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<p>On 4 Apr 2012, at 20:49, Baron Fujimoto wrote:</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>I understand the historical usage, but I believe it was/is a bad solution to<br>
the problem of keeping track of extended conversations. The receiving email<br>
application should be in charge of how a message is displayed. In MailMate,<br>
vertical bars and colored text is used (by default), but other email clients<br>
could use a mix of <code>:</code> and <code>></code> if preferred. Just my personal opinion (which<br>
makes it the opinion of MailMate as well) :-)</p>
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<p>Emory's got it as to the use of alternate quote indicator chars. Convention<br>
has made the use of ">" a de facto standard, but this is the first time I've<br>
ever really had anyone raise it as a problem. As Emory also noted, the use of<br>
alternate quote chars is useful for distinguishing respondents in deeply<br>
nested threads.</p>
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<p>I guess it would only work if the respondents all use unique quote indicators. I guess that's an argument for quote indicators in the style of <code>"BN>"</code>. It would look horrible and make hard-wrapping problems even worse, but it is interesting to note that, in theory, an email client should be able to derive who wrote what if it knows all the messages (and their threading). It would make for an interesting feature if that information was put in the HTML generated and displayed nicely using CSS. Maybe only shown when hovering the mouse (showing the full name).</p>
<p>Reflowing paragraphs, by the way, is yet another example where the receiving email client needs to be able to correctly parse quote levels.</p>
<p>MailMate also supports <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3676"><code>format=flowed</code></a> and the RFC for that is also based on the assumption that quote levels are defined by the number of prefixed <code>></code>s. </p>
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<p>I understand that some of these choices hail from an earlier era though when<br>
the user interface was generally monochromatic text. I also get your points<br>
on how the use of the alternate quote indicator may break assumptions made by<br>
an MUA and features that rely on them. The only thing I might quibble with a<br>
bit though is that while the receiving application is responsible for displaying<br>
the message, if it's substituting vertical bars for the conventional quote<br>
indicators, then it's making a choice here to actually change the message<br>
content and treat them as a quasi-markup language. I don't necessarily have<br>
an issue with that though, and as you say, you're opinion, and by extension<br>
MailMate's as well if you desire.</p>
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<p>I need to clarify then. MailMate does not substitute vertical bars. If it cannot parse the prefix then it leaves it as it is and MailMate can only parse the use of <code>></code> (allowing them to be mixed with spaces).</p>
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<p>Benny</p>
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