Re: Proper-looking quotes in replies?

[Peter Bloomfield <PeterBloomfield bellsouth net>]

On 10/12/2003, Kacper Wysocki wrote:
> Quite often I'll see the quoted text in replies looking all  
> ugly- There'll be a line of unbroken quoted text, then one word  
> on a line(either not quoted at all, or single quoted even if  
> it's a quote of an already-quoted text), then another line of  
> unbroken text, etc etc.
> This usually forces me to fix the quoted text manually before  
> sending.
> 
> I've looked into the FAQ and not found anything that concerns  
> this, but I did find a patch by Peeter Bloomsfield:
[ antediluvian patch snipped ]
> I haven't tried it, because I'd prefer not to patch my balsa  
> until I know that's the only way, especially since this patch  
> is from 2001(!).
> 
> I've got wrap-incoming to 72 chars and wrap-outgoing to 72  
> chars- Is it my setup that there's something wrong with, or is  
> this a problem with whatever mail reader the quoted author is  
> using?

The sender isn't using format=flowed, or is hand-formatting line  
endings by hitting the `enter' key instead of letting the mail  
agent do it.

> What can I do to fix this?

Select the malformatted text and use Edit => Reflow Selected Text  
(Ctrl+R).  You need to select only part of the first and last bad  
lines--Balsa looks back to the start of the first line.  If you  
select the whole line, it may look back to the previous line, and  
do more than you want.  Balsa determines the level of quoting  
from the first line, using the Quoted Text Regular Expression  
from your preferences, and ignores all line endings and initial  
quoting to make a single paragraph out of the selected lines.

> Also, is it possible to have balsa quote twice-quoted text with  
> ">> " instead of "> > "?

It does, when it quotes format=flowed messages, and also when you  
reflow using Ctrl+R. Otherwise, it can't tell that the text was  
quoted, so it just prepends the line with "> ".

> Regards,
> 	Kacper Wysocki

HTH--Peter