Re: Removed forward slash?

["François Pinard" <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca>]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> écrit:

> However, looking through the material at the node suggested [`Article
> Fontisizing'] I discovered no clue as to which thing should be set to
> "nil" to stop this from happening.  "s" searches on "italic" or "forward
> slash" were no more helpful.

Let me see.  The quoted node immediately speaks about `gnus-emphasis-alist',
which you may modify.  As it makes it pretty clear that Lars calls
`emphasis' the set of phenomena it describes, you might have searched on
`emphasis' and been more successful...  The node also contains a clear
`*Note' pointing to the `Customizing Articles' node, and in that node,
you find the variable `gnus-treat-emphasize', preceded by an explanation
of possible values.  Are you sure you were really seeking for clues? :-)

> I think I'd prefer to have gnus leave things alone that I purposely
> type in to be seen.

The problem is that we may have /varying/ purposes.  For example, in the
previous sentence, I put "varying" between slashes with the purpose that
you will see it italicised. :-)

> Further it seems that this `forward slash removal' thing should default
> to nil to begin with.  Users who want special handling of strings
> inclosed in forward slashes can figure out how to do it.

Asterisks and underline symbols are also usable for emphasis, and disappear
the same way.  On average, people are happy with the current behaviour.
Those are all rather unusual characters in prose, the current behaviour may
be acceptable.  In any case, we are free to turn it on or off by changing
the value of `gnus-treat-emphasize', if the default does not suit us.

> Many situations require forward slashes.  Especially in mail about
> computer use or unix utils. To be able to "see" what you've typed into
> a message shouldn't require lengthy info searches.

Nothing is perfect, you know.  Email is not necessarily about computers,
even if true that for us, it traditionnaly is.  I prefer having to mentally
restore invisible slashes around unexpected italics in a file path name,
rather occasionally, than to execute Gnus command to emphasize on demand,
all the time.  Many of my correspondents emphasise a lot, or regularly.
I prefer to see me (and us :-) more prose-oriented than computer-oriented.
Like dogs do after a shower, let's shake out all this dust of bits we have
on ourselves! :-)

One alternative is that we all start using `text/enriched' text more often
than we do now, but Lars does not much believe it is practical to aim such
a thing, at least from the last time we spoke about it.  I would guess he
is not be completely wrong on this one :-) :-).


P.S. - By the way, the French readers on this list might be amused to know
that `forward slash' is sometimes translated by `cotice' and `backslash' by
`contre-cotice' (I found these as comments within the French translation of
ISO 10646 names).  I like these, and I wish they would become as known as
`perluette' or `arrobas' (yet there are spelling fights about the latter).

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard