Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!tale From: tale@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: A question from a net.virgin Message-ID: Date: 23 Jan 90 07:01:51 GMT References: <25ba4305.5a74@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> <271@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Lines: 27 In article <271@toaster.SFSU.EDU> eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) writes: If your newsreader can't display _u_n_d_e_r_l_i_n_e_d_ _t_e_x_t properly, there's probably something wrong with your newsreader, or the way you have it set up. Bzzt, wrong answer. There is nothing in the RFCs that I have found that say a newsreader should be able to understand C-h interpretation in the conventional tty manner. Yes, the transports mechanisms _allow_ C-h to be passed, but people are really relying on special tty handling in order to turn it into something else. Note well that there are other, usually better, ways to put a terminal into underline mode. The underscore/C-h/char sequence is just an accepted convention that is consistent with teletypes but not with other C-h processing by typical terminals, except those like the Tektronix 4014. I read news in GNU Emacs. Heck, I do nearly all of my computing in Emacs. It prints the underline sequence as is, showing me each individual character that makes up the sequence. It's ugly, annoying and difficult to read. Emacs isn't configured wrong, nor is my newsreader. I've just hacked it up a little, though, so it strips that crap out. When v19 is available I will probably have the ability to not only strip it but actually highlight the string which was intended. (Actually, I could do that know, but that's another hack.) I doubt I will, as I generally see the attempts at highlighting being done in .signatures, where it looks like a stupid, egotistical ploy.