Marc I opened the link on two different devices, to see how the tables rendered. On one (iPod touch with Safari), it worked reasonably. The only problem was that the table columns were skewed due to browser not using monospace fonts. Were the table more complex or were there some truly wacky ASCII art it probably wouldn't have worked. On a second device (running a different browser, unnamed to protect the guilty) I received a continuous stream of characters with no line breaks at all. When viewing the txt version on www.rfc-editor.org that same browser does a fairly good job, assuming that I rotate the device to fit the table into the width. However, these 2 tables were small and relatively simple. Why don't you try Figure 3 of RFC 5087 or Figure 2 or 15 of RFC 5905 ? Y(J)S -----Original Message----- From: Marc Petit-Huguenin [mailto:petithug@xxxxxxx] Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 18:20 To: Yaakov Stein Cc: Dave Aronson; IETF Discussion Subject: text/lp [was Re: discouraged by .docx was Re: Plagued by PPTX again] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The problem here is that RFC and Internet-Drafts are not plain ASCII. They are technically in a special format that I would call "line-printer ready text file", and ASCII is the encoding, not the format. What is needed is: - - A mime-type for line-printer ready text (say text/lp) - - An heuristic to recognize text/lp files (it's too late for a specific extension). Apache HTTP server can use the AddType directive for these files[1]. - - A program to display text/lp files, one at least for each platform. If someone take care of the mime-type, I'll write the program to display correctly text/lp files on the Android platform. [1] Try this link: http://ietf.implementers.org/rfc5928.txt. The mime type should be text/lp. On 11/27/2011 12:20 AM, Yaakov Stein wrote: > Dave > > I agree that we are thinking as "content creators", and that is the problem. > > The requirement is not that we will be able to write a new document in 50 years in the same format. > The requirement is that we should be able to read the documents written 50 years before. > > The problem about ASCII art is not simply the monospacing. > The main problem is the line wrapping. > > I have tried many times to look at ASCII art on iPhones, iPods, and even small pads. > Once you zoom down sufficiently to get the lines not to break, > the characters are no longer readable. > For a screen size of about 60 mm, 80 character lines means that the characters are only 0.75mm in width. > Even assuming a "short" figure that could be viewed rotated (width 110 mm) > each character width would be only slightly more than the 1 mm needed for viewing, > and less than the 1.5 mm needed for actual reading. > > Put in another way, high-end cellphone screens presently have 640 pixel widths. > For 80 character layouts, this translates to 8 pixels per character plus inter-character spacing, > or about 6 pixel character widths. > Even were they visible (and each pixel is less than 1/10 of a mm!) > this would mean very low quality fonts - 5*7 was the lowest quality used by old dot-matrix printers. > And modern software is not optimized for readability at that font resolution. > > So, if we expect people to be able to read our documents in 5 years, let alone 50, > we need to stop using ASCII art. > > Y(J)S > > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave Aronson > Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 00:10 > To: IETF Discussion > Subject: Re: discouraged by .docx was Re: Plagued by PPTX again > > On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 15:52, Yaakov Stein <yaakov_s@xxxxxxx> wrote: > >> ASCII is already unreadable on many popular devices > > Oh? For what reason? Sorry, I'm still using an incredibly stupid > phone, so I may be behind the curve on such changes. As far as I've > seen in my limited exposure, any difficulty is usually because it's > often not linewrapped well (or at all), forcing a lot of horizontal > scrolling, especially after being forced to be big enough to be > legible on tiny screens not held right up to the face. That's rather > inconvenient, but still a far cry from "unreadable" -- plus it's a > problem with the reader program (being too "featureless" to rewrap the > text), not anything inherent in the format. > > ASCII *artwork*, yes, that often gets ruined by the refusal of many > programs to allow the user to display content in a monospaced font. > But that's not because it's in plain ASCII; you could say the same > thing of a Word or PDF document that incorporates "ASCII" art. > >> I am referring to the fact that more and more people are reading >> documents on cell-phones and other small devices. >> According to analysts, this will be the most popular platform for reading >> material from the Internet within a few years. > > But among what audience? End-users at large, yes, I can certainly > believe that. But techies, especially of sufficient caliber to even > *want* to read the IETF's output, let alone participate in creating > it? Very doubtful. I don't think we'll be giving up our laptops, > never mind large monitors, any time soon. > > Phones and tablets are for content *consumption*. We are content > *creators*, be it programs, documents, or whatever. That's an > entirely different set of hardware requirements. When was the last > time you saw a program or document or anything else of significant > size, written using a phone, or even a tablet? > > -Dave > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > - -- Marc Petit-Huguenin Personal email: marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Professional email: petithug@xxxxxxx Blog: http://blog.marc.petit-huguenin.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAk7SYzsACgkQ9RoMZyVa61eSRACfQsLQvu0pa/gR/LTNlGiMBpIH /w0AoINZZMQGcPqUzn9QK/nlQR/w/oUq =2eH4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf