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  Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2016-07-07 23:22 -0700
    Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-08-04 17:05 -0700
    Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! Martin Leese <please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID> - 2016-08-04 23:12 -0600
    Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-02 16:28 -0800
      Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! Carlos <angus@quovadis.com.ar> - 2017-01-03 15:24 +0100
        Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! Michael Unger <spam.to.unger@spamgourmet.com> - 2017-01-03 17:27 +0100
        Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-03 09:46 -0800
          Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-11 20:03 -0800
            Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-11 20:09 -0800
          Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2017-01-12 03:35 -0500
            Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> - 2017-01-12 20:02 -0800
              Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2017-01-13 23:22 -0500
                Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! helbig@asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)) - 2017-01-14 07:58 +0000
                  Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2017-01-14 23:09 -0500
                  Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! helbig@asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)) - 2017-01-15 09:33 +0000
                    Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2017-01-16 00:38 -0500
                    Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! helbig@asclothestro.multivax.de (Phillip Helbig (undress to reply)) - 2017-01-16 22:04 +0000
                      Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-24 10:11 -0800
                        Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-26 09:58 -0800
                          Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2017-01-26 10:04 -0800
                            Re: Welcome to comp.lang.postscript! ken <ken@spamcop.net> - 2017-01-27 08:08 +0000

Page 1 of 2  [1] 2  Next page →

#2688 — Welcome to comp.lang.postscript!

We deal primarily with hacking in the PostScript Language
as defined by Adobe Systems and occasionally branch into 
related topics like geometry, general programming, emulating 
other languages' features in ps, pdfmarks, other systems 
employing the Adobe Image Model, etc.

Questions here tend to be more chatty or conceptual since 
there also exists StackOverflow.com if you have a specific
programming problem and need to find the answer. 

This is an infrequent posting wherein I quote the current
markdown-format text from http://stackoverflow.com/tags/postscript/info .
You can suggest edits on that page. All suggested edits 
(even mine) pass through a review process.



PostScript is a Turing-complete page description programming language, designed and developed by Adobe. There are three major releases of PostScript.

1. **PostScript Level 1** — this was released to the market in 1984 as the resident operating system of the Apple LaserWriter laser printer, inaugurating the Desktop Publishing Era.
2. **PostScript Level 2** — released in 1991, this contained several important improvements to Level 1, including support for image decompression, in-RIP separation, auto-growing dictionaries, garbage collection, Named Resources, binary encodings of the PostScript program stream itself.
3. **PostScript 3** — the latest and perhaps most widely adopted version was released in 1997. It too contains several import improvements over Level 2 such as Smooth Shading. The term “level” has been dropped. 

PostScript is typically used as a page description language, although it can also be used for other purposes.

###Online References

* [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 3ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf) - The PostScript 3 standard. (7.41MB pdf)  

* [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 2ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/psrefman.pdf) - The PostScript Level 2 standard. (includes Display PostScript documentation.) (3.29MB pdf)  

* [Postscript Tutorial and Cookbook](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/BLUEBOOK.PDF) - The blue book. (847KB pdf)  
* [Postscript Language Program Design](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/GREENBK.PDF) - The green book. (911KB pdf)  

* [Thinking in Postscript](http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/localdoc/tips.pdf) - By the author of the green book and the blue-book's tutorial. (826KB pdf)

* [Adobe Type 1 Font Format](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/font/T1_SPEC.PDF) (444KB pdf)

* [PostScript Language Code Optimization: Rectangles](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/sdk/5126.PS_Rect.pdf) - Optimization tips. (84.7KB pdf)  

* [Adobe PostScript SDK Archive](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/ps/sdk/index_archive.html) - Sample code. Supplementary documents (like DSC and EPS). (html directory of pdfs and other files)  

* [Troubleshoot PostScript errors](http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-postscript-errors.html) - Debugging tips. (158KB html)  

* [Acumen Journal](http://www.acumentraining.com/acumenjournal.html) - Archive of Postscript and PDF programming articles. (html directory of zipped pdfs)  

* [Mathematical Illustrations: A Manual of Geometry and Postscript](http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/graphics/manual/) - by Bill Casselman. (html directory of pdf chapters and code downloads)

* [Thread with many sorting algorithm implementations](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.lang.postscript/p9gr6p-q3Gk/discussion) (usenet archive)

* Don Lancaster's [Guru Pages](http://www.tinaja.com/)

* Anastigmatix's [Direct use of the Postscript Language](http://www.anastigmatix.net/postscript/direct.html)

* Open-source step-wise [Debugger for Postscript Code](https://github.com/luser-dr00g/debug.ps)

###FAQs

* [Usenet FAQ (circa 1995)](ftp://ftp.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.lang.postscript/FAQ.txt)  

* [Wikibooks PostScript FAQ](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/PostScript_FAQ)  

* [SO PostScript questions sorted by most-frequently viewed](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/postscript?sort=frequent)  


###Books

* Postscript Language Reference Manual, 1ed, 1985. Recommended for its small size, and easy operator index from the summary pages (missing from later editions).

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#2735

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 6:22:51 PM UTC+12, luser droog wrote:
> 3. **PostScript 3** — the latest and perhaps most widely adopted
> version was released in 1997. It too contains several import improvements
> over Level 2 such as Smooth Shading. The term “level” has been
> dropped. 

Why?

I suspect trademark reasons.

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#2736

luser droog wrote:
...
> ###Online References

Could we add DSC Level 3 to this list:
https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf

-- 
Regards,
Martin Leese
E-mail: please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID
Web: http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/

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#2977

We deal primarily with hacking in the PostScript Language 
as defined by Adobe Systems and occasionally branch into 
related topics like geometry, general programming, emulating 
other languages' features in ps, pdfmarks, other systems 
employing the Adobe Image Model, etc. 

Questions here tend to be more chatty or conceptual since 
there also exists StackOverflow.com if you have a specific 
programming problem and need to find the answer. 

This is an infrequent posting wherein I quote the current 
markdown-format text from http://stackoverflow.com/tags/postscript/info . 
collated with http://stackoverflow.com/documentation/postscript/5616/getting-started-with-postscript/19959/general-description-of-postscript#t=201701030021056713879
You can suggest edits on that page. All suggested edits 
(even mine) pass through a review process. 

To repeat: updates to this list can be made on the Stackoverflow
tag info page for PostScript. You may also post links here, but
then I get the +2 for the edit.

*****

PostScript is a Turing-complete general programming language, 
designed and developed by Adobe Systems. Many of the ideas which 
blossomed in PostScript had been cultivated in projects for Xerox 
and Evans & Sutherland. 

Its main real-world application historically is as a *page 
description language*, or in its single-page EPS form a vector-
graphics image-description language. It is dynamically-typed, 
dynamically-scoped, and stack-based which leads to a mostly 
Reverse Polish syntax.

There are three major releases of PostScript.

1. **PostScript Level 1** — this was released to the 
market in 1984 as the resident operating system of the Apple 
LaserWriter laser printer, inaugurating the Desktop Publishing 
Era.

2. **PostScript Level 2** — released in 1991, this 
contained several important improvements to Level 1, including 
support for image decompression, in-RIP separation, auto-growing 
dictionaries, garbage collection, Named Resources, binary 
encodings of the PostScript program stream itself.

3. **PostScript 3** — the latest and perhaps most widely 
adopted version was released in 1997. It too contains several 
import improvements over Level 2 such as Smooth Shading.
The term “level” has been dropped. 

Though PostScript is typically used as a page description language 
-- and therefore is implemented inside many printers to generate 
raster images -- it can also be used for other purposes. Such as a 
quick reverse-polish calculator with more memorable operator 
names than `bc`. Or, as an output format generated by another program 
(usually in some other language).

Though PostScript file are typically 7-bit-clean ASCII, there exist 
several kinds of binary encoding described in the level 2 standard. 
And being programmable, a program may implement its own arbitrarily-
complex encoding scheme for itself. There is an International 
Obfuscated Postscript Competition, somewhat less active than the C one.

### Online References

* [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 3ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf)
 - The PostScript 3 standard. (7.41MB pdf)  

* [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 2ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/psrefman.pdf)
 - The PostScript Level 2 standard. (includes Display PostScript 
documentation.) (3.29MB pdf)  

* [Postscript Tutorial and Cookbook](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/BLUEBOOK.PDF)
 - The blue book. (847KB pdf)  
* [Postscript Language Program Design](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/GREENBK.PDF)
 - The green book. (911KB pdf)  

* [Thinking in Postscript](http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/localdoc/tips.pdf)
 - By the author of the green book and the blue-book's tutorial. (826KB pdf)

* [PostScript Language Document Structuring Conventions Specification 3.0](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf)
 (521KB pdf)

* [Adobe Type 1 Font Format](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/font/T1_SPEC.PDF)
 (444KB pdf)

* [Encapsulated PostScript File Format Specification 3.0](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5002.EPSF_Spec.pdf)
 (185KB pdf)

* [PostScript Printer Description File Format Specification
4.3](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5003.PPD_Spec_v4.3.pdf) (186KB pdf)

* [PostScript Language Code Optimization: Rectangles](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/sdk/5126.PS_Rect.pdf)
 - Optimization tips. (84.7KB pdf)  

* [Adobe PostScript SDK Archive](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/ps/sdk/index_archive.html)
 - Sample code. Supplementary documents (like DSC and EPS). 
(html directory of pdfs and other files)  

* [Troubleshoot PostScript errors](http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-postscript-errors.html)
 - Debugging tips. (158KB html)  

* [Acumen Journal](http://www.acumentraining.com/acumenjournal.html)
 - Archive of Postscript and PDF programming articles. 
(html directory of zipped pdfs)  

* [Mathematical Illustrations: A Manual of Geometry and Postscript](http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/graphics/manual/)
 - by Bill Casselman. (html directory of pdf chapters and code downloads)

* [Thread with many sorting algorithm implementations](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.lang.postscript/p9gr6p-q3Gk/discussion)
 (usenet archive)

* Don Lancaster's [Guru Pages](http://www.tinaja.com/)

* Anastigmatix's [Direct use of the Postscript Language](http://www.anastigmatix.net/postscript/direct.html)

* Open-source step-wise [Debugger for Postscript Code](https://github.com/luser-dr00g/debug.ps)

### FAQs

* [Usenet FAQ (circa 1995)](ftp://ftp.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.lang.postscript/FAQ.txt)  

* [Wikibooks PostScript FAQ](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/PostScript_FAQ)  

* [SO PostScript questions sorted by most-frequently viewed](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/postscript?sort=frequent)  


### Books

* Postscript Language Reference Manual, 1ed, 1985. Recommended for its 
small size, and easy operator index from the summary pages (missing from 
later editions).

* Real World Postscript. Chapters by various authors on various topics, including excellent coverage of halftoning.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2978

On 03/01/2017 1:28, luser droog wrote:
[...]
> ### Online References

It looks like Adobe changed its web site again and broke the links. I found new URLs
for some documents. Index pages are:

https://www.adobe.com/products/postscript/resources.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/postscript.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/font.html

> * [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 3ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf)
>  - The PostScript 3 standard. (7.41MB pdf)

https://www.adobe.com/products/postscript/pdfs/PLRM.pdf  -or-
http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/PLRM.pdf

supplement: http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/PS3010and3011.Supplement.pdf
errata: http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/PSerrata.txt

> * [PostScript Language Reference Manual, 2ed](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/psrefman.pdf)
>  - The PostScript Level 2 standard. (includes Display PostScript
> documentation.) (3.29MB pdf)

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/psrefman.pdf

> * [Postscript Tutorial and Cookbook](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/BLUEBOOK.PDF)
>  - The blue book. (847KB pdf)
> * [Postscript Language Program Design](http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/GREENBK.PDF)
>  - The green book. (911KB pdf)
>
> * [Thinking in Postscript](http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/localdoc/tips.pdf)
>  - By the author of the green book and the blue-book's tutorial. (826KB pdf)

These work.

> * [PostScript Language Document Structuring Conventions Specification 3.0](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf)
>  (521KB pdf)

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf

> * [Adobe Type 1 Font Format](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/font/T1_SPEC.PDF)
>  (444KB pdf)

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/font/pdfs/T1_SPEC.pdf

> * [Encapsulated PostScript File Format Specification 3.0](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5002.EPSF_Spec.pdf)
>  (185KB pdf)

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/5002.EPSF_Spec.pdf

> * [PostScript Printer Description File Format Specification
> 4.3](https://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5003.PPD_Spec_v4.3.pdf) (186KB pdf)

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/5003.PPD_Spec_v4.3.pdf

update: http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/postscript/pdfs/5645.PPD_Update.pdf

> * [PostScript Language Code Optimization: Rectangles](http://partners.adobe..com/public/developer/en/ps/sdk/5126.PS_Rect.pdf)
>  - Optimization tips. (84.7KB pdf)

Not found.

> * [Adobe PostScript SDK Archive](http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/ps/sdk/index_archive.html)
>  - Sample code. Supplementary documents (like DSC and EPS).
> (html directory of pdfs and other files)

Page still available in Japanese, but many (all?) links are dead...
  http://www.adobe.com/jp/devnet/postscript/sdk/sdk.html

> * [Troubleshoot PostScript errors](http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-postscript-errors.html)
>  - Debugging tips. (158KB html)
>
> * [Acumen Journal](http://www.acumentraining.com/acumenjournal.html)
>  - Archive of Postscript and PDF programming articles.
> (html directory of zipped pdfs)
>
> * [Mathematical Illustrations: A Manual of Geometry and Postscript](http://www.math.ubc.ca/~cass/graphics/manual/)
>  - by Bill Casselman. (html directory of pdf chapters and code downloads)
>
> * [Thread with many sorting algorithm implementations](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/comp.lang.postscript/p9gr6p-q3Gk/discussion)
>  (usenet archive)
>
> * Don Lancaster's [Guru Pages](http://www.tinaja.com/)
>
> * Anastigmatix's [Direct use of the Postscript Language](http://www.anastigmatix.net/postscript/direct.html)
>
> * Open-source step-wise [Debugger for Postscript Code](https://github.com/luser-dr00g/debug.ps)
>
> ### FAQs
>
> * [Usenet FAQ (circa 1995)](ftp://ftp.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.lang.postscript/FAQ.txt)
>
> * [Wikibooks PostScript FAQ](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/PostScript_FAQ)
>
> * [SO PostScript questions sorted by most-frequently viewed](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/postscript?sort=frequent)

These work.

Maybe it would be a good idea to link to the Web Archive (if possible) and completely sidestep
Adobe's periodic website wrecking.

-- 

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#2979

On 2017-01-03 15:24, "Carlos" wrote:

> On 03/01/2017 1:28, luser droog wrote:
> [...]
>> ### Online References
> 
> It looks like Adobe changed its web site again and broke the links. [...]

Tell news. ;-(

BTW: This reminds me of the DEC/Compaq/HP history ...

> [...]
> 
> Maybe it would be a good idea to link to the Web Archive (if possible) and completely sidestep
> Adobe's periodic website wrecking.

In far too many cases I had to use Google's web search to find documents
(related to PostScript or PDF) at Adobe's website -- for several years now.

Michael

-- 
Real names enhance the probability of getting real answers.
My e-mail account at DECUS Munich is no longer valid.

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#2980

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 8:24:53 AM UTC-6, Carlos wrote:
> On 03/01/2017 1:28, luser droog wrote:
> [...]

> These work.
> 
> Maybe it would be a good idea to link to the Web Archive (if possible) and completely sidestep
> Adobe's periodic website wrecking.
> 

Have updated the SO pages. Archive links seem like a
good plan. I should also look for a tool to wrap the
long lines for usenet.

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#2981

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 11:46:12 AM UTC-6, luser droog wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 8:24:53 AM UTC-6, Carlos wrote:
> > On 03/01/2017 1:28, luser droog wrote:
> > [...]
> 
> > These work.
> > 
> > Maybe it would be a good idea to link to the Web Archive (if possible) and completely sidestep
> > Adobe's periodic website wrecking.
> > 
> 
> Have updated the SO pages. Archive links seem like a
> good plan. I should also look for a tool to wrap the
> long lines for usenet.

Here's an archived directory with some tech notes not
currently found on adobe's page (or anywhere else):
http://web.archive.org/web/20140305063514/http://www.setec.org/~izaac/postscriptbooks/partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn

This page has broken links but has titles and dates to 
crossref with the above:
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4909942/FID2663/common/compact%20for%20reading/partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/technotes.html

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#2982

On Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at 10:03:54 PM UTC-6, luser droog wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 11:46:12 AM UTC-6, luser droog wrote:
> > On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 8:24:53 AM UTC-6, Carlos wrote:
> > > On 03/01/2017 1:28, luser droog wrote:
> > > [...]
> > 
> > > These work.
> > > 
> > > Maybe it would be a good idea to link to the Web Archive (if possible) and completely sidestep
> > > Adobe's periodic website wrecking.
> > > 
> > 
> > Have updated the SO pages. Archive links seem like a
> > good plan. I should also look for a tool to wrap the
> > long lines for usenet.
> 
> Here's an archived directory with some tech notes not
> currently found on adobe's page (or anywhere else):
> http://web.archive.org/web/20140305063514/http://www.setec.org/~izaac/postscriptbooks/partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn

Crap! None of the pdfs themselves are archived!

The actual page currently has them (for now):
http://www.setec.org/~izaac/postscriptbooks/partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn/

> This page has broken links but has titles and dates to 
> crossref with the above:
> http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4909942/FID2663/common/compact%20for%20reading/partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/technotes.html

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#2983

On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 09:46:10 -0800 (PST), luser droog sought:

> ... a tool to wrap the
> long lines for usenet.

I understand there's  "wrap override character" ... available, in 40tude
Dialog, through the message-composition menu option

Special > Insert wrap override character  (Shift + control + O).

No idea, though, just what that character is; but I'm using it on this line, so maybe you can dope out what it is.

HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

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#2984

On Thursday, January 12, 2017 at 3:35:27 AM UTC-5, tlvp wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Jan 2017 09:46:10 -0800 (PST), luser droog sought:
> 
> > ... a tool to wrap the
> > long lines for usenet.
> 
> I understand there's  "wrap override character" ... available, in 40tude
> Dialog, through the message-composition menu option
> 
> Special > Insert wrap override character  (Shift + control + O).
> 
> No idea, though, just what that character is; but I'm using it on this line, so maybe you can dope out what it is.
> 
> HTH. Cheers, -- tlvp
> -- 
> Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

No special character appears in the raw Usenet message.

Perhaps it is used internally in 40tude to *prevent* 40tude
from wrapping that line when it prepares it for NNTP.

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#2985

On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 20:02:42 -0800 (PST), Ross Presser wrote:

> No special character appears in the raw Usenet message.

That (though I found it hard to believe my eyes) was what I saw, too.

> Perhaps it is used internally in 40tude to *prevent* 40tude
> from wrapping that line when it prepares it for NNTP.

Ah, so it's 40tude (or the posting client) that does the wrapping?
I'd always though it was the reading client that did one's line-wrapping.
About time I mended my impressions, if that impression is mistaken :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

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#2986

In article <3tydwwczlmho$.gebt0v1hiea3$.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes: 

> Ah, so it's 40tude (or the posting client) that does the wrapping?
> I'd always though it was the reading client that did one's line-wrapping.
> About time I mended my impressions, if that impression is mistaken :-) .

Reading clients can wrap as well.  A BIG PROBLEM in usenet is that
posting clients wrap, so that the poster thinks that he submits
something well formatted, which then consists of one really long line
per paragraph.  Depending on the posting client, the servers in between,
and the client, readers will see this as a really long line, a truncated
line, or a post which has been unnecessarily base-64 encoded.

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#2987

On Sat, 14 Jan 2017 07:58:16 +0000 (UTC),
helbig@asclothestro.multivax.dePhillip Helbig wrote:

> In article <3tydwwczlmho$.gebt0v1hiea3$.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp
> <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes: 
> 
>> Ah, so it's 40tude (or the posting client) that does the wrapping?
>> I'd always though it was the reading client that did one's line-wrapping.
>> About time I mended my impressions, if that impression is mistaken :-) .
> 
> Reading clients can wrap as well.  A BIG PROBLEM in usenet is that
> posting clients wrap, so that the poster thinks that he submits
> something well formatted, which then consists of one really long line
> per paragraph.  Depending on the posting client, the servers in between,
> and the client, readers will see this as a really long line, a truncated
> line, or a post which has been unnecessarily base-64 encoded.

Thanks for those clarifications. I guess the moral for luser droog is this:

a suitable newsclient (and Dialog is one such) can send out a post with
code lines not auto-wrapped; but there's no assurance a given newsclient
will display that post with those lines still not wrapped -- they may have
gotten irremediably wrapped "in transit", or (even if not) the reader
itself may auto-wrap them of its own accord (though Dialog can have that
behavior toggled off or on with a Ctrl+W; for other newsclients, I dunno).

Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

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#2988

In article <1j38rmr7gdah2$.955et0612hpp.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes: 

> >> Ah, so it's 40tude (or the posting client) that does the wrapping?
> >> I'd always though it was the reading client that did one's line-wrapping.
> >> About time I mended my impressions, if that impression is mistaken :-) .
> > 
> > Reading clients can wrap as well.  A BIG PROBLEM in usenet is that
> > posting clients wrap, so that the poster thinks that he submits
> > something well formatted, which then consists of one really long line
> > per paragraph.  Depending on the posting client, the servers in between,
> > and the client, readers will see this as a really long line, a truncated
> > line, or a post which has been unnecessarily base-64 encoded.
> 
> Thanks for those clarifications. I guess the moral for luser droog is this:
> 
> a suitable newsclient (and Dialog is one such) can send out a post with
> code lines not auto-wrapped; but there's no assurance a given newsclient
> will display that post with those lines still not wrapped -- they may have
> gotten irremediably wrapped "in transit", or (even if not) the reader
> itself may auto-wrap them of its own accord (though Dialog can have that
> behavior toggled off or on with a Ctrl+W; for other newsclients, I dunno).

More or less, but it is better to send posts consisting of lines of less 
than 80 characters (which means unquoted lines less than 72 characters, 
allowing for four "> " quote symbols, which should be more than enough).
You don't know how wide the reader's screen is.  If you post really long 
lines, there is no other solution than to truncate them, or force the 
reader to scroll, or perhaps to wrap them (displaying something other 
than what you wrote).  My experience is that posts are almost never 
automatically base64-encoded if no line is longer than 80 characters 
(and there are no characters other than 7-bit ASCII).  So write posts 
like this one with lines of at most 80 characters and with no 8-bit 
characters and almost all readers will see what you write.  (I have an 
editor which autowraps when I type, but it does so properly---in the 
text itself and not just on the display.  So it doesn't matter if I hit 
RETURN at the end of a line or let it autowrap---the result is the 
same.)

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#2989

On Sun, 15 Jan 2017 09:33:33 +0000 (UTC),
helbig@asclothestro.multivax.dePhillip Helbig wrote:

> it is better to send posts consisting of lines of less 
> than 80 characters (which means unquoted lines less than 72 characters, 
> allowing for four "> " quote symbols, which should be more than enough).

Thanks. I think I, myself, have my NNTP client set up to do just that.

> You don't know how wide the reader's screen is.  If you post really long 
> lines, there is no other solution than to truncate them, or force the 
> reader to scroll, or perhaps to wrap them (displaying something other 
> than what you wrote).

Quite so. And yet, if trying to transmit via usenet the contents of a
(text-only) program (be it HTML or PostScript or PDF or ...), one runs into
the problem that program lines, once wrapped, become broken as code,
whence the desideratum of posting them as the long lines they are. ...

> ...  My experience is that posts are almost never 
> automatically base64-encoded if no line is longer than 80 characters 
> (and there are no characters other than 7-bit ASCII).  So write posts 
> like this one with lines of at most 80 characters and with no 8-bit 
> characters and almost all readers will see what you write.  (I have an 
> editor which autowraps when I type, but it does so properly---in the 
> text itself and not just on the display.  So it doesn't matter if I hit 
> RETURN at the end of a line or let it autowrap---the result is the 
> same.)

... Whether the long lines of code as posted remain long lines of code once
received, of course, is another matter, as you point out. 

In any event, thanks for your interest in these matters. Cheers, -- tlvp
-- 
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.

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#2990

In article <1f00x5ab3jmz1.137gvh15zlkby.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp
<mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes: 

> Quite so. And yet, if trying to transmit via usenet the contents of a
> (text-only) program (be it HTML or PostScript or PDF or ...), one runs into
> the problem that program lines, once wrapped, become broken as code,
> whence the desideratum of posting them as the long lines they are. ...

I think that usenet should be text only.  Text as in unencoded printable
7-bit ASCII.  Does one really need to transmit anything else via usenet?
These days, one can put it on a webserver and transmit the URL via 
usenet.  Or UUENCODE it and post that; this will result in something 
(because it is short lines of 7-bit ASCII) which probably will go 
through as is.

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#2991

On Monday, January 16, 2017 at 4:04:20 PM UTC-6, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <1f00x5ab3jmz1.137gvh15zlkby.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp
> <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> writes: 
> 
> > Quite so. And yet, if trying to transmit via usenet the contents of a
> > (text-only) program (be it HTML or PostScript or PDF or ...), one runs into
> > the problem that program lines, once wrapped, become broken as code,
> > whence the desideratum of posting them as the long lines they are. ...
> 
> I think that usenet should be text only.  Text as in unencoded printable
> 7-bit ASCII.  Does one really need to transmit anything else via usenet?
> These days, one can put it on a webserver and transmit the URL via 
> usenet.  Or UUENCODE it and post that; this will result in something 
> (because it is short lines of 7-bit ASCII) which probably will go 
> through as is.

I've been trying to follow this and keep everything in ascii, and
to re-train myself to keep my line-lengths shorter. Postscript
makes this pretty easy since blocks are all procedure bodies.
So any block that is too deeply nested can be defined and
//instantiated in the proper place.

For the Welcome posting, I'm led to diving into the markdown spec.
My goal is something that I can post unmodified as text but that
renders correctly (nicely) on SO. The big issue is links. They can
get rather long.

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#2992

I found a fairly stable page with ps docs. These are 
hosted at the same site rather than links to adobe.

I give the archived version from 2005 since the live
site says it was updated in 2004.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050301225347/http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/AdobePS.html

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#2993

On Thursday, January 26, 2017 at 11:58:52 AM UTC-6, luser droog wrote:
> I found a fairly stable page with ps docs. These are 
> hosted at the same site rather than links to adobe.
> 
> I give the archived version from 2005 since the live
> site says it was updated in 2004.
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20050301225347/http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/offline/PostScript/AdobePS.html

The page also has some very nicely worded text about
modifying ps files. I feel like every third or fourth
answer Ken writes on SO says pretty much this:

> There are no foolproof, omnipotent, programmable, programmed or universally simple methods for fixing Adobe PostScript files! There is a mathematical proof of the Halting Problem which is the reason why such methods do not exist. `Fixing' includes changing PS into EPS, making a file universally printable or viewable, rearranging or removing graphic elements from an image, etc.

> Methods do exist for specific situations such as Adobe PostScript files generated by specific versions of specific applications. Program do exist that can modify the output of a large number of versions of a large number of commerically available applications. This is not the general case.

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