[net.sources] rn

gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (01/20/86)

I have found the follow-up format that rn
uses for formating included articles rather messy looking.
A heading line is followed directly by the included text,
and the ">"'s at the beginnings of lines are inserted with
no following space!  It looks very crowded.

There are two easy simple things you can do to fix this for
your postings:

	[1] Include a newline in the ATTRIBUTION envirionment variable.
	    The "corrected" default would be:

		ATTRIBUTION="In article %i %f writes:\n"

	    (This is what I use).

	[2] Include the following line in your .rninit file:

		-F"> "

	    This redefines the indenting pattern to include a space
	    after the '>'.  (The same text can be included on
	    the rn command line).

This will make reading included articles in followups easier
by making the text more airly, less crowded.  (And, of course,
include only needed text in the followup).

A better solution would be to change the defaults in common.h
(for "indstr" and "ATTRIBUTION") if you have access to it,
but these instructions at least allows concerned users to change it
for themselves.  (amdahl readers: rn has been changed here)
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!gam

phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (01/20/86)

In article <2604@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes:
>I have found the follow-up format that rn
>uses for formating included articles rather messy looking.
>A heading line is followed directly by the included text,
>and the ">"'s at the beginnings of lines are inserted with
>no following space!  It looks very crowded.

This is a matter of taste. Would you rather see

>> junk junk junk

or

> > junk junk?

I'd rather see the former. 

What I hate is people who put in blank lines between paragraphs, disabling
my ability to skip included material with TAB in rn. Please keep the > in!
-- 
 (C) 1986 Joe Random is not a valid copyright.
 Copyright 1986 Joe Random is.

 Phil Ngai +1 408 749 5720
 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
 ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com

gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (01/22/86)

In article <8480@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:

> In article <2604@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes:
> >A heading line is followed directly by the included text,
> >and the ">"'s at the beginnings of lines are inserted with
> >no following space!  It looks very crowded.
> 
> This is a matter of taste. Would you rather see
> 
> >> junk junk junk
> 
> or
> 
> > > junk junk?

I agree with Phil's comments about "> > >"; I didn't think of that at
first.  I will make a point of editing those leading "> > > " to
">>> " before posting (hey, aren't editors wonderful?).

I am not doing that in this article, of course, for purposes of example.

By the way, in purely esthetic terms, doesn't this followup look better
than the format Phil's originally used?
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!gam

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