Chris?
I think that I would like the Pine H command to ignore
viewer-margin-left and viewer-margin-right and instead display
the *raw* message using the message's actual *unflowed*
linefeeds. Maybe we need a feature like this:
[X] enable-full-header-and-original-linefeeds
It seems to me that one of the problems is that Pine conflates
the settings for messages that I compose/send and the settings
for messages that I receive/view. This problem occurs in other
areas of Pine, e.g., character sets.
I hope this makes sense. I wonder how other mail clients deal
with fixing (or trying to fix) embarrassing line wrap in received
messages. Another option for Pine is to do what Eduardo suggested
and let users reflow an embarrassing-line-wrapped message in the
Pine viewer.
Chris Lawrence
> On 4 Jan 2006, Chris Lawrence wrote:
> >
> > In the end I do a lot of reading with full headers on just to get unflowed
> > text, but of course I have to wade past the headers. I've considered going
> > back to the latest Pine version before the flowed text parsing was enforced,
> > just to get around the problem.
>
> With my Pine settings, turning on full headers (via the H command) does not
> help. I still end up looking at ugly embarrassing-line-wrapped messages. I'm
> curious how you've configured your Pine so that typing H gets rid of
> embarrassing line wrap. Here are my settings that I think are relevant to this
> issue:
I don't know what you mean by "embarrassing line wrap" (the 'shark's
tooth' effect, as it was called on Fido years ago?). When I press H on
a flowed post, Pine toggles between flowing text as far as the margins
allow (with headers off) and displaying the original post as typed (with
headers on). I'd like to be able to display the original post but not
the headers, ie, an option to simply not flow the text in the viewer.
> [ ] quell-flowed-text
> [X] enable-full-header-and-text
> [X] enable-full-header-cmd
>
> viewer-margin-left = 1
> viewer-margin-right = 70c
> quote-suppression-threshold = 0
>
> How do you have these set Chris?
[X] quell-flowed-text
[X] enable-full-header-and-text
[X] enable-full-header-cmd
viewer-margin-left = <No Value Set: using "0">
viewer-margin-right = <No Value Set: using "4">
quote-suppression-threshold = <No Value Set: using "0">
> I think that I would like the Pine H command to ignore viewer-margin-left and
> viewer-margin-right and instead display the *raw* message using the message's
> actual *unflowed* linefeeds. Maybe we need a feature like this:
>
> [X] enable-full-header-and-original-linefeeds
All I know is that when I press H the flowing stops and the articles
look the way they would in older versions of Pine. I'd simply like an
option which reverted to this behaviour so I didn't have to wade through
headers to see the original layout, for example a simple
[X] viewer-ignores-flowed-text
--
Chris