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Re: Text/Enhanced straw man

1993-02-12 16:42:38
~ From: Evan Kirshenbaum <evan(_at_)hplerk(_dot_)hpl(_dot_)hp(_dot_)com>
~ To: ietf-822(_at_)dimacs(_dot_)rutgers(_dot_)edu
~ Subject: Text/Enhanced straw man

All-

Thinking about simplemail a bit more, I've thrown together a straw man
for such a system that I think is quite workable.  I'll call this
"Text/Enhanced" to differentiate it from Bill's simplemail proposal,
although I would hope that we could all agree on a single system that
combines the best of all proposals.  

As I read Kirshenbaum's proposal I kept wanting to say "Gee, we need to 
keep this simple.  The description can't need to be this long."  Yet as I 
read on each and every proposal seemed just right.  I was impressed.  
But that didn't keep me silent:

-o As I was reading, I interpreted '*<text with spaces>*' to mean that
the entire text was to be bold.  That is, that this was synonymous with
'*text*with*spaces*'.  (<I find it hard to type using something other than 
spaces between words, anyway.>)  Although I was wrong, I think this 
suggests a general facility:  
        -   mark   less-than   text   greater-than   mark
can be treated as a general marking mechanism for in-line text.  
When mark is *, it means bold, when mark is _, it means alternate font.  
In all cases, a new paragraph would signal the end of the marking even 
if the closing greater-then  mark were absent.  A new paragraph begins at
a double newline, text at a different indentation, or a literal line.

-o If '*<' means bold, we need something else for footnote.  How about
using parentheses in the same mark format.  (< So this would be a 
footnote.>)

-o For ^<underlining>^ I think the only thing that can reasonably 
work is in-line quoting.  For this I propose `^< ... >^'.  Perhaps additional
marks like | can also be allocated so different underlines can be written.
(<Sigh. '~< ... >~' would be great for a wiggly underline, but tilde is
already used.  Would "' " (quote space) at the beginning of a line be 
sufficiently unamibguous as an alternative to '~ ` (tilde space)?  After
all, quote space will seldom, if ever, otherwise appear.  Another great
mark would be underscore (_) for underlining, but usage has already
appropriated that mark for alternate-font.>)

-o I have a problem with the signature block proposal.  Unlike all the 
other proposals, this one can have a large unintended effect:

  > the beginning of the signature should signal that lines to the 
  > end of the ^<part>^ should be treated as literal lines

Since _part_ is undefined, I take this to mean the end of the message in
most cases.  So any line of dashes would literalize the rest of the 
message.  It seems to me that a signature need be edited only seldom,
so putting a literal line indication on each line is not onerous.
I propose to omit any mention of signatures;  sufficient quoting is
possible with other mechanisms.

-o There is one more facility that would help signatures: the ability to
demand fixed width font.  Maybe #<...>#.

-o Creating the reference card form below suggested another knotty 
problem: tabs.  To create the message I switch my UA to typewriter font
and then removed the style when I was done.  But now, in this proportional
font, the tabbed text does not line up.  It is probably best not to
address this
problem;  unpleasant experience has demonstrated that there is _*no*_
good general solution to the tabbing problem.

Fred Hansen
Andrew Consortium


Here in a handy reference card form is the combination of Kirschenbaum's 
proposal as modified here:


:: in-line word marking

*...*           bold words
_..._           alternate font words
'...'           literal text
*<...>*         bold text
_<...>_         alternate font text
#<...>#         fixed width font
(<...>)         footnote
^<...>^         underlined text
|<...>|         underlined text

:: line markings (at left of line)

:: text         start section with text as title
: text          unfilled line, but otherwise marked up
~ line          literal line
line          quotation line (also >>, >>>, ...)
] line          quotation line (also ]], ]]], ...)
| line          quotation line (also ||, |||, ...)

:: paragraph marking (at beginning of paragraph)

- para          indent level (also --, ---, ...)
-o para         bulleted indents (also --o. ---o, ...)
-x para         bulleted indent (x is arbitrary marks)

Unused characters include:  ! @ $ % & + = \ ; " ` , . / ? { } [


PS.  We actually implemented in 1984 a user agent that did paragraph 
filling in proportional font and interpreted '@i{...}' and '@b{...}'. 
The best 
reaction was when one of our persistent detractors remarked one day: 
"I got a message and your mail reader did everything right."  
Unfortunately, I thought he was being sarcastic and had to question 
him further to see that the system was satisfactory to him, at least
for that message.

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