History for StructuredTextQuotedLine
??changed:
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Structured Text processing of quoted lines
(and fancier email message stuff)
I think STX has a big future in the web-based messaging department. After all, its syntax was created to mimic that of common and intuitive markers already used by the plain-text-only newsgroup community, right?
So, how might we deal with an email message? Here's a short brainstorm. Comments and suggestions would be greatly apprectiated. Let's say you have a message thus::
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 11:42:28 -0400
From: Mike Lamb <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Bcc:
Subject: Re: Baz Quux Quux
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
Precedence: bulk
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 at 10:00am, David wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Clyde wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Barry wrote:
> > > On Sun, 10 Jun 2001, Alice wrote:
> > > > I seriously doubt that. That's the most
> > > > absurd thing I've ever heard! How do you
> > > > expect us to believe something like that?
> > >
> > > What makes you say that, Alice?
> >
> > Barry, I think Alice's point is valid.
> >
>
> You three don't know what you're talking about.
So what do *you* think, David?
'Later
-Mike
Wouldn't it be cool to have STX render it something like this:
<blockquote>
<b>Mike Lamb</b>, <b>"Re: Baz Quux Quux"</b> <i>Wed, June 13 @ 11:42am</i>
<table width=100%><tr><td bgcolor="#cccccc" width=1> </td><td>
<b><font color="000099">David</font></b> <i>Wed, June 13 @ 10:00am</i>
<table><tr><td bgcolor="ccccff" width=1> </td><td>
<b><font color="990000">Clyde</font></b> <i>Wed, June 12</i>
<table><tr><td bgcolor="ffcccc" width=1> </td><td>
<b><font color="009900">Barry</font></b> <i>Wed, June 11</i>
<table><tr><td bgcolor="ccffcc" width=1> </td><td>
<b><font color="990099">Alice</font></b> <i>Wed, June 10</i>
<table><tr><td bgcolor="ffccff" width=1> </td><td>
I seriously doubt that. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard! How do you expect us to believe something like that?
</td></tr></table>
What makes you say that, Alice?
</td></tr></table>
Barry, I think Alice's point is valid.
</td></tr></table>
You three don't know what you're talking about.
</td></tr></table>
So what do *you* think, Daivd?
'Later
-Mike
</td></tr></table>
</blockquote>
Have a look at the source. The linedrawing bit isn't really very complex. You just strip off one level of indent markers, STX process the paragraph that remains, and wrap it in a quick table with a colored td on the left. Easy.
Of course, there's a lot more that can be added to this. It should optimally be able to do something fancy with the headers so that the information they contain is still accessable. I was thinking, toss that info into a DHTML layer that becomes visiable as you mouseover a specific part of the rendered text. Or something like that. Add your ideas!
I figure that if the DC guys a clever enough to build a system that processes ascii-drawn boxes into HTML tables, *this* should be *cake*. -"datagrok":/Members/datagrok
<hr solid id=comments_below>
datagrok (Nov 2, 2001 11:12 am; Comment #1) --
Even though I said that the table code was simple, using CSS to accomplish this cleans things up a *lot*. However, you end up looking ugly in non-css-supporting browsers. Your call, I suppose.
Try this example. View source to see how much cleaner the code is:
<blockquote>
<style>
DIV { border-left: .4em solid black;
margin-left: .2em; padding-left: .2em; }
DIV.a { border-left-color: #FCC; }
SPAN.a b { color: #900; }
DIV.b { border-left-color: #CFC; }
SPAN.b b { color: #090; }
DIV.c { border-left-color: #CCF; }
SPAN.c b { color: #009; }
DIV.d { border-left-color: #FCF; }
SPAN.d b { color: #909; }
DIV.quote { border-left: .4em solid black;
margin-left: .2em; padding-left: .2em; }
</style>
<span class="a"><b>Test</b> date</span>
<div class="a">
<span class="b"><b>Test</b> date</span>
<div class="b">
<span class="c"><b>Test</b> date</span>
<div class="c">
<span class="d"><b>Test</b> date</span>
<div class="d">
test
</div>
abcd
</div>
</div>
one two three
</div>
</blockquote>