How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[Grant Edwards]

The other text editors I've used for editing email and nntp messages
(and most of the GUI mail/news programs) all had commands to
increase/decrease the quote level for a selected block of text.  I use
emacs for editing source code and almost all other tasks, but I
haven't been able to switch to using it as my mail/usenet editor
because I've never been able to find the command in mail-mode or
message-mode to increase/decrease the quote level for a block of text.

My fingers are programmed to do "ctrl-C >" and "ctrl-C <" to
increase/decrease indentation/quoting, but that doesn't work. Nor does
there appear to be anything under the mail/message menus.  I've tried
all the command names I can think of but auto-complete never finds
anything.

I must be missing something obvious.

In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
of a region?

-- 
Grant

Re: How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[XeCycle]

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Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:

> The other text editors I've used for editing email and nntp messages
> (and most of the GUI mail/news programs) all had commands to
> increase/decrease the quote level for a selected block of text.  I use
> emacs for editing source code and almost all other tasks, but I
> haven't been able to switch to using it as my mail/usenet editor
> because I've never been able to find the command in mail-mode or
> message-mode to increase/decrease the quote level for a block of text.

Just curious: Why would need that?

> My fingers are programmed to do "ctrl-C >" and "ctrl-C <" to
> increase/decrease indentation/quoting, but that doesn't work. Nor does
> there appear to be anything under the mail/message menus.  I've tried
> all the command names I can think of but auto-complete never finds
> anything.
>
> I must be missing something obvious.
>
> In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
> of a region?

M-;  In case you want more options, do C-h k M-;

-- 
Carl Lei (XeCycle)
Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
OpenPGP public key: 7795E591
Fingerprint: 1FB6 7F1F D45D F681 C845 27F7 8D71 8EC4 7795 E591

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Re: How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2012-04-27, XeCycle <XeCycle@Gmail.com> wrote:
> Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>
>> The other text editors I've used for editing email and nntp messages
>> (and most of the GUI mail/news programs) all had commands to
>> increase/decrease the quote level for a selected block of text.  I use
>> emacs for editing source code and almost all other tasks, but I
>> haven't been able to switch to using it as my mail/usenet editor
>> because I've never been able to find the command in mail-mode or
>> message-mode to increase/decrease the quote level for a block of text.
>
> Just curious: Why would need that?

To fix messages that have been broken by people who don't know how to
quote.

>> My fingers are programmed to do "ctrl-C >" and "ctrl-C <" to
>> increase/decrease indentation/quoting, but that doesn't work. Nor does
>> there appear to be anything under the mail/message menus.  I've tried
>> all the command names I can think of but auto-complete never finds
>> anything.
>>
>> I must be missing something obvious.
>>
>> In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
>> of a region?
>
> M-;  In case you want more options, do C-h k M-;

Ah.  It never occurred to me (and never would have) to look for
commands starting with "comment-".  I looked for indent, quote, level,
increase, decrease, and about five other keywords. I have absolutely
no clue why a command to increase/decrease a quote level would be
called "comment-dwim".

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I want a VEGETARIAN
                                  at               BURRITO to go ... with
                              gmail.com            EXTRA MSG!!

Re: How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <jne9e4$2t0$1@reader1.panix.com>,
 Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 2012-04-27, XeCycle <XeCycle@Gmail.com> wrote:
> > Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
> >
> >> In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
> >> of a region?
> >
> > M-;  In case you want more options, do C-h k M-;
> 
> Ah.  It never occurred to me (and never would have) to look for
> commands starting with "comment-".  I looked for indent, quote, level,
> increase, decrease, and about five other keywords. I have absolutely
> no clue why a command to increase/decrease a quote level would be
> called "comment-dwim".

Seems like they just took advantage of the fact that commenting is done 
in most languages simply by adding a prefix to the line, which is 
exactly the same as Usenet-style quoting.  So rather than write a new 
function, they simply co-opted the existing one, since it's not needed 
for its original purpose in email/news.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Re: How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[David Combs]

In article <barmar-65BDF3.10535727042012@news.eternal-september.org>,
Barry Margolin  <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <jne9e4$2t0$1@reader1.panix.com>,
> Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 2012-04-27, XeCycle <XeCycle@Gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
>> >
>> >> In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
>> >> of a region?
>> >
>> > M-;  In case you want more options, do C-h k M-;
>> 
>> Ah.  It never occurred to me (and never would have) to look for
>> commands starting with "comment-".  I looked for indent, quote, level,
>> increase, decrease, and about five other keywords. I have absolutely
>> no clue why a command to increase/decrease a quote level would be
>> called "comment-dwim".
>
>Seems like they just took advantage of the fact that commenting is done 
>in most languages simply by adding a prefix to the line, which is 
>exactly the same as Usenet-style quoting.  So rather than write a new 
>function, they simply co-opted the existing one, since it's not needed 
>for its original purpose in email/news.
>
>-- 
>Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
>Arlington, MA
>*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Perl, I recall, has an optional quoting scheme with things
like qq<char>jljljljljlkjlkjkl<same-char>.

I may have the qq-name wrong, but perl has several of these things.
Seem pretty useful to me!

David

Re: How to increase/decrease quote level in mail/usenet message?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <joporn$o9r$2@reader1.panix.com>,
 dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) wrote:

> In article <barmar-65BDF3.10535727042012@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Barry Margolin  <barmar@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> >In article <jne9e4$2t0$1@reader1.panix.com>,
> > Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2012-04-27, XeCycle <XeCycle@Gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
> >> >
> >> >> In mail or message mode, how do you increase/decrease the quote level
> >> >> of a region?
> >> >
> >> > M-;  In case you want more options, do C-h k M-;
> >> 
> >> Ah.  It never occurred to me (and never would have) to look for
> >> commands starting with "comment-".  I looked for indent, quote, level,
> >> increase, decrease, and about five other keywords. I have absolutely
> >> no clue why a command to increase/decrease a quote level would be
> >> called "comment-dwim".
> >
> >Seems like they just took advantage of the fact that commenting is done 
> >in most languages simply by adding a prefix to the line, which is 
> >exactly the same as Usenet-style quoting.  So rather than write a new 
> >function, they simply co-opted the existing one, since it's not needed 
> >for its original purpose in email/news.
> >
> >-- 
> >Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
> >Arlington, MA
> >*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
> 
> Perl, I recall, has an optional quoting scheme with things
> like qq<char>jljljljljlkjlkjkl<same-char>.
> 
> I may have the qq-name wrong, but perl has several of these things.
> Seem pretty useful to me!

You seem to be talking about a different type of quoting: quoting 
strings in a programming language.  We're talking about quoting messages 
in email/news, i.e. the way I prefixed your message with ">".

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***