Re: Warning -- ASCII art and Netscape Messenger 5.0

Matthew Thomas wrote:
> <snip>
> Specifically, when Messenger is *displaying* (not sending) messages,
> programmers are proposing to:
> 
> * assume that any non-white-space string with a `@' symbol in it is an
>   e-mail address, and turn it into a link
> 
> * assume that any non-white-space string starting with `www.' is a Web
>   address, and turn it into a link

As long as "turning text into a link" only means colouring it blue and
underlining it, fine, no problem. Sometimes the algorithm will guess
wrong, and the result will look a bit silly, but the information has not
been corrupted. When the algorithm gets it right the user will win
because the program will be more useful than if the program just showed
the string in question as plain text.

If "turning text into a link" includes adding "file:" or some such
rubbish, or in some other way corrupting the information in the message
- NOT FINE!


> * show anything surrounded by *asterisks* or /slashes/ in bold and
>   italic respectively (I've managed to convince them to leave the
>   asterisks and slashes there, instead of hiding them)

As long as the *characters* are all there, not more and not less, no
problem.


> * show :) or :-) as a smiley face graphic (which could be awful for some
>   ASCII art pictures).

THIS is corrupting the information! I had to use Word once (summer 98)
and I HATED how it did that! (and I wasn't even trying to make a smiley!
I had a colon followed by a parentheses, as part of a preformatted
table. I think it had something to do with book prices, i.e. work stuff!
not ascii art, and not a smiley! By the time somebody showed me where
the control was to turn that off I had already found an alternative
solution - NOTEPAD! (the WinNT version))


> On the positive side, they are discussing ways of detecting when plain
> text is ASCII art and when it isn't, so that even people who read
> messages in a proportional font will see ASCII art in a fixed-width font.

I just hope they do a better job than Deja...   :-P

<snip>
> You can read the discussion of how to detect ASCII art, which is going
> on in news:netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news.

My server says "no such newsgroup"...   :(


Anyway, ascii art is mostly just for fun, but there are more serious
implications. I have lost count of the number of threads that have gone
ugly and completely lost touch with the original topic because
somebody's news reader "interpreted" html tags in a plain-text
message... Also, OE5's file:// thing can cause some major confusion when
one is discussing Javascript:

//--></script>

Apparently OE5 displays this as:

file://--></script>

with lots of confusion and irritation as a result.

Programmers want to use newsgropus to discuss things, and include code
examples in the text...

I say, colour the text like the rainbow if you like (just look at what
Deja's doing, it sucks but at least it's readable. Now, if they could
just get that monospaced font to line up properly...), turn it bold,
underline it and/or italicise it, but DON'T *C*H*A*N*G*E* the
characters! If there are three space characters in the post there should
be three space characters displayed, nothing more, nothing less.

Actually, I can think of one exception to this. There should be a
setting to ignore sigs. Not that I'd use it (I'd rather have a setting
to turn sigs green) but apparently there are a lot of people who like
being able to do that.


-- 
    (,         http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/cgi/asciichat/
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    /  ||``._.'             ASCII ART CHAT!             `---'|:||,/
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- `- -- `-'- -ejm-------------------------------------VK-- -`-' -- -' -