From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 11:30:51 CDT
Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <3EC8F86B.5040002@Sonietta.blilly.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>>If "column" is meant to relate to display issues, that's not necessarily
>>correct, as display might use a proportional-spacing font, in which case
>>"column" has no meaning.
>
>
> The word we want has to describe the object that will appear on the
> display as a single entity (but which might, after I18N has happened,
> consist of a base character with added decorations). I agree that column
> could be misleading in some contexts. I see that "glyph" and "symbol" have
> been suggested, and I would be happy with either if the WG agrees (mildly
> prefer "glyph" over "symbol"). Or is there some other standard word which
> the Unicode people use? Martin?
[...]
> The present limts are expressed in characters, because they relate to the
> space taken on displays, rather than to limits which break software.
[now we're getting somewhere]
Display is a tricky issue for several reasons:
1. proportional spacing fonts, as mentioned above.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII.IIIIIIIII.IIIIIIIII
takes less space with such a font than
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.WWWWWWWWW.WWWWWWWWW
2. Display widths vary. 80 was common for text-based CRT (and printing)
terminals, though many also supported wider (typically 132) display.
Now, we have narrow display devices which carry text messages (PDAs,
cell phones, "pocket" computers, etc.).
3. Most modern GUIs use bitmap graphics with fonts rendered (rasterized)
for display. So in addition to whether a font is monospaced or
proportionally-spaced, there are issues of font style (expanded vs.
condensed, bold, italic, etc.) and size. In many GUI UAs, it's
possible for the user to select font family, style, and size, so it
is possible at one extreme to have a very short piece of text which
has to be wrapped (or scrolled horizontally), and at the other extreme
very long pieces of text can be displayed without wrapping or scrolling.
4. GUI UAs also often divide window space into regions; the space where
a newsgroup name might be displayed may well be less than the full
window width. To some extent, this also applies to text-based (non-GUI)
displays (e.g. rn and its derivatives).
5. On GUI UAs, it is of course possible to have a very narrow window for
the UA, or a very wide one (even spanning multiple physical display
monitors in some instances).
In light of all of the above, perhaps it's best to avoid specific numbers
related to display and simply mention the issue(s). The display
considerations probably should be taken into account by UA designers as
well as by those proposing new newsgroups.
We probably should mention specific numbers where there are non-display
technical issues related to the number of octets in the newsgroup name.
And those considerations should be documented in the syntax document,
sine the newsgroup name (and component, if any) length issues affect
field syntax (Newsgroups, Followup-To, etc.).