I don't want to drag this subject out too long, but hopefully this will be
a semi-definitive answer.

There are two different ways in which text email can travel around the
world:

1.  The message text can have <cr>'s inserted by the outgoing email
program, normally every 75 or 80 or so columns.  This way, someone else's
email reader won't have to worry about how to compose the text.

Or,

2.  The message text will not have any extra <cr>'s inserted by the
outgoing email program, it will only have <cr>'s at the end of each
paragraph, which is how an email message is normally typed in.  In this
case, the recipient's email reader will have to be configured to wrap long
lines (most are by default), otherwise the recipient will have to do a lot
of horizontal scrolling, as Albert described.

(Well, there's also 3. The message text will be in a non-text format such
as html or Microsoft Word, which I won't comment on, except to say that it
is a bad thing. :-) )


Most outgoing email software tends to insert <cr>'s as in #1.  Some don't,
though, including Craig's emailer.

The question is, is it the responsibility of the outgoing mail software to
add the <cr>'s (#1), or should it be the responsibility of the email
reader to do this (#2)?  I believe the answer is #2.  So, Albert should
configure his email reader to wrap long lines of text.  (Any modern email
reader will let you do this... e.g. Netscape, Outlook, (hopefully
Celeste), etc.)  Craig shouldn't have to do anything.

In fact, the world would probably be a better place if everyone followed
#2, since adding new <cr>'s to messages forwarded several times starts to
make them unreadable.

Also, if your email reader lets you set the number of columns at which to
wrap (I know Netscape does), you'll probably want to set it to something
like 90 columns, so that you don't get a nasty double-wrapping effect on
emails that already have <cr>'s inserted.


- Doug Way
  dway at mat.net

I'd call myself an artist
If I could make these feelings clear
But there's a million things to think about
When you're cutting off your ear
                - Scott Miller



On Tue, 9 Nov 1999 Dean_Swan at Mitel.COM wrote:

> 
> 
> From:  Dean Swan at MITEL on 11/09/99 11:34 AM
> 
> Yep.  It comes back as 78 column monospaced ASCII, with hard <cr>'s inserted,
> even though I'm creating my outgoing mails as Rich Text Format in 10 pt.
> Helvetica.  I don't honestly know how Dominoe accomplishes this, since we have
> several people in our IT department that do nothing but maintain Notes, but it
> can be done.
> 
> For me, Craig's messages are coming through formatted for the window width of
> the Notes window I'm reading them in.
> 
> I hope this helps track down the "problem" some people are having with 'page
> width'.
> 
>                     -Dean
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dean_Swan at Mitel.COM on 11/09/99 11:19:54 AM
> 
> Please respond to squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> 
> To:   alwagner at tcac.net
> cc:   squeak at cs.uiuc.edu (bcc: Dean Swan/Ogd/Mitel)
> 
> Subject:  Re: page width
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From:  Dean Swan at MITEL on 11/09/99 11:19 AM
> 
> I would suggest that this migth be a problem with your mail reader's
> configuration.  What are you using for a mail program?
> 
> I use Lotus Notes as a mail client, and my company uses Dominoe as our mail
> server.  Any mail that goes outside our internal Notes domain gets reformatted
> for something like 70 column monospaced fonts.  This paragraph is an example.
> The first time I have pressed the <enter> key since the beginning of this
> paragraph is right after the end of this sentence.
> 
> What goes out to the list should be reformatted for everyone.  I'll check when
> my copy comes back.
> 
> -Dean Swan
> dean_swan at mitel.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Albert Wagner <alwagner at tcac.net> on 11/08/99 09:13:50 PM
> 
> Please respond to squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> 
> To:   squeak at cs.uiuc.edu, Craig Latta <Craig.Latta at NetJam.ORG>
> cc:   squeak at cs.uiuc.edu (bcc: Dean Swan/Ogd/Mitel)
> 
> Subject:  page width
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Craig,
> I'm having trouble reading your emails to the squeak mailing list.
> Apparently you have no page width set and each paragraph goes on and
> on, requiring heavy use of horzontal scrolling.  Thanks.  I enjoy your
> posts.
> 
>  --  "Mutual cooperation can emerge in a world of egoists without
> central control, by starting with a cluster of individuals who rely on
> reciprocity"   --Robert Axelrod
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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>