[news.newusers.questions] Line lengths on .sigs

kiravuo@kampi.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) (08/19/89)

While we are on the subject, please keep the lines on .signatures
below 80 characters. Usual terminals show 80 OK, but us GNUS
users prefer 79, since Emacs folds the 80th character to the next
line.

--
Timo  Kiravuo
Helsinki University of Technology,   Computing Center
kiravuo@hut.fi   sorvi::kiravuo   kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net
work: 90-451 4328   home: 90-676 076

erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik T Naggum) (08/20/89)

> While we are on the subject, please keep the lines on .signatures
> below 80 characters. Usual terminals show 80 OK, but us GNUS
> users prefer 79, since Emacs folds the 80th character to the next
> line.

My terminal has a dark shade on the right-hand side so all characters
past the 75th column are hard to read, so why don't you all limit your
signatures to less than 75 characters?  Thank you.

Either that, or file a bug report with the GNUS people.  It's none of
the net.world's business to adapt to your particular software or hardships.

Cheers,
--Erik
--
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  "These are my opinions, not those of my employees."

shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) (08/20/89)

On 19 Aug 89 20:21:06 GMT, erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik T Naggum) said:

> While we are on the subject, please keep the lines on .signatures
> below 80 characters. Usual terminals show 80 OK, but us GNUS users
> prefer 79, since Emacs folds the 80th character to the next line.

Erik> Either that, or file a bug report with the GNUS people.  It's
Erik> none of the net.world's business to adapt to your particular
Erik> software or hardships.

The people who wrote and maintain GNUS can do NOTHING about it.  GNU
Emacs insists on folding a line for a single character.  This is
arguably poor behavior, but buried in the souce code to Emacs and not
easily changed.  I don't think it's such an unreasonable request for
people to refrain from using the 80th column in a .signature.  Usually
it's to draw a stupid box around it anyway, which has already been
declared to be bad form.  (And don't assume GNUS users are the only
ones that might have problems with lines exactly 80 characters.)

Deven
--
Deven T. Corzine        Internet:  deven@rpi.edu, shadow@pawl.rpi.edu
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Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.

kiravuo@kampi.hut.fi (Timo Kiravuo) (08/21/89)

In article <89-231-0067@naggum.uu.no> erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik T Naggum) writes:

>Either that, or file a bug report with the GNUS people.  It's none of
>the net.world's business to adapt to your particular software or hardships.

Sorry. I tried to be informative, not to complain. I have
sometimes sent people letters about their .signatures not showing
up properly and always received very nice replies. I don't like
funny boxes too much, but I thought that if somebody goes to all
that trouble for their .signature, they might also want people to
receive it the way they planned. Call it personal idiosyncrasy. 

--
Timo Kiravuo
Helsinki University of Technology, Computing Center
work: 90-451 4328, home: 90-676 076
kiravuo@hut.fi  sorvi::kiravuo  kiravuo%hut.fi@uunet.uu.net