quoted text prefix(es)

quoted text prefix(es)

[B. T. Raven]

Is there a way to replace the stacks of right pointing arrows prefixed to
quoted text in gnus or rmail with an abbreviation?
E.g.:
>
>>
3>
4>
...

This would prevent text with many levels of nested quotations from pushing
text so far rightward that it is forced to wrap prematurely. It seems that
it should be possible to convert to this format even email sent by a
non-conforming program:

E.g.

>4> is converted to 5>
>>6> .....  8>

This seems like a reasonable convention since so many people are migrating
to .rtf even in contexts where it is not appropriate such as Listservs ad
usenet.

Any comments for or against are welcome.
--

Re: quoted text prefix(es)

[David Z Maze]

"B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@alcisp.com> writes:

> Is there a way to replace the stacks of right pointing arrows prefixed to
> quoted text in gnus or rmail with an abbreviation?
> E.g.:
>>
>>>
> 3>
> 4>
> ...

Honestly, best practice if you've got quoting that deep is to remove
some of the really old stuff and just keep the past couple of replies'
worth of context.  My experience from using Supercite long ago is that
using non-standard quote characters makes it harder for other people
to read and reply correctly, the ">>>>" format is sufficiently
widespread that almost everyone can understand it and generate it
(assuming their mailer is functional).

> This would prevent text with many levels of nested quotations from pushing
> text so far rightward that it is forced to wrap prematurely.

The usual M-q Emacs line-wrapping works fine for quoted text.

> It seems that
> it should be possible to convert to this format even email sent by a
> non-conforming program:
>
> E.g.
>
>>4> is converted to 5>
>>>6> .....  8>

In principle this should be pretty straightforward with some Lisp and
some regexp matching, but see e.g. `gnus-supercite-regexp' to see just
how hairy the regular-expression matching can get.

  --dzm

Re: quoted text prefix(es)

[B. T. Raven]

Thanks David. Supercite does too much for me. Since the very format of
your response (below) demonstrates the impracticality of my idea, what I
want now is what you suggest, but implemented automatically, something
like (strip-deep-cites n) where n is, say, the maximum number of
allowable > characters prefixed to a line. Then all groups of lines with a
greater number of > characters  would be collapsed to the sequence C-j
[...] C-j C-j. Do you know of something similar to that already
implemented in elisp. Unfortunately, however, most of supercite.el is over
my head.


"David Z Maze" <dmaze@mit.edu> wrote in message
news:y687iu88zx7.fsf@contents-vnder-pressvre.mit.edu...
> "B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@alcisp.com> writes:
>
> > Is there a way to replace the stacks of right pointing arrows prefixed
to
> > quoted text in gnus or rmail with an abbreviation?
> > E.g.:
> >>
> >>>
> > 3>
> > 4>
> > ...
>
> Honestly, best practice if you've got quoting that deep is to remove
> some of the really old stuff and just keep the past couple of replies'
> worth of context.  My experience from using Supercite long ago is that
> using non-standard quote characters makes it harder for other people
> to read and reply correctly, the ">>>>" format is sufficiently
> widespread that almost everyone can understand it and generate it
> (assuming their mailer is functional).
>
> > This would prevent text with many levels of nested quotations from
pushing
> > text so far rightward that it is forced to wrap prematurely.
>
> The usual M-q Emacs line-wrapping works fine for quoted text.
>
> > It seems that
> > it should be possible to convert to this format even email sent by a
> > non-conforming program:
> >
> > E.g.
> >
> >>4> is converted to 5>
> >>>6> .....  8>
>
> In principle this should be pretty straightforward with some Lisp and
> some regexp matching, but see e.g. `gnus-supercite-regexp' to see just
> how hairy the regular-expression matching can get.
>
>   --dzm

Re: quoted text prefix(es)

[Phil Jackson]

"B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@alcisp.com> writes:

> Is there a way to replace the stacks of right pointing arrows prefixed to
> quoted text in gnus or rmail with an abbreviation?
> E.g.:
>
> Any comments for or against are welcome.

Against. I'll render big conversations practically unreasonable.

Cheers,
Phil
-- 
That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to
clown college!

Re: quoted text prefix(es)

[Daniel Brockman]

Phil,

    I'll render big conversations practically unreasonable.

You're the one who's doing that?

Could you cut emacs-devel some slack for just a little while
so that they can manage to get the release out the door soon?

It would be great if you could leave both big and small
conversations there alone for just a couple of weeks.


Thanks,

-- 
Daniel Brockman <daniel@brockman.se>