On 2005-10-12 14:42:55 -0400, Derek Martin wrote: > The problem, Thomas, is that you are making a completely > arbitrary decision as to what is the most readable, and forcing > it on the users. The decision is roughly as arbitrary as the decision to have columns in newspapers, or the decision in the format=flowed spec not to make lines longer than some 72 (?) characters when displayed unflowed. Hint: These decisions are generally based on the experience that shorter lines are much easier to read than longer lines. Here's a test for you: The paragraph above uses 132 columns. The text you're reading here uses 70 columns. Tell me which one is easier to read. If you want to make that test in a more thorough way, take two equally long (but different) texts that you haven't recently read, and use fmt or par to flow one of them to 132 columns and the other one to 70 or 80 columns. Use a timer to figure out how long it takes you to read each of them. > If a user WANTS to read 132-column e-mail, you have taken away > their ability to do so, arbitrarily, for no good reason. I'm hearing "IF a user wants", and "it's not correct not to use the full width of the screen when the original message is format=flowed." I don't think I've heared anyone seriously argue that they would actually like to read their e-mail wrapped at column 132 (or whatever). And re "for no good reason" -- see above. Regards, -- Thomas Roessler · Personal soap box at <http://log.does-not-exist.org/>.
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