On 2012-11-23, Jim Graham <spooky1...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 09:47:46PM +0000, Tony's unattended mail wrote: > >> BTW, sending a variable width format allows for 72 character >> rendering, so these dated ergonomics studies are not at odds with an >> unwrapped source text anyway. > > Two questions about variable width fonts, then....
I was not talking about variable width *fonts*. By "variable width format", I mean a text message with unwrapped paragraphs (which only has EOLs when semantically necessary). You raise good questions though. I would say conversational text is more readable in a serif variable width font (the same font novels are published in). Ideally, monospaced fonts are used to express literal/verbatim bits of text, and text where alignment is necessary. But that sort of ideal scenario would compel a markup language, which clearly has trade-offs. Maybe the MUA should show a variable width font, and then have a hot-key to switch to a courier font if the user sees the type of content that calls for it.
