X-Message-Number: 23152 Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 22:37:13 -0500 From: "Kevin Q. Brown" <> Subject: Long lines in CryoNet archives In Message # 23146 Christine Gaspar asked: "Would someone please tell me why my posts go on like one endless line, rather than with margins. ...". Christine, For years the CryoNet software has retained the formatting of the text rather than trying to wrap around long lines automatically. Previous attempts to reformat text created a new set of problems, such as mangling tabular data like: Name Location Food ---- -------- ---- Sam Cupertino pizza Horst Milwaukee beer Nina Honolulu papaya but with many more columns. The formatting task became more difficult when such tabular data was interspersed with long lines of text that had to be wrapped around. Messages sent via the "quoted printable" encoding created special problems, too. This was discussed briefly in messages #17167 and #14327. The best solution is to send your messages so that they are formatted the way you want to see them. Thus, type a carriage return wherever you want a line of text to end. Unfortunately, unlike programming with text editors on UNIX command lines, experience with Word processors and Windows platforms does not accustom one to typing that way. CryoNet thus has received an increasing number of messages formatted with a single long line for each paragraph. Since the long-line-problem appears only in the "dsp.cgi" web display, I won't need to change the formatting of the email digests. Only the "dsp.cgi" filtering must change. Try the new "dsp.cgi" now: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=23146 It assumes that each long line is intended to be an entire paragraph, which is the convention used by many word processors. There still are some cases in which it will format the text poorly, but this new version usually will be an improvement. Kevin Q. Brown PS: The daily CryoNet digest emails now are working again. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23152