[Mailman-Users] A long URL - 2 lines - second line is notclickable.

[Greg Westin]

All four of those links work, and none break into two lines.

<quote who="G. Armour Van Horn">
> What happens when you send a really long link through the system? In
> this case, I suspect that the line is broken before Mailman ever sees it
> - it would be broken if you sent it to a standard mail client just the
> same. But what you are sending is a text URL, not a link. The link the
> reipient sees (that isn't working) is created by the recipient mail
> client based on starting with http: and ending with whitespace.
>
> Here is your original URL, I've put it back on one line:
> http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18_02.html
>
> Now, here it is again as a link:
> http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18_02.html
>
> Unfortunately, that's behind a firewall and nobody outside The Kite
> Factory will know if it worked again. Here is one that should be long
> enough to break anything, based on all the URL encoding I used. First as
> text:
> http://www.domainvanhorn.com/dropbox/copy%2520of%2520van%2527s%2520self%2520portrait%2520in%2520the%2520bathroom.jpg
>
> And now as a link:
> http://www.domainvanhorn.com/dropbox/copy%2520of%2520van%2527s%2520self%2520portrait%2520in%2520the%2520bathroom.jpg
>
> I won't know until this goes through the system, but I suspect that all
> four will be broken onto two lines, but that the linked versions will
> still work. Maybe we'll all learn somethign at that point.
>
> It's a universal problem. As the number of documents on a server grows,
> I think we're going to have to abandon the idea of having humans read
> URLs for taxonomy - it leads to URLs that break in too many places.
>
> Van
>
> Richard Barrett wrote:
>
>> At 09:22 19/08/2002 -0700, Wang, Mary Y wrote:
>> >Hi,
>> >I am using Mailman 2.0.6-1 and Sendmail-8.11.6-3.  My users are
>> complaining about the line wrap problem when send mailing mail to the
>> mail list with a long URL.  It seems line wraps text lines that are
>> longer than 80 characters with no white-space.  If you include a long
>> URL in a email message it usually gets split onto separate lines and
>> the typical email reader within BCA (exchange) marks the first part
>> of the link as clickable when usually it isn't.  People have to paste
>> the whole link back together manually in a web browser input dialog
>> to get it to work.
>> >
>> >First, I thought it maybe a Sendmail problem. So I tried send a mail
>> via Sendmail with a long URL and it appears to be fine.  The long URL
>> did split into two lines, and the second line is still highlighted as
>> a href link, so there was no problem.  By clicking the link, the
>> browser would bring up the correct information.
>> >
>> >However, sending an email to the mail list is a different problem.
>> >
>> >For example,
>> >http://labtest.ca.boeing.com/~psim/NewRtPlatform/test_plate_form_notes.07_18
>> _02.html will show up with 2 lines and the second line would be ml
>> and wouldn't be highlighted as part of the URL that is clickable.
>> >
>> >Any clue?
>> >
>> >Thanks for any help.  We had this problem for about a year.  I
>> finally got a chance to look into it now.
>> >
>> >Mary
>> >(562) 797-1545
>>
>> I suspect at the back of this is what RFC2822 says and how some Mail
>> Agent code/configuration is interpreting the RFC:
>>
>> <quote>
>> 2.1.1. Line Length Limits
>>
>>     There are two limits that this standard places on the number of
>> characters in a line. Each line of characters MUST be no more than
>> 998 characters, and SHOULD be no more than 78 characters,
>> excluding the CRLF.
>>
>>     ...
>>
>>     The more conservative 78 character recommendation is to
>> accommodate the many implementations of user interfaces that
>> display these messages which may truncate, or disastrously wrap,
>> the display of more than 78 characters per line, in spite of the
>> fact that such implementations are non-conformant to the intent of
>> this
>>     specification (and that of [RFC2821] if they actually cause
>>     information to be lost). Again, even though this limitation is put
>> on messages, it is encumbant upon implementations which display
>> messages ...
>>
>> </quote>
>>
>> Mailman doesn't appear to fool with the line breaks in email sent to
>> it for redistribution. Its internal archiver also appears to behave
>> sensibly when processing long line into HTML archives files by only
>> word wrapping long lines on white space to a reasonable length so that
>> the <PRE> tagged message text displays sensibly with a web browser. So
>> your long URL would survive intact transit through and archiving by
>> MM. It certainly does on my MM system.
>>
>> Sendmail can be configured to limit line length so some MTA through
>> which your mail is passing could be limiting line length though
>> usually it will be to the 990 character limit.
>>
>> The MUA from whence the long URL originated is possible culprit.
>>
>> The fact is that the RFC admits the possibility of line length
>> manipulation by Mail Agents although it could be regarded as
>> anti-social to use the 78 char limit. The only way to ensure line
>> break changes do not corrupt your data is to base64 encode it; not the
>> most convenient solution, I grant you.
>>
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>
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