Subj : Long lines in QWK packets
To   : Warpslide
From : Al
Date : Fri Aug 14 2020 20:30:53

On 14 Aug 2020, Warpslide said the following...
 
 Wa> I'm running A46 Aug 11th and am still seeing some cropped QWK messages on
 Wa> DOVE-Net.  Interestingly it seems to be only some messages, mainly from
 Wa> Nightfox.

Some message editors, like golded and recently SlyEdit don't wrap message
text when they save the message to the message base, they are saved in a
long line so the text can be wrapped when it is being viewed on your terminal
based on the dimensions of your terminal.

Most but not all BBS software wraps the text based on the dimensions of the
terminal when the message was written. BBBS also doesn't wrap message text.
That's OK as long as those reading your message are using a terminal with the
same dimensions. If folks are using a different size terminal they need to
unwrap that wrapping or bump and grind along with it.

Previously Mystic's QWK system and I suppose qwkpoll would truncate long lines
somewhere around 256 characters so that's why some paragraphs seemed to end
mid paragraph. Something that isn't seen often in QWK because in almost every
case editors would wrap the message text for an 80x25 screen size, something
SlyEdit doesn't do anymore.

I like the idea of long lines since it is easy for a BBS or message
viewer/editor to display those long lines for different screen sizes like
phones or tablets. Most BBSs do wrap text when the message is saved based on
the current screen size so it can make viewing a message on a phone or tablet
or other screen dimension harder to accomplish.

 Ttyl :-),
         Al

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/11 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Equinox BBS - Penticton, BC Canada (21:4/106.2)

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