On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 09:16:22AM +0000, Tony's unattended mail wrote:
> On 2012-11-23, Jim Graham <spooky1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 23, 2012 at 09:47:46PM +0000, Tony's unattended mail wrote:
> >
> >> BTW, sending a variable width format allows for 72 character
> >> rendering, so these dated ergonomics studies are not at odds with an
> >> unwrapped source text anyway.
> >
> > Two questions about variable width fonts, then....
>
> I was not talking about variable width *fonts*. By "variable width
> format", I mean a text message with unwrapped paragraphs (which only
> has EOLs when semantically necessary).
Ok, but the question still applies. if a table, for example, is typed
in a fixed-width 72--76 column format, such as the following:
.------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Hop Variety | Alpha | Amount (oz) | Time | IBU | % Total IBUs |
|=====================|=======|=============|======|======|==============|
| Spalter Select (GR) | 5.6 | 0.7 | 60 | 14.9 | 65% |
| Spalter Select (GR) | 5.6 | 0.6 | 30 | 7.1 | 31% |
| Spalter Select (GR) | 5.6 | 0.25 | 5 | 1.0 | 4% |
`------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Now, read this with a variable WIDTH format, still as plain text. Is it
aligned properly? It has never been right in any cases I've seen....
> You raise good questions though. I would say conversational text is
> more readable in a serif variable width font (the same font novels are
> published in). Ideally, monospaced fonts are used to express
That's more than an assumption---there is a great deal of research to
support the fact that a serif font, for printed material, is much easier
for the majority of people to read. And if you're going to align on both
left and right sides, a variable width font (including spaces), again,
using TeX as an example, will look vastly superior to just adding spaces
throughout to look like it's aligned on both edges (my chemobrain from
cancer #1 is not letting me remember the actual term right now---it likes
to do that...keep me from remembering terms I know extremely well).
Also, right-justified (HAH! Chemobrain let that one slip in) text, if
done correctly (tiny changes to font size, including spaces, throughout
each individual line, NOT adding blank spaces) also helps readability
for printed text. In fact, these help enough, that in one of my
senior level college classes, our professor automatically added a
letter grade to your score just for using TeX, because you took the
time to make a more professional-looking document. And yes, if
your score without that was in the 90--100 range, it still went
up by 10. I also had a senior term paper published, and sent
camera-ready (TeX output) to the publisher. (The paper, if
anyone is actually interested, was on fast packet switching,
back when it was a VERY new topic in telecommunications, and
was published in the International Communications Association's
Journal, Communique.)
> literal/verbatim bits of text, and text where alignment is necessary.
>
> But that sort of ideal scenario would compel a markup language, which
> clearly has trade-offs.
Just inserting an opinion here...I don't expect anyone to specifially
agree or disagree ...just my opinion. Personally, if I'm writing
somethingg formal, where plain text output is not acceptable, I find
using TeX FAR simpler than attempting to get the same output in any
word processor program. That's probably because I have my macros that
make formatting as simple as something like \filename{foo.bar} instead
of typing foo.bar, selecting it with the mouse, and then using the mouse
to make it italic and add an italic correction (when needed). Doing
this, all I need is vi (vim), no need for a mouse at all (for me,
having to move my right hand from the keyboard to the mouse slows
me down a LOT).
> Maybe the MUA should show a variable width font, and then have a
> hot-key to switch to a courier font if the user sees the type of
> content that calls for it.
I have seen e-mail clients that are similar to that, except that the
user has to wade through the menus, instead of having a simple
button, as you describe. And I agree that what you describe would
be MUCH better than those. They'd both work, but your idea would
not require users to wade through menus to change it.
Later,
--jim
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