On 10/20/2000 11:09 AM, "Allen Watson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> One of the aspects of OE that I had hoped would be fixed in Entourage has
> not been fixed, apparently.
>
> Both programs impose word wrapping on the mail user whether he or she wants
> it or not. You cannot send a mail message in plain text without word
> wrapping. What's more, you cannot <receive> a message in plain text that
> isn't word wrapped without OE or Entourage invasively wrapping it.
Can you give an example of a message getting word wrapped when it's
received? I don't believe this is true.
> Eudora has always supported an option for the user to turn off word wrap if
> desired. This option is extremely useful in many circumstances, particularly
> in sending and receiving scripting or program code, where breaking lines
> wrecks havoc with the compiler.
>
> For some reason--I have <never> understood the proffered explanations--the
> OE team seems to feel that users should not be entrusted with the ability to
> send unwrapped messages. Why? Would this endanger someone? Provide a way to
> inflict viruses? Promote obscenity? Of course not! It is a wholly arbitrary
> decision on their part to impose a restriction that serves absolutely no
> useful purpose, and inconveniences many of the people who are the most
> supportive of their product (e.g., people who write scripts and post them to
> the mailing list, and people who want to copy and use such scripts).
See the archives for more on the topic. I don't want to rehash it here.
But basically, not wrapping the lines and calling it text/plain violates the
mail standards, and we strive to be standards compliant. There are two ways
around this:
1. Use text/html, which doesn't have this requirement. In Entourage,
sending an HTML message with no styling no longer reverts back to
text/plain, so you can use this option to just send without wrapping.
2. Use text/plain; format=flowed. Eudora supports this, but Entourage does
not. Basically the message is sent wrapped, but there are rules that can be
used to unwrap the message when received.
> Since most mailing lists do not allow attachments (which <can> be a means of
> distributing destructive viruses), that is not an alternative method of
> script distribution.
>
> HTML is useful in limited contexts, where one knows that HTML can be
> properly received--as is the case on the OE and Entourage mailing lists.
> However, HTML takes a lot more bandwidth and disk space, and has annoyed
> people who do not want the scripts, while plain text would be easier for
> them to ignore. Furthermore, on other scripting lists (like OneClick-Talk or
> MACSCRPT), not everyone uses OE or Entourage, and not everyone can read HTML
> messages. (There are still a lot of Emailer users out there, for one thing.)
> Therefore, HTML won't work in those situations.
Emailer won't show format=flowed either. There is no standards compliant
way to get non-wrapped text to Emailer users.
> We really, really need to have Entourage provide an option for users to turn
> off automatic line breaking. Word wrapping the display to window width, of
> course, is desirable and should continue. But it should be possible to send
> messages without wrapping them, and to receive unwrapped messages without
> having them automatically broken into short lines.
>
> Developers: Please, please reconsider this feature request.
>
> Users: Please let the developers know if you want this.
Dan
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