Text reflow woes (or: I want bullets back!)y

[Aaron Janse]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020, at 2:24 PM, solderpunk wrote:
> The current spec-spec says that clients can reflow long lines if they
> want to, but it doesn't place any obligation on authors or servers to
> actually provide long lines.

Hmm, even allowing reflowing sounds like it could cause incompatibility
issues. Should there be standardized markup for bullet points? What about
poems, something I think are much easier to find on Gopher than on the
HTML web? How about markdown title lines immediately followed by text?

I think that wrapping then reflowing fundamentally leads to loss of
original information. I'll provide below a few things that I'm not sure
how to reflow. Note that, except for the haiku, many of the lines could
go past the viewport width, making fixed text mode not an option (
especially for lists).


This is a haiku
Should it be reflowed or not?
I don't think it should.

 - this is a bullet point
- so is this
* and this 
 * and this
   * and this
-> and this
1. and this
   I. and this
   II. and this
~ and this
+ and using plus signs is even valid markdown

*R*emember
*A*crostic
*P*oems

One
word
per
line
for
emphasis

# Title
Start of paragraph immediately after
## Subtitle without spacing above
> Quote for this sub-section


While providing the option of hard-wrapped text would appeal to retro
users, it could come at the cost of a much more complex spec for how
to reflow along with incompatibilities as clients act differently
when confronted with un-specified situations.

Cheers