Linewrap and more!

In the FAQ that Colin regularly posts, there is a line towards the end
saying something like "76 characters to avoid linewrap" and I would like
to comment on that.

In the olden days, people tend to say "80 characters to avoid linewrap",
but I believe that is only taking into account the server specifications
of SMTP, POP3 (for email), NNTP (for newsgroups), etc. It is not taking
into account that the various clients may linewrap well under 80
characters. For example, my favorite email client is Claris Emailer, a Mac
only program and may therefore not be very well known. It is IMO far
superior than the ubiquitous Eudora (available for Mac and Windows), but
the editor does linewrap at 75 characters. This has been deliberately done
to allow for ">"quoting up to 5 levels deep without worrying about
linewrapping for email purposes, but ascii art will linewrap at 75
characters.

Also, some NNTP clients seem to linewrap at 75 characters or below that. I
received linewrap reports on a 75 character wide cartoon (Frogstein and
Birdstein, The Grand Piano), although I don't know which particular NNTP
clients have caused the linewrap (I rarely receive anything more than a "I
got a damaged copy, can you send me a good one?" kind of message).

The question then comes up: What then is a safe width? How many characters
per line?

I have a 72 character wide cartoon (Frogstein and Birdstein, Surfing) that
received very wide circulation (I gather that it must have gone cycles and
cycles through the internal mail system of a UK based company, etc),
without getting any linewrap reports. So, 72 characters seems to be a safe
width.

I have also 73 and 74 wide character cartoons, for which I have received
no linewrap reports, but I have no indication that these cartoons have
received very wide circulation either.

Also, I have been advised that my cartoons have been used in Internet
chats without me getting linewrap reports, but I think that people tend to
use smaller
cartoons in these cases which also tend to be narrower.

Based on the above, I believe that the FAQ is inaccurate.

I think: 

72 characters is a safe width in terms of linewrap
73 and 74 characters is a grey area
75 characters is not a safe width, some email and newsgroup clients will
linewrap

While I am at it, I might as well comment on a related topic: how many
characters per line for posting on the web.

Theoretically there is no limit, because you can always scroll sideways on
the webpage. A practical limit may be the desire to present the entire
picture on a common 14" screen without scrolling. With a font size of 6,
you can easily get 160 characters across the width of the screen, twice
the resolution of the old "80 characters" wisdom. This will help a lot in
smoothing edges, you can think of having the midposition of a character
width available to you, etc, etc. (Why not use an even smaller font size?
Because it is difficult to get support for font sizes smaller than 6).

And while I am at it, here are even more ideas.

One could utilize the ability to scroll sideways on a webpage to deliver
360 degrees panoramic views, which would be the ascii equivalent of
Virtual Reality, I think it would be perfectly justified to call creations
of this nature "ascii Virtual Reality". 

Of course, one could also utilize the ability to scroll vertically "to
look up and down". Utilizing both scroll funtions, i.e. sideways and
vertically, would allow you to depict an entire hemisphere, e.g. the stars
in the Northern or Southern hemisphere. 

Of course, one could add Java animation on top of it to depict the passage
of the stars in the course of the night, etc, etc.

Compared to ANSI/VT animation techniques, Java alone adds nothing new in
terms of visual effects, and although I am not aware of an ANSI/VT
animation of the Northern and/or Southern hemisphere, I would not be
surprised if someone has already done it (It is an obvious topic to pick,
isn't it?). 

However, the above "ascii Virtual Reality" in conjunction with the web
does allow you "to turn your head sideways and up and down", something
that ANSI/VT animation techniques do *not* offer.

I myself am not interested in pursuing these ideas further, but others
might.

---------------------------------------------------------------
     ,,        _  Grandpa Devilstein! Shame on you!
    ( ">     <" )   Singing and dancing at that orgy web site
   ,(->)->   <( <)    where your tail is pointing to!
  (  ^^        ^^
    ` - >>> http://members.aol.com/petecasso
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