Subj : Quoting & Wrapping
To   : apam
From : Oli
Date : Wed Oct 23 2019 10:48:21

Hi Andrew,

 ap> As a solution, I've gone with fsc-0032.001 proposal, but this has it's
 ap> own drawbacks. Mainly because of message editors that do not wrap
 ap> lines.

Which editors do not wrap (long) lines when displaying a message? They have a
problem anyway and can only survive in a network where all mails are
distributed over a MysticBBS backbone, that rewraps everything in transit (if
the editor is used with Mystic, it's not a problem).

 ap> In an ideal world, I'd just rewrap the quote easily, however due to
 ap> mystic already rewrapping messages in transit (and at 80 columns - so
 ap> no room for initials) I'd then have to unwrap and rewrap messages,
 ap> which poses a problem with intentionally wrapped messages. Ie someone
 ap> pressed enter.

Rewrapping: I think there will always be some false positives, but thats fine.
It doesn't have to be perfect. timed is very proud of it's rewrapping
abilities, you could get some inspiration there / steal some code. Golded also
does a pretty good job. But I guess you figured it out and it's already good
enough in Magicka.

 ap> Only one person has ever complained about the current quote setup
 ap> in the years it's been in place..

It's amazing what the brain can filter out. I didn't recognized the things I
complained about for weeks.

 ap> Also keep in mind, there is no agreed upon standard (that I can find)
 ap> for quoting messages, all I could find was this proposal.

Yes and no. FSC doesn't mean much, some FSCs are essential (FSC-0039), some are
 just ideas that never were implemented and with some it's not clear. FSC-0032
describes pretty much exactly what all the good Fidonet message editors do.
It's also the most readable and visually pleasing solution (IMHO). If newer
software uses different quoting styles, especially the software that is used in
 this network, that's another story. Yes, there are different ways to quote a
message, but in Fidonet there is broad agreement that:

1) long lines / unwrapped paragraphs are perfectly fine
2) quotes start with ">", "F>", "FL>" or "FML>" (First, Middle, Last name)
3) it's common practice to add ">" characters for nested quotes like ">>",
"FL>>", "FL>>>", ...
4) you don't quote empty lines

everything else is undefined and freestyle.



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