(off topic) mail line wrapping

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011, Matthew Mondor wrote:
> Sorry to have to add anything to this off-topic discussion;
>
> One issue is that a message may a mix of text to be wrapped 
> and text to be left as-is (code for instance), so every 
> paragraph/line must be able to be auto-wrap annotated.

You can do this using "Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed".

Ignoring special cases, the rules are roughly this:  The sender 
marks soft-wrapped paragraphs by ending every line except the 
last with a space.  The sender marks hard-wrapped lines by not 
ending them with a space.  (A paragraph of only one line cannot 
be soft wrapped.)

I started sending my own email in this format early this year.
This paragraph is hard-wrapped, and the other paragraphs in this
message (including the quoted text, but excluding the one-line
paragraphs) are soft wrapped.

I do find it annoying that Apple Mail used to get this right (up 
to and including version 2.1076), and then broke it in version 
2.1077 (which I first saw in November 2009).

--apb (Alan Barrett)