Looking for a way to disable wrap

[PhiloVance]

I do all my sending via the web interface at FM and am an enhanced user. Would like to know how to set the wrap feature on sent mails to 100 characters or better. I only send in text, but it seems the person that's receiving this email is getting the message text wrapped after 80 characters or so. The emails I am sending are data to input into a program and they don't want to fool around with cleaning it up.

I went into the Options>Preferences>Compose but I don't see anything to suggest line length or word wrap.

Suggestions anyone?

Fastmail won't wrap lines if the first character is '#'. Or you could send the code as an attachment.

[PhiloVance]

Does the # stay in the data? Couldn't have that.

Yes, it stays. Any text editor (including MS Word) can be used to remove the '#' column.

There is an alternative: compose the message in HTML, and use the <PRE> tag.

previous discussion

[Launched]

You just stumbled on the biggest shortcoming of FM - being unable to determine the wrap length on the browser interface.

I send email after email to people with 1024x768 (or more!) resolution and 20% of the their screen contains a wrapped email from me. That's so poor FM!

Originally posted by PhiloVance
I do all my sending via the web interface at FM and am an enhanced user. Would like to know how to set the wrap feature on sent mails to 100 characters or better. I only send in text, but it seems the person that's receiving this email is getting the message text wrapped after 80 characters or so. The emails I am sending are data to input into a program and they don't want to fool around with cleaning it up.

I went into the Options>Preferences>Compose but I don't see anything to suggest line length or word wrap.

Suggestions anyone?

[PhiloVance]

The previous discussion pointed to by Daniel S won't work[discussing the <PRE> HTML command] because I use text only and this is for HTML. Also the # won't work because editing at the receiving end would still be necessary.

I found a way around it and it is not through FM. I am using Pocomail with which you can set the point at which the text wraps. I don't think Poco is unique as I've found how to do it with Outlook Express and Thunderbird. It is something FM ought to look into though.

This means I can't use the FM web interface for this operation. I had so hoped to get away from email apps.

[DarioMor]

Originally posted by PhiloVance
The previous discussion pointed to by Daniel S won't work[discussing the <PRE> HTML command] because I use text only and this is for HTML. Also the # won't work because editing at the receiving end would still be necessary.

I found a way around it and it is not through FM. I am using Pocomail with which you can set the point at which the text wraps. I don't think Poco is unique as I've found how to do it with Outlook Express and Thunderbird. It is something FM ought to look into though.

This means I can't use the FM web interface for this operation. I had so hoped to get away from email apps.

But the receiver can remove the top and bottom lines (HTML headings) and all data you send will be in the format you want.

Even if it is not a human processing task, a little parsing program can do the job.

[xlr9]

this is the WORST thing about fastmail. please fix it

[Smithy]

Originally posted by xlr9
this is the WORST thing about fastmail. please fix it

Or at least make it wrap at 900th character or something if lines can not be longer than that because of RFC-??? or whatever. I don't mind wrpping the lines MANUALLY at 80 characters or so. But forcing me to wrap at 70 characters; I just don't get it!!!

[Launched]

I couldn't agree more. All the time put in on ftp and webdav when all FM emails look awful because of the wrapping. People that have their monitor resolution up at 1280 only have ***1/4*** of their screen filled with email when they read one of my emails.

Honestly, how long would it take to put it user option to offer a different wrapping????? If Fastmail will send me the code, I'll do it for them.

Originally posted by xlr9
this is the WORST thing about fastmail. please fix it

[robmueller]

This is really about the history of email. Text emails are supposed to be wrapped at around the 80 column mark. From the official RFC on email:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html

---
2.1.1. Line Length Limits

There are two limits that this standard places on the number of
characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than
998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding
the CRLF.

---

Now if you go and look at the defition of SHOULD:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

---
3. SHOULD This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

---

You can probably argue that "I have a special case", and it would be good in those special cases to allow non-wrapping mode, but I wish there was an easy way to enable/disable it.

So basically the answer probably is:
1. We're not going to by default stop wrapping at the 72 character mark. We've found that in most circumstances this provides the best interoperability with other systems
2. Clearly there are some people who really want this option, and believe there's a "valid reason in a particular circumstance" to turn it off. If we can provide a suitable way to turn this off, then I'll be happy to do that. If someone can suggest some reasonable user interface way of doing it, I'll look into it, probably for the "Advanced" screen only.

Rob

[Launched]

Rob, a couple of suggestions:

This information - http://www.joeclark.org/ffaq.html - has been posted a number of times in the forums. Why can't that be used?

Secondly, if you don't like that solution, how about letting the user specific the wrap length in Advanced Options?

Rob, honestly, this makes all my Fastmail emails look sooooooooooooo awful, this has got to be a priority.

Originally posted by robmueller
This is really about the history of email. Text emails are supposed to be wrapped at around the 80 column mark. From the official RFC on email:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html

---
2.1.1. Line Length Limits

There are two limits that this standard places on the number of
characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than
998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters, excluding
the CRLF.

---

Now if you go and look at the defition of SHOULD:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

---
3. SHOULD This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
particular item, but the full implications must be understood and
carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

---

You can probably argue that "I have a special case", and it would be good in those special cases to allow non-wrapping mode, but I wish there was an easy way to enable/disable it.

So basically the answer probably is:
1. We're not going to by default stop wrapping at the 72 character mark. We've found that in most circumstances this provides the best interoperability with other systems
2. Clearly there are some people who really want this option, and believe there's a "valid reason in a particular circumstance" to turn it off. If we can provide a suitable way to turn this off, then I'll be happy to do that. If someone can suggest some reasonable user interface way of doing it, I'll look into it, probably for the "Advanced" screen only.

Rob

[fahrner]

Originally posted by PhiloVance
The emails I am sending are data to input into a program and they don't want to fool around with cleaning it up.

If you want to sent DATA to be input to some program, then I would suggest you to edit this data with an external text editor and sent it as attachment.

A mail body ist not designed for doing that.

Regards
Jochen

[robmueller]

Richard has now added an option (currently on the beta server) to do this.

You have to be in the "Advanced" screen, in Text editing mode, and with the message area set to the "screen width" option (rather than the 72 column option).

When you are, you'll see a >> link at the top right of the email. When you click that link, it'll but a flag on the email that will mean that it doesn't wrap when it sends.

I like this approach because:
1. It's only something more advanced users will want to use, so it's not something ordinary users will play with not knowing what they're doing
2. If you're editing in 72 column mode, I see no reason you wouldn't want to wrap at 72 columns (eg WYSIWYG)
3. It's a per-email action, so you have to explicitly state for each email that you don't want wrapping, which I think is a good thing because it means "you know what you're doing and are happy with the consequences of this action"

Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Rob

[PenPen]

Originally posted by robmueller
3. It's a per-email action, so you have to explicitly state for each email that you don't want wrapping, which I think is a good thing because it means "you know what you're doing and are happy with the consequences of this action"

I always do not want to wrap when I compose an email. I would leave it up to the recipient's preference.
In addition, the current wrap feature doesn't work well with some East Asian languages which don't have a space between words.
So I prefer a persistent setting to disable wrapping.