Hi, Gleb! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

Seems everyone can see posts from this origin.

Uh-huh. Although not everyone has answered, I find Tommi's system (2:221/6 etc.) to be quite reliable. :-)

I've never used news readers before and it feels
waaay less convenient than good old FTN-style readers
(like GoldED).

Having never used either, I agree that Tommi would probably be able to give you better answers than I would because he understands his own system.

So I believe it's OK if I hang around here for a while
... :-)

I don't know if you're using your real name... but now I see you're from Russia (as I'd suspected). People from all countries are welcome in this echo, and as long as you continue to mind your manners & focus on the study of English I have no objection to your "hanging around" here for a while.... :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

Hello, Ardith!

�� 24.11.23 21:32, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to me:

Seems everyone can see posts from this origin.

Uh-huh. Although not everyone has answered, I find Tommi's system (2:221/6 etc.) to be quite reliable. :-)

Yep, it's quite good and easy to access and subscribe to newsgroups and echoes, and there's a great variety of it too. And, the other day I told my fidonet boss about the issues (some echoes were set to read-only) and he had it fixed, so that hopefully I can now correspond via my regular fidonet link.

I've never used news readers before and it feels
waaay less convenient than good old FTN-style readers
(like GoldED).

Having never used either, I agree that Tommi would probably
be able to give you better answers than I would because he understands
his own system.

It was just a matter of habit for me, because actually news readers are similarly easy to use. I deliberately chose a text-mode one, for some reason I avoid using GUI readers/editors for corresponding in fidonet. :-)

So I believe it's OK if I hang around here for a while
... :-)

I don't know if you're using your real name... but now I
see you're from Russia (as I'd suspected). People from all countries
are welcome in this echo, and as long as you continue to mind your
manners & focus on the study of English I have no objection to your "hanging around" here for a while.... :-)

Well, I was using a different name at that time. Now I just decided to "start over" with an updated state of mind, if you like. BTW is it okay to use "hang around" without seeming a bit too "informal", or should I have said "stay"? :-)


Regards, Gleb | �� 25.11.23, 18:51
--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: Type <sadm> to continue (2:5023/24.4222)

Gleb Hlebov:

It was just a matter of habit for me, because actually
news readers are similarly easy to use. I deliberately
chose a text-mode one, for some reason I avoid using GUI
readers/editors for corresponding in fidonet. :-)

Great choice for FidoNet, where GUI is an anachronism, but
why are you not hard-wrapping your text at 72 charachters
per line or thereabout?

BTW is it okay to use "hang around" without seeming a
bit too "informal", or should I have said "stay"? :-)

Surely /to hang around/ is informal unless the speaker be a
bat or a sloth (the three-toed variety).

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

On Sun, 26 Nov 2023 14:21:40, Anton Shepelev <0@6.221.2> wrote:

It was just a matter of habit for me, because actually
news readers are similarly easy to use. I deliberately
chose a text-mode one, for some reason I avoid using GUI
readers/editors for corresponding in fidonet. :-)

Great choice for FidoNet, where GUI is an anachronism, but
why are you not hard-wrapping your text at 72 charachters
per line or thereabout?

I don't know if there's even a strict rule or guideline that prescribes
to do so. Or is there something in FTSC conventions addressing this?
Because I recently asked about this "issue" in ru.golded and a few
people told me it wouldn't be a good idea to hard-wrap lines to a fixed
value, and there's no such option in GoldED's config either. I know
that Vim can do it (as I type this text) and this is what I thought
GoldED was capable of doing as well. However, it can only auto-wrap
text in view mode. If you can set up your news reader to do the same it
would solve the issue with extra-long lines.

BTW is it okay to use "hang around" without seeming a
bit too "informal", or should I have said "stay"? :-)

Surely /to hang around/ is informal unless the speaker be a
bat or a sloth (the three-toed variety).

Oh, you be too smart. :-) Snakes can also hang upside down, and some
monkeys, and possums too.

--- FastEcho/2 1.46.1 Revival
* Origin: nntp://rbb.fidonet.fi - Lake Ylo - Finland (2:221/1.0)

Hi, Gleb Hlebov - Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 27.11.2023 10:06

Because I ecently asked abbout this "issue" in ru.golded and a
few peopletold me it woulddn't be a good idea to hard-wrap
lines to afixed value, andd there's no such option in GoldED's
config eiter. I know ??thaat Vim can do it (as I type this
text) and his is what I thhought GoldED was capable of doing as
well. Howeer, it can only auto-wrap ??text in view mode. If
you can se up your news reeader to do the same it would solve
the issue with extra-long lines.

It is really not a good idea. There are a lot of people with small narrow displays and long lines allow them read paragraphs correctly. Paragraphs with hard-wraps look badly in that case.

Bye, Gleb!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2023

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hello, Alexander!

Someone in disguise of
Alexander Koryagin (2:221/6)
wrote to me:

few peopletold me it
woulddn't be a good idea
to hard-wrap lines to
afixed value, andd
there's no such option in
GoldED's config eiter.

It is really not a good
idea. There are a lot of
people with small narrow
displays and long lines
allow them read paragraphs
correctly. Paragraphs with
hard-wraps look badly in
that case.

Exactly how small and narrow?
Are there so many users that
can not set their terminal
window width at least at 80
columns? Do you know any of
them personally? Maybe someone
who uses a Commodore or a ZX
Spectrum?
This is how our msgs would
appear formatted to fit a
Speccy screen. :-)


--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: & (2:5023/24.4222)

Gleb Hlebov to Anton Shepelev:

but why are you not hard-wrapping your text at 72
charachters per line or thereabout?

I don't know if there's even a strict rule or guideline
that prescribes to do so.

I believer FidoNet follows the convensions for BBS, Usenet,
and e-mail, where text should be hard-wrapped to about 72
characters per line, because the standard does not require
client programs to support any wrapping on the receiving end
while displaying articles. Those who need wrapping shall
use format=lowed:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2646

which is essentially the same hard-wrapped text but an extra
space at the end of each line to indicate that clients /may/
rewrap it if the support it, but they are not required to do
so, because the format is backwards-compatible and still
usable in classic readers that display text as is. Simply
using one line per paragraph is non-standard and wrong.

I for one invariable use hard-wrapped text because it is
beautiful, device-independent, and widely supported by
clients and text editors. It guarrantees my text looks the
way I wrote it.

Or is there something in FTSC conventions addressing
this?

I will have to look it up.

I recently asked about this "issue" in ru.golded and a
few people told me it wouldn't be a good idea to hard-
wrap lines to a fixed value, and there's no such option
in GoldED's config either.

Do they say one line per paragraph has been the FidoNet
convention back from 1980s? It doubt it can be true,
because the rest of the world relied on hard-wrapped text
for all communication.

I know that Vim can do it (as I type this text) and this
is what I thought GoldED was capable of doing as well.

Vim is in fact specifically /designed/ to work with with
hard-wrapped text, whereas configuring it for soft wrapping
takes extra effort and even then is not as comfortable.

If you can set up your news reader to do the same it
would solve the issue with extra-long lines.

My newsreader is already wrappeing long lines, but it does
not help. They are too wide, forcing me to squeeze the
window to get a comfortable line length.

BTW is it okay to use "hang around" without seeming a
bit too "informal", or should I have said "stay"? :-)

Surely /to hang around/ is informal unless the speaker
be a bat or a sloth (the three-toed variety).

Oh, you be too smart. :-) Snakes can also hang upside
down, and some monkeys, and possums too.

Sure, but those other critters are not the hang-around
types.

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Alexander Koryagin:

There are a lot of people with small narrow displays and
long lines allow them read paragraphs correctly.
Paragraphs with hard-wraps look badly in that case.

Following BBSes, FidoNet software assumed the user had at
least the standard ISO screen, that is 80x24 characters.
All modern videocards support that textmode, and all modern
displays have good-enough resolution to display an
80-character line of text.

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

I wrote to Gleb Hlebov:

Or is there something in FTSC conventions addressing
this?

I will have to look it up.

FSC-0001 has:

A 'hard' carriage return, 0DH, marks the end of a
paragraph, and must be preserved.

So called 'soft' carriage returns, 8DH, may mark a
previous processor's automatic line wrap, and should be
ignored. Beware that they may be followed by linefeeds,
or may not.

All linefeeds, 0AH, should be ignored. Systems which
display message text should wrap long lines to suit their
application.

But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--

<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Gleb Hlebov - Alexander Koryagin!
I read your message from 28.11.2023 08:35

few peopletold me it
woulddn't be a good idea
to hard-wrap lines to
afixed value, andd
there's no such option in
GoldED's config eiter.

It is really not a good
idea. There are a lot of
people with small narrow
displays and long lines
allow them read paragraphs
correctly. Paragraphs with
hard-wraps look badly in
that case.

Exactly how small and narrow?
Are there so many users that
can not set their terminal
window width at least at 80
columns? Do you know any of
??them personally? Maybe someone
who uses a Commodore or a ZX
Spectrum?
This is how our msgs would
appear formatted to fit a
Speccy screen. :-)

I meant that when all paragraphs are sent as long lines they don't need formatting at all and look good at any device.

Bye, Gleb!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2023

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hi, Anton Shepelev - Alexander Koryagin!
I read your message from 28.11.2023 10:32

There area lot of people with small narrow displays and
long line allow them readd paragraphs correctly.
Paragraph with hard-wrapss look badly in that case.

Following BSes, FidoNet sooftware assumed the user had at
least the tandard ISO screeen, that is 80x24 characters.
All modernvideocards suppoort that textmode, and all modern
displays hve good-enough rresolution to display an
80-character line of text.

Most modern devices have small screens, for instance, smart phones, tablet computers. Their users use soft like Microsoft windows when they can choose large symbol fonts. If you want to surprise them unpleasantly you can format your text by 80 symbols. ;)

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2023

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hello Anton,

An entity in disguise of Anton Shepelev (2:221/6) wrote to me:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2646

[...]

In other words... "It's complicated". :-)
This hard-wrap thing really is a mess. An ordinary user gets confused because opinions differ so drastically.

I for one invariable use hard-wrapped text because it is
beautiful, device-independent, and widely supported by
clients and text editors. It guarrantees my text looks the
way I wrote it.

I can see. On occasions when I use tin (news client for GNU/Linux terminal) in a window wider than 100 columns (usually it's 100 to 140, which is reasonable having all this screen estate) all unwrapped lines just spread over to the right border (and that alone sucks). To make matters worse, it doesn't seem to have a word-wrap option, the only instance I've found in its config is "wrap_column=XX" which obviously wraps all columns wider than XX, thus forcing to break apart words too. Imagine when it does this with 2-char words, like prepositions and such.

I know that Vim can do it (as I type this text) and this
is what I thought GoldED was capable of doing as well.

Vim is in fact specifically /designed/ to work with with
hard-wrapped text, whereas configuring it for soft wrapping
takes extra effort and even then is not as comfortable.

I'm no Vim expert at all, but it is really powerful when it comes to text manipulation of any kind. The ultimate downside is its concepts being "the utter opposite of user-friendly", it has a ton of cryptic one-char commands and its combinations that you either have to memorize or refer to a kind of "cheat sheet" every now and then.

If you can set up your news reader to do the same it
would solve the issue with extra-long lines.

My newsreader is already wrappeing long lines, but it does
not help. They are too wide, forcing me to squeeze the
window to get a comfortable line length.

At least you can "squeeze" it when you're using a GUI viewer, which doesn't make sense with GoldED. Although it seems to work in a Linux terminal window with most text-mode applications.


--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: Type <sadm> to continue (2:5023/24.4222)

Gleb Hlebov:

This is how our msgs would appear formatted to fit a
Speccy screen. :-)

It depends. The translation of Star Heritage in which I
participated uses 40 characters perline, with a one-
characgter margin on the left and right, so a full line is
42 characters:

https://freeshell.de/~antonius/img_host/sh-ingame.gif

Alone Coder's Assembler (Alasm) has a wider line and
narrower font:

https://worldofspectrum.net/pub/sinclair/screens/in-game/a/ALASM.gif

Anyway, FidoNet was not designed for ZX Spectrum...

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Alexander Koryagin:

I meant that when all paragraphs are sent as
long lines they don't need formatting at all
and look good at any device.

No, they need wrapping in the client software,
which becomes quite complicated with the various
quotation prefixes. This is why the task of for-
matting is properly given to the text edi-
tor -- the program specialising in formatting
text, whereas the client should display articles
as-is. My Groff may be using hyphenation and spe-
cial word-breaking rules to produce an aestheti-
cally pleasing text not meant to be rewrapped.

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

28 Nov 2023 12:21, you wrote to you:

[...]

All linefeeds, 0AH, should be ignored. Systems which
display message text should wrap long lines to suit their
application.

But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--

<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

Carlos

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: cyberiada (2:341/234.1)

Carlos Navarro to Anton Shepelev:

But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--

<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

Right, but there is no such discrepancy in BBS, Usenet, or
e-mail. Have you a been a long time in Fidonet, has it
always (or at least since 1995) used soft-wrapped text?

---
* Origin: nntp://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)

Hello Carlos,

<Sun 03-12-2023 14:20> Carlos Navarro <2:341/234.1> vs. Anton Shepelev:

All linefeeds, 0AH, should be ignored. Systems which
display message text should wrap long lines to suit their
application.
But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--
<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

There are a few documents formatted for printing, obviously, hence the justified paragraphs. The rest of them are mostly 70 cols.


*********************************************************************
FTSC FIDONET TECHNICAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE *********************************************************************

Publication: FSP-1041.001
Revision: 1
Title: The BEER nodelist flag
Author(s): FTSC Members, Administrator and Honoured Guests
Issue Date: 01 April 2018 =====================================================================


--
WBR, Gleb <Tue 05-12-2023 14:52>
--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: Type <sadm> to continue (2:5023/24.4222)

04 Dec 2023 11:25, you wrote to me:

But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--

<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

Right, but there is no such discrepancy in BBS, Usenet, or
e-mail. Have you a been a long time in Fidonet, has it
always (or at least since 1995) used soft-wrapped text?

I started as a point in 1992. I mostly used FrontDoor's editor (FM) and timEd. Both support(ed) long lines and wrapped text.

Carlos

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: cyberiada (2:341/234.1)

05 Dec 2023 14:52, you wrote to me:

But how come the FSC-0001 itself it not written in the
FidoNet format?--
<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

There are a few documents formatted for printing, obviously, hence the justified paragraphs. The rest of them are mostly 70 cols.

From FTA-1002 (Document Submission and Publication Standard):

3.2 Document Formatting
-----------------------

Major Header titles and Introductory text alignment are to be left
flush (i.e. starting at the leftmost column) with a maximum line
length of 70 columns (excluding the line terminator), to permit easy
conversion to a Fidonews posting.


Carlos

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: cyberiada (2:341/234.1)

Hello Carlos,

<Wed 06-12-2023 21:02> Carlos Navarro <2:341/234.1> vs. me:

<http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0001.016>

Because it is a text file, not a Fidonet message :-)

There are a few documents formatted for printing, obviously,
hence the justified paragraphs. The rest of them are mostly 70
cols.

From FTA-1002 (Document Submission and Publication Standard):
3.2 Document Formatting

Okay, this is correct, but it was first published in 1997, whereas
ftsc-0001 (which was "justified pretty") was published in 1995.
Just a nerdy remark. :-)


--
WBR, Gleb <Thu 07-12-2023 09:32>
--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: Type <sadm> to continue (2:5023/24.4222)

Hello Carlos,

<Wed 06-12-2023 20:57> Carlos Navarro <2:341/234.1> vs. Anton Shepelev:

Right, but there is no such discrepancy in BBS, Usenet, or
e-mail. Have you a been a long time in Fidonet, has it
always (or at least since 1995) used soft-wrapped text?

I started as a point in 1992. I mostly used FrontDoor's editor (FM)
and timEd. Both support(ed) long lines and wrapped text.

I believe the idea of long lines (i.e. one paragraph = one line) has always been there since the advent of IBM PC and MS-DOS and so BBS tech (and, later in 1984, Fidonet) inherited it for its text-processing needs. BBSes first appeared even before that, in late 1970s, and run on CP/M systems (CP/M technically was a predecessor of DOS).
However Usenet/e-mail/internet-related stuff originated in Unix world and *nix system standards and/or Usenet policy could be different. I'm not sure why AS keeps referring to "BBS and Usenet" in this regard. :-)


--
WBR, Gleb <Thu 07-12-2023 09:39>
--- GoldED+/W64-MSVC 1.1.5
* Origin: Type <sadm> to continue (2:5023/24.4222)

Hi, Gleb! Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

BTW is it okay to use "hang around" without seeming a bit
too "informal", or should I have said "stay"? :-)

Once upon a time I was taught to use formal English & I think the same also applies to many others here.

In echomail we tend to write less formally, as native speakers do when they don't have to prove anything to Miss Stickler or whomever. If you feel more comfortable with informal terms that's okay AFAIC. If you've made what others see as usage errors & they try to help that's okay here as well. However, I was not objecting to your vocabulary. The words you used tell me significantly more than the alternative in your question.

WRT this example, I used quotation marks to inform you I'd regard "hang around" as colloquial. Not all dictionaries mention such things. :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)