Is linewrap dead?

John Hawkinson jhawk at alum.mit.edu
Mon Aug 29 00:49:50 UTC 2022


I gave up on linewrapping emails I transmit several years ago for the reasons you describe, and it has been the right decision.

I have not shaken the feeling that maybe I should learn how to compose format=flowed messages, but I guess it's not worth the trouble -- or at least I never managed to get it to work right.

And yes, I toggle M-x visual-line-mode in Emacs while composing, sometimes multiple times, which simulates how the email may be read.

--
jhawk at alum.mit.edu
John Hawkinson


Tavis Ormandy <taviso at gmail.com> wrote on Sun, 28 Aug 2022
at 20:28:29 EDT in <teh17c$foj$1 at ciao.gmane.io>:

> Hello, long time mutt user here - I've always hard wrapped my lines at
> 72 columns for as long as I can remember.
> 
> The problem is popular modern mobile and web-based MUAs don't handle
> this and can make unexpected linewrap decisions. It's no issue when
> emailing UNIX nerds, but non-nerds think I'm doing something wrong.
> 
> I've seen people convincingly argue it's time to abandon `tw=72` and
> never wrap lines manually - newlines are for when you want a new
> paragraph.
> 
> I've tested, and this does look a lot better on Android for example...
> but it just feels and looks wrong! What's the general concensus on this
> issue?
> 
> I find it so weird for my lines not to soft-wrap in a big xterm that
> I had to make a vim macro to "fake" wrap them while composing :)


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