My thanks to everyone for their input on this.  I share the hope that LSoft will find another way to make their digests look pretty, one that will leave the mail alone until it is actually being put in the digests.

John

At 03:21 PM 12/4/01 -0600, Frank Laurijssens wrote:
>BTW, Shannon said in another message that someone submitted a bug to MS
>- I did that. I can't find a reason in the RFCs why the formatting
>should end up in the subject line, especially with the long subject
>issue. RFC822 clearly states that a line starting with one _or more_
>spaces is to be treated as a continuation of the previous line. Exchange
>2000 only removes the first space, and that's why I filed the bug.
>
>The fact that there's other software that treats headers the same way
>Exchange 2000 does, does not mean that Listserv is the culprit, although
>I strongly believe (like I said before) that the formatting that
>Listserv does is bad anyhow.
>
>Question to LSoft: is this formatting behaviour the same in 1.8e or has
>it been removed?
>
>FrankL
>
>> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> Van: Mailarchief
>> Verzonden: dinsdag 4 december 2001 21:52
>> Aan: LSTSRV-L
>> Onderwerp: Re: [LSTSRV-L] prepending spaces to the subject line
>>
>>
>> Actually it seems to be RFC822 compliant, but it is a bad
>> idea anyhow. Have you ever seen the way long subject lines
>> are being treated? Under some circumstances, they get spaces
>> in the middle of the subject as well.
>>
>> FrankL
>>
>> > -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>> > Van: Jim Serwinowski [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>> > Verzonden: dinsdag 4 december 2001 21:26
>> > Aan: LSTSRV-L
>> > Onderwerp: Re: [LSTSRV-L] prepending spaces to the subject line
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks Peter. And I bet if you look at the Date: line, that
>> > has spaces too!
>> >
>> > Now here's the real interesting part: In pine 4.05 in full
>> > header mode,
>> > *ALL* the lines (Date:, To:, From:, Subject:) have spaces. In
>> > fact, they all
>> > line up with the "Content-Type:"
>> >
>> > An example, from my pine 4.05:
>> >
>> > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>> > Message-ID:
>> > <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Date:         Tue, 4 Dec 2001 15:01:38 -0500
>> > Reply-To:     [log in to unmask]
>> > Sender:       Test List <[log in to unmask]>
>> > From:         Jim Serwinowski <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Subject:      testing
>> > To:           [log in to unmask]
>> >
>> >
>> > I think we can safely say that Listserv is definately adding
>> > spaces, but
>> > somehow different mail clients seem to display it
>> > differently, either in
>> > full header mode or not (Outlook Express).
>> >
>> > Now the question is why, and I think I have the answer -
>> It's for the
>> > archives. The html code for the messages in the archives uses
>> > <pre> tags
>> > to format the header of the message so that it all lines
>> up, like it's
>> > been tabbed. Take a look and you'll see everything is spaced
>> > out to line up
>> > with "Content-Type: ". Since they use <pre> tags and not
>> > tables, the only way
>> > to do that is with extra spaces.
>> >
>> > So to answer John's original question:
>> >
>> > "Anyone want to venture an opinion on why the spaces are
>> > being prepended?"
>> >
>> > I'm going with - "To make the web archives look nice and pretty."
>> >
>> > However, I believe this is a bad idea, especially for the
>> > Outlook Express
>> > folk. If indeed the web archives are the reason behind it,
>> > they can do the
>> > same effect with tables instead of <pre> tags and save people
>> > some headaches.
>> >
>> > -Jim
>> >
>> > --
>> > Jim Serwinowski                 [log in to unmask]
>> > UB Listserv Administrator       http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Peter Rauch wrote:
>> >
>> > > Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 10:55:20 -0800
>> > > From: Peter Rauch <[log in to unmask]>
>> > > Reply-To: LISTSERV give-and-take forum
>> > <[log in to unmask]>
>> > > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > > Subject: Re: prepending spaces to the subject line
>> > >
>> > > On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Jim Serwinowski wrote:
>> > > > Subject: Re: [LSTSRV-L] prepending spaces to the subject line
>> > > >
>> > > > Look at any message in this thread except one that you may
>> > > > have composed yourself and look at it using full headers. Do
>> > > > you see the spaces in the "Subject: " line?
>> > > >
>> > > > I do, and I use pine 4.21.
>> > >
>> > > Jim, I use Pine 4.21 (on a Sun system) and if I view the Subject
>> > > line with headers NOT full, the line does not have extra spaces.
>> > >
>> > > If I view it with FULL headers on, then I see five _extra_
>> > > spaces.
>> > >
>> > > If I "export" the messages while FULL headers are on, the
>> > > Subject line is exported with five _extra_ spaces. With full
>> > > headers off, no extra spaces are included.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > Here is how the two renderings look:
>> > >
>> > > Subject: Re: [LSTSRV-L] prepending spaces to the subject line
>> > > Subject:      Re: [LSTSRV-L] prepending spaces to the subject line
>> > >
>> > > Neither contain TAB in the exported copy (there are some
>> > > _leading_ TABs in the exported FULL-headers copy of other, long,
>> > > header lines).
>> > >
>> > > Peter
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>

--
John W. Luther
Systems Administrator
Computing and Information Services
University of Missouri - Rolla

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.