Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1050 bytes --]

Hello all,

I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works well. Gmail, though,
doesn't support [1] format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does
support [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid hard line
breaks while keeping under the line length limit.

Now, I'd like to configure Emacs to send mail using this encoding. To
test this I overwrite `sendmail-program` to log what Emacs sends.
Reading the message-mode and Emacs MIME manuals, I tried setting the
following variables:

(setq
 mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults
 '((".*" quoted-printable))
 mm-body-charset-encoding-alist
 '((iso-8859-1 . quoted-printable)
   (utf-8      . quoted-printable))
 mm-use-ultra-safe-encoding t)

When sending, no encoding to quoted-printable is done (and there's no
Content-Transfer-Encoding header). To try to debug this further,
inserted the following into a buffer and ran M-: (mml-to-mime)


[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 46 bytes --]

test test test <...longer than 78 columns...>

[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 612 bytes --]


And there is still no encoding header or wrapping with =. Does anyone
know what is going on here?

More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email, what is the
etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)? Would it be rude to send
paragraphs as one logical line (wrapped-in-transmission by
quoted-printable) and expect people to soft-wrap?

Thanks in advance,
Radu

[1]: https://useplaintext.email/, and many blog posts mentioning the
same. It seems like Gmail used to support this, from the screenshot in
https://github.com/legoscia/messages-are-flowing.

[2]: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/gmail-plain-text

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works well. Gmail, though,
> doesn't support [1] format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
> effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
> research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does
> support [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid hard line
> breaks while keeping under the line length limit.
>
> Now, I'd like to configure Emacs to send mail using this encoding. To
> test this I overwrite `sendmail-program` to log what Emacs sends.
> Reading the message-mode and Emacs MIME manuals, I tried setting the
> following variables:
>
> (setq
>  mm-content-transfer-encoding-defaults
>  '((".*" quoted-printable))
>  mm-body-charset-encoding-alist
>  '((iso-8859-1 . quoted-printable)
>    (utf-8      . quoted-printable))
>  mm-use-ultra-safe-encoding t)
>
> When sending, no encoding to quoted-printable is done (and there's no
> Content-Transfer-Encoding header). To try to debug this further,
> inserted the following into a buffer and ran M-: (mml-to-mime)
>
> test test test <...longer than 78 columns...>

Sorry, I forgot to escape this. It should say (I was trying to write an
MML definition to explicitly set the encoding):

<#part type=3D3Dtext/plain encoding=3D3Dquoted-printable>
test test test <...longer than 78 columns...>
<#/part>

>
> And there is still no encoding header or wrapping with =. Does anyone
> know what is going on here?
>
> More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email, what is the
> etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)? Would it be rude to send
> paragraphs as one logical line (wrapped-in-transmission by
> quoted-printable) and expect people to soft-wrap?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Radu
>
> [1]: https://useplaintext.email/, and many blog posts mentioning the
> same. It seems like Gmail used to support this, from the screenshot in
> https://github.com/legoscia/messages-are-flowing.
>
> [2]: https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/gmail-plain-text

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Radu Butoi wrote:

>> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works
>> well. Gmail, though, doesn't support [1]
>> format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
>> effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to
>> avoid. Doing some more research, I see that the
>> quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does support
>> [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid
>> hard line breaks while keeping under the line
>> length limit.

No idea, sorry, but I'd urge you to consider Gnus (in
particular in combination with Gmane) which is by far
the most feature-rich and powerful of Emacs many mail
clients and proposed solutions.

Then you can also ask directly at gmane.emacs.gnus.user
and/or gmane.emacs.gnus.general and don't have to bother
fiddling with listbots all over the pesky internet.

Simply the best, trust me :)

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Radu, emacs users,
* Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-25; 20:19]:
> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works well. Gmail, though,
> doesn't support [1] format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
> effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
> research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does
> support [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid hard line
> breaks while keeping under the line length limit.

actually I read the two resources you provided as gmail displays
format=flowed formatted emails but does not allow a web interface
user to send such email.

Sine you want to send emails with emacs everything should be fine?


[... 22 lines deleted ...]
> More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email, what is the
> etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)? Would it be rude to send
> paragraphs as one logical line (wrapped-in-transmission by
> quoted-printable) and expect people to soft-wrap?

I send emails with lines no longer than 65 characters and my mail
client (notmuch/message/emacs) allows me to fill the paragraphs
while I type.  I assume today's smartphones to be more than
capable of showing 65 chars in one line.


Ciao; Gregor
--
 -... --- .-. . -.. ..--.. ...-.-

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

Hi Emanuel,

Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
<help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org> writes:

> Radu Butoi wrote:
>
>>> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works
>>> well. Gmail, though, doesn't support [1]
>>> format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
>>> effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to
>>> avoid. Doing some more research, I see that the
>>> quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does support
>>> [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid
>>> hard line breaks while keeping under the line
>>> length limit.
>
> No idea, sorry, but I'd urge you to consider Gnus (in
> particular in combination with Gmane) which is by far
> the most feature-rich and powerful of Emacs many mail
> clients and proposed solutions.
>
> Then you can also ask directly at gmane.emacs.gnus.user
> and/or gmane.emacs.gnus.general and don't have to bother
> fiddling with listbots all over the pesky internet.
>
> Simply the best, trust me :)

Ha, will do! I've heard lots about Gnus (and its complexity!), but
nothing about Gmane.

-Radu

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

Hi Gregor,

Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:

> Hi Radu, emacs users,
> * Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-25; 20:19]:
>> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works well. Gmail, though,
>> doesn't support [1] format=flowed, resulting in the hard-to-read comb
>> effect when viewing on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
>> research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding (which Gmail does
>> support [2], and I've confirmed) can also be used to avoid hard line
>> breaks while keeping under the line length limit.
>
> actually I read the two resources you provided as gmail displays
> format=flowed formatted emails but does not allow a web interface
> user to send such email.
>
> Sine you want to send emails with emacs everything should be fine?

It has worked in the past, but the redesign from ~two years ago removed
it again. Apologies on the misleading link -- here's [1] some from more
recently. I also confirmed it doesn't work.

> [... 22 lines deleted ...]
>> More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email, what is the
>> etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)? Would it be rude to send
>> paragraphs as one logical line (wrapped-in-transmission by
>> quoted-printable) and expect people to soft-wrap?
>
> I send emails with lines no longer than 65 characters and my mail
> client (notmuch/message/emacs) allows me to fill the paragraphs
> while I type.

Same here (notmuch), using the default message-fill-column of 72. I also
set notmuch-wash-wrap-lines-length so that incoming long lines are
wrapped. Is this a fair expectation to set on everyone? It's one of the
first things I did, since I still get converted HTML mail that would
otherwise take up the full width of my screen.

> I assume today's smartphones to be more than capable of showing 65
> chars in one line.

I'm afraid not: here's [2] how your email looks like on my Pixel 4 XL, a
considerably big phone.

Thanks for your input,
Radu

[1]:
https://github.com/legoscia/messages-are-flowing/issues/9#issuecomment-565504136,
which references
https://cpbotha.net/2016/09/27/thunderbird-support-of-rfc-3676-formatflowed-is-half-broken/
and https://vxlabs.com/2019/08/25/format-flowed-with-long-lines/

[2]: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Rw4gBdhMH4rqRYsS6

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Emanuel Berg via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor]

Radu Butoi wrote:

> I've heard lots about Gnus (and its complexity!), but
> nothing about Gmane.

Here is a dump [1].

Note the common interface: Usenet thru nntp.aioe.org
(e.g., alt.tv.survivor), mail with the Gnus nnml backend
(mail.misc), and listbots thru Gmane and news.gmane.io
(gmane.emacs.help - which is where we are now).


[1] https://dataswamp.org/~incal/figures/gnus/gnus-gmane.png

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
https://dataswamp.org/~incal

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Radu, emacs users,
* Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-26; 14:44]:
> Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:
>> * Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-25; 20:19]:
>>> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works
>>> well. Gmail, though, doesn't support [1] format=flowed,
>>> resulting in the hard-to-read comb effect when viewing
>>> on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
>>> research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding
>>> (which Gmail does support [2], and I've confirmed) can
>>> also be used to avoid hard line breaks while keeping
>>> under the line length limit.
>>
>> actually I read the two resources you provided as gmail
>> displays format=flowed formatted emails but does not
>> allow a web interface user to send such email.
>>
>> Sine you want to send emails with emacs everything should
>> be fine?
>
> It has worked in the past, but the redesign from ~two
> years ago removed it again. Apologies on the misleading
> link -- here's [1] some from more recently. I also
> confirmed it doesn't work.

OK, but since the web page which states that Gmail wraps
quoted-printable encoded emails is even older than the ones
stating that Gmail does not wrap format=flowed any more,
perhaps quoted-printable also will not work?

And then there is the question who other providers will show
quoted-printable E-Mails in their clients (web interfaces).


>>> More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email,
>>> what is the etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)?
>>> Would it be rude to send paragraphs as one logical line
>>> (wrapped-in-transmission by quoted-printable) and expect
>>> people to soft-wrap?
>>
>> I send emails with lines no longer than 65 characters and
>> my mail client (notmuch/message/emacs) allows me to fill
>> the paragraphs while I type.
>
> Same here (notmuch), using the default message-fill-column
> of 72. I also set notmuch-wash-wrap-lines-length so that
> incoming long lines are wrapped. Is this a fair
> expectation to set on everyone? It's one of the first
> things I did, since I still get converted HTML mail that
> would otherwise take up the full width of my screen.
>
>> I assume today's smartphones to be more than capable of
>> showing 65 chars in one line.
>
> I'm afraid not: here's [2] how your email looks like on my
> Pixel 4 XL, a considerably big phone.

thanks a lot for this screenshot.  Obviously this also
depends on the users font size.  I now re-wraped this whole
email to 60 chars per line and hope it displays well.


Ciao, Gregor

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

Hi Gregor,

Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:

> Hi Radu, emacs users,
> * Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-26; 14:44]:
>> Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:
>>> * Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-25; 20:19]:
>>>> I've recently set up my mail in Emacs, and it works
>>>> well. Gmail, though, doesn't support [1] format=flowed,
>>>> resulting in the hard-to-read comb effect when viewing
>>>> on mobile, which I'd like to avoid. Doing some more
>>>> research, I see that the quoted-printable encoding
>>>> (which Gmail does support [2], and I've confirmed) can
>>>> also be used to avoid hard line breaks while keeping
>>>> under the line length limit.
>>>
>>> actually I read the two resources you provided as gmail
>>> displays format=flowed formatted emails but does not
>>> allow a web interface user to send such email.
>>>
>>> Sine you want to send emails with emacs everything should
>>> be fine?
>>
>> It has worked in the past, but the redesign from ~two
>> years ago removed it again. Apologies on the misleading
>> link -- here's [1] some from more recently. I also
>> confirmed it doesn't work.
>
> OK, but since the web page which states that Gmail wraps
> quoted-printable encoded emails is even older than the ones
> stating that Gmail does not wrap format=flowed any more,
> perhaps quoted-printable also will not work?
>
> And then there is the question who other providers will show
> quoted-printable E-Mails in their clients (web interfaces).

I appreciate your skepticism here :-) -- but from everything I've read the quoted-printable encoding is well-supported by most/all email clients. It is from RFC2045 (MIME), whereas f=f is the lesser-supported RFC3676. Doing a search of my maildir, I find a large majority of them contain it. To test this, I'll be sending this message without hard-wrapping and with the Q-P encoding. If it shows up fine, I think I need to `edebug` the Emacs MIME library to find out exactly what's going wrong.

>
>>>> More generally, since I'm new to terminal-based email,
>>>> what is the etiquette around hard-wrapping (or not)?
>>>> Would it be rude to send paragraphs as one logical line
>>>> (wrapped-in-transmission by quoted-printable) and expect
>>>> people to soft-wrap?
>>>
>>> I send emails with lines no longer than 65 characters and
>>> my mail client (notmuch/message/emacs) allows me to fill
>>> the paragraphs while I type.
>>
>> Same here (notmuch), using the default message-fill-column
>> of 72. I also set notmuch-wash-wrap-lines-length so that
>> incoming long lines are wrapped. Is this a fair
>> expectation to set on everyone? It's one of the first
>> things I did, since I still get converted HTML mail that
>> would otherwise take up the full width of my screen.
>>
>>> I assume today's smartphones to be more than capable of
>>> showing 65 chars in one line.
>>
>> I'm afraid not: here's [2] how your email looks like on my
>> Pixel 4 XL, a considerably big phone.
>
> thanks a lot for this screenshot.  Obviously this also
> depends on the users font size.  I now re-wraped this whole
> email to 60 chars per line and hope it displays well.

Ah, there's no need to do that, since it is clearly Gmail who is at fault here. Emacs is my main way or reading and writing mail, I'd just like to have the option to use my phone.

Thanks for your responses! And let me know if this shows up okay.
-Radu

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Radu, emacs users,
* Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-27; 18:20]:
> Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:
>> And then there is the question who other providers will show
>> quoted-printable E-Mails in their clients (web interfaces).
>
> I appreciate your skepticism here :-) -- but from everything I've read the quoted-printable encoding is well-supported by most/all email clients. It is from RFC2045 (MIME), whereas f=f is the lesser-supported RFC3676. Doing a search of my maildir, I find a large majority of them contain it. To test this, I'll be sending this message without hard-wrapping and with the Q-P encoding. If it shows up fine, I think I need to `edebug` the Emacs MIME library to find out exactly what's going wrong.

This paragraph of yours is wrapped fine by notmuch show, but
this is to expect, it's merely a single long line.  I do not
re-fill it here.

f=f is different though it:

1. f=f renders paragraphs with soft line breaks thus every
   email client should be able to show it even if not able
   to grok f=f.
2. f=f enabled mail clients are not only capable of
   re-flowing the paragraphs to the window size, but even
   quoting in several levels is preserved while reflowing
   the paragraphs


>> thanks a lot for this screenshot.  Obviously this also
>> depends on the users font size.  I now re-wraped this whole
>> email to 60 chars per line and hope it displays well.
>
> Ah, there's no need to do that, since it is clearly Gmail
> who is at fault here. Emacs is my main way or reading and
> writing mail, I'd just like to have the option to use my
> phone.

I re-filled your last paragraph.

I fiddled around f=f several years ago and found

a. support in email clients to be lacking
b. f=f does not support, but to the contrary ruins, plain
   lists and indented paragraphs.


Points a. and b. were deal breakers for me and so I stay
with hard line breaks till today.  But since I want my
emails to be readable even for people on mobile devices I
opted for short lines.  Thus your screenshot is really
helpful for me.

> Thanks for your responses! And let me know if this shows up okay.

Have a look for yourself, ciao; Gregor
--
 -... --- .-. . -.. ..--.. ...-.-

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Radu Butoi]

Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:

> Hi Radu, emacs users,
> * Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-04-27; 18:20]:
>> Gregor Zattler <telegraph@gmx.net> writes:
>>> And then there is the question who other providers will show
>>> quoted-printable E-Mails in their clients (web interfaces).
>>
>> I appreciate your skepticism here :-) -- but from everything I've read the quoted-printable encoding is well-supported by most/all email clients. It is from RFC2045 (MIME), whereas f=f is the lesser-supported RFC3676. Doing a search of my maildir, I find a large majority of them contain it. To test this, I'll be sending this message without hard-wrapping and with the Q-P encoding. If it shows up fine, I think I need to `edebug` the Emacs MIME library to find out exactly what's going wrong.
>
> This paragraph of yours is wrapped fine by notmuch show, but
> this is to expect, it's merely a single long line.  I do not
> re-fill it here.
>
> f=f is different though it:
>
> 1. f=f renders paragraphs with soft line breaks thus every
>    email client should be able to show it even if not able
>    to grok f=f.
> 2. f=f enabled mail clients are not only capable of
>    re-flowing the paragraphs to the window size, but even
>    quoting in several levels is preserved while reflowing
>    the paragraphs
>

Indeed, f=f is better in many ways -- it's just that Gmail doesn't
support it so I want to work around that.

>
> I re-filled your last paragraph.
>
> I fiddled around f=f several years ago and found
>
> a. support in email clients to be lacking
> b. f=f does not support, but to the contrary ruins, plain
>    lists and indented paragraphs.
>
>
> Points a. and b. were deal breakers for me and so I stay
> with hard line breaks till today.  But since I want my
> emails to be readable even for people on mobile devices I
> opted for short lines.  Thus your screenshot is really
> helpful for me.
>
>> Thanks for your responses! And let me know if this shows up okay.
>
> Have a look for yourself, ciao; Gregor
> --
>  -... --- .-. . -.. ..--.. ...-.-

Glad to help. It seems like the web interface wraps my email fine (as
well as my phone, as expected), so I'm going to try to dig into this
MIME issue further, starting with a new thread to this list that narrows
down the problem with the MIME library.

Thanks,
Radu

Re: Sending mail: line wrapping and quoted-printable encoding

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Radu, emacs users,
* Radu Butoi <rbutoi@gmail.com> [2020-05-05; 17:44]:
> Glad to help. It seems like the web interface wraps my email fine (as
> well as my phone, as expected),

but isn't this because you send paragraphes as single long
lines?  Why do you need the encoding changed?

Ciao; Gregor
--
 -... --- .-. . -.. ..--.. ...-.-