simple formatting possibilities

[Cameron Simpson]

On 27Aug2020 18:49, Hokan <hokan.hokan at gmail.com> wrote:
>I looked at this message in Thunderbird and the columns aligned just
>fine.  I checked the Thunderbird config and there is a checkbox for
>"Use fixed width font for plain text messages"

Aye. I'm surprised it isn't a default - there are some very nice looking 
fixed width fonts.

>Similarly, Outlook seems to display plain-text messages with a fixed-
>width font, but I'm not really an Outlook user so I don't know where
>that's configured.
>
>Gmail, on the other hand, seems to use variable fonts.  I found an
>option to default to fixed font but the columns in the quoted message
>still didn't line up.  I guess that option is for composing messages?

Looks like, if we're looking at the same thing. I only found the one 
setting, in the General settings. GMail's just awful.

>I suppose most people use Gmail and other web-based email now-a-days
>and maybe the others are similarly poorly behaved.

Yeah, that is my impression too. Even people out here, where satellite 
is common and access is thus _very_ laggy, use gmail on the web instead 
of via a local reader (TBird, LookOut, whatever) that fetches behind the 
scenes.

I suspect the best way forward is a composition mode with pleasant fixed 
with support that will draw an HTML table in a text/html alternative 
part. There've been a few threads on settings for this, IIRC. On a 
personal basis I've be very happy with an (activatable) mode to compose 
in markdown for those few occasions I really want some formatting, which 
resulted in a 3 way multipart/alternative message: plain, markdown, 
html.

An ad hoc page of interest:

    https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-markdown-table/

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>