Subj : Re: WinPoint Version 402.1
To   : Martin Foster
From : Tim Schattkowsky
Date : Mon Mar 07 2022 16:29:31

//Hello Martin,//

on *07.03.2022* at *11:46:42* You wrote in Area *WINPOINT*
to *August Abolins* about *"WinPoint Version 402.1"*.

 MF> Hello August!

 MF> *** Sunday 06.03.22 at 13:10:00, August Abolins wrote to Martin Foster:

 MF>>> However, I've discovered that messages written by me using WinPoint
 MF>>> ARE, in fact, italicised in the message list, whereas messages written
 MF>>> by me using OpenXP are NOT italicised in the message list. I'm now left
 MF>>> wondering if this is by design or whether it's a bug ??

 AA>> Interesting. Winpoint seems to deviate from the formatting
 AA>> "codes".  Instead of a single / around a word to italicise it,
 AA>> it uses two /'s.

 MF> Hmmmm, well, there must be a valid reason for that but what, I really
 MF> don't know.

 AA>> With two /'s, the italics fails in OpenXP as well as in Thunderbird.

 MF> I can't really comment about Thunderbird but AFAIK, OpenXP doesn't
 MF> support italic text.

As a matter of fact, I do not recall anymore why it is like that ... but it has been for 20 years now without complaint. That may be related to the fact, that italics have been rarely used in the past as text displays had no appropriate way to render them. Still today, italics rendering for monospaced fonts has quality issues (as can be seen in WP). I can only recall, that for example Spot on the Amiga (which I used before moving to OS/2 and before writing WP) was indeed using a single slash, but nobody used it.  

I can only speculate, that back in the days I was aware and of the single slash practice and had whatever reason to deviate from it. Today my first reflex would be indeed to say, the single slash makes more sense.

However, interestingly I NEVER noticed anyone using the /single/ slash in a message as that would stand out in WPs display. I do see WP users using the WP-style from time to time, but of course I am to blame for that. 

Regards,
Tim

--- WinPoint 404.0
 * Origin: Original WinPoint Origin! (2:240/1120.29)

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