[PLUG] Line lengths for emails

[Steve Dum]

I have to admit giving in, regarding mail reading. I let seamonkey
handle it. (same more or less as thunderbird) so I've become one of
those who's email that is made up of single line paragraphs - with very
long lines.  And likewise, it wraps all my messages in my mailbox
reasonably. and even does proper word wrapping. Marvelous, late 20th
century technology.

OTOH, I also still use nmh for a few classes of email.  (Marvelous very
early 20th century technology). I have never worried about reading mail
in my 80 char terminal windows.  It line wraps at 80 chars.  I don't
have much trouble with the invariable word wrapped in the middle.  Are
you using some kind of window that doesn't wrap lines? If not switch to
windows that do auto line wrap?

IF I could only make both systems use the same inbox...
so I could switch tools seamlessly as needed, w/o duplicating
every message.

steve
Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> This may be a religious question, but here goes.
>
> I tend to write my emails and other documents with a target line
> length approaching but less than 68 characters - I trained in an
> era of 80 column terminals, and multiple-quoted emails with ">>>>>"
> in front of the lines become much harder to read when they wrap.
>
> I usually read emails in 80 column windows, though sometimes I use
> a full screen window 170 characters wide, even 250 characters wide
> with tiny fonts when I am looking at log files.  An email without
> line breaks is very difficult to read 250 characters wide!
>
> So, what do you folks find easiest to read, and what is your
> tolerance range?  I expect some will respond like "all lines MUST
> be exactly 72 characters, use a thesaurus to find words with the
> correct spacing" or "my enter key is broken so it is all one line."
> Such responses will be weighted appropriately.
>
> Keith
>