Hello all,

I'm using OE6 to view and post newsgroup messages.

When reading and writing replies I would like to see if another font is
easier to work with. Although I can find where to change the font size,
changing the the font itself does not seem to be offered.

I've also looked in the register and found the "Outlook
Express\5.0\News\Font" key, with the value "Arial". Alas, when I changed it
(to "Arial Italic" for testing) I saw no change.

So, the question is : Is it possible to change the read / compose font for
newsgroup messages, and if so how do I do it ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"R.Wieser" wrote:
[...]
> So, the question is : Is it possible to change the read / compose font
> for newsgroup messages, and if so how do I do it ?

Tools -> Options -> Read -> fonts

I only have two available for fixed width but plenty for proportional.

"R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote

| I'm using OE6 to view and post newsgroup messages.
| | When reading and writing replies I would like to see if another font is
| easier to work with. Although I can find where to change the font size,
| changing the the font itself does not seem to be offered.
| | I've also looked in the register and found the "Outlook
| Express\5.0\News\Font" key, with the value "Arial". Alas, when I changed
it
| (to "Arial Italic" for testing) I saw no change.
|

I have settings on both the Read and Compose tabs.
Make sure you're setting Western European in Read.
I also have Western European set as the default encoding.
I don't know whether using unicode might affect things.
Unicode fonts are very big and rare. I think I only have one.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{588F655A-9E32-4537-872E-E9A72B2224A1}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook
Express\5.0\News

I have Font Name, Font Italic, etc. So if I wanted Arial italic
I'd need to set two values. Same under Mail. I also have all settings
specifying plain text, for all mail and news. HTML will override
your settings, as you probably know.

On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 13:02:34, Apd <not@all.invalid> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>"R.Wieser" wrote:
>[...]
>> So, the question is : Is it possible to change the read / compose font
>> for newsgroup messages, and if so how do I do it ?
>
>Tools -> Options -> Read -> fonts
>
>I only have two available for fixed width but plenty for proportional.
>
>
Probably best to use fixed width anyway - otherwise anything anyone's
laid out assuming you are won't line up, and anything you design
likewise is even less likely to line up when others read it. (The
majority of newsgroups assume fixed width where it's relevant.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Well I wish you'd just tell me, rather than trying to engage my enthusiasm,
because I haven't got one. (Marvin; first series, fit the fifth.)

Apd,

>> So, the question is : Is it possible to change the read / compose font
>> for newsgroup messages, and if so how do I do it ?
>
> Tools -> Options -> Read -> fonts

And yup, there is. Thanks for that. :-)

Stupid though. After going there I know I've been there before, but somehow
forgot all about it. :-|

I've just changed it, and can see the change when reading *and* replying.
Which I did not quite expect (even if it has some logic), as there is also a
"compose" tab.

That "compose" tab does have two font settings, one for email and another
news, but the latter does not seem to have any effect on my "Reply group"
message composing window. Do you have any idea what they are for ?

> I only have two available for fixed width but plenty for proportional.

:-) I think you already knew what I was out for with my "easier to work
with" blurb, don't you ?

In my case I want to be able to see if a quoted line might have become too
long, needing reformatting.

For some reason neither OE's pick list nor the start -> Settings -> Fonts
shows if a font is fixed-width. But I took a "wild guess" and selected
"Lucinda console". It seems to do the trick - and doesn't even stand out as
much as I thought it would.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"Mayayana" wrote:
> I have settings on both the Read and Compose tabs.

Compose seems to be only for html messages.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote

| Probably best to use fixed width anyway - otherwise anything anyone's
| laid out assuming you are won't line up, and anything you design
| likewise is even less likely to line up when others read it. (The
| majority of newsgroups assume fixed width where it's relevant.)

?? Where do you hang out? alt.drawing.alphabet?

Newsgroups are a plain text medium. There's no reason
anyone should need fixed width to read them. And since the
lines are length-limited, you'd likely have a hard time trying to
display a table, much less a drawing of your cat.

I use Verdana because I like the combination of maximum
readability with minimum ugliness. I read and write in Verdana.
I've never used fixed width for anything, except some programming
code. Even with code I usually like Verdana. But in some situations
Courier New seems better for maximum readability to avoid typos.
Since it's unforgivably ugly I avoid it except when really necessary.

Apd,

> Compose seems to be only for html messages.

:-) You have ninja-ed the question about that in my reply. Thanks. for
the explanation I mean.

The OE guys should have made that a bit clearer though. :-|

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote

| > Compose seems to be only for html messages.
| | :-) You have ninja-ed the question about that in my reply. Thanks. for
| the explanation I mean.
| | The OE guys should have made that a bit clearer though. :-|
|

Indeed. But Apd seems to be right. I just changed my compose
font to something wacky and it only shows up if I start a new
message in HTML format. Oddly, at the top of that message it tells
me my default font is Verdana 12! Yet when I type it shows as
"Vianta" 8, a sort of italic cursive font... Hopefully MS will update
OE soon. :)

On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 09:59:18, Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam> wrote
(my responses usually follow points raised):
>"J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote
>
>| Probably best to use fixed width anyway - otherwise anything anyone's
>| laid out assuming you are won't line up, and anything you design
>| likewise is even less likely to line up when others read it. (The
>| majority of newsgroups assume fixed width where it's relevant.)
>
>?? Where do you hang out? alt.drawing.alphabet?

No need to be abusive.
>
> Newsgroups are a plain text medium. There's no reason
>anyone should need fixed width to read them. And since the
>lines are length-limited, you'd likely have a hard time trying to
>display a table, much less a drawing of your cat.

Paul, for example, whose posts I usually find most useful and/or
informative, often "draws" diagrammes - of network connections, disc
sectors, and many other things - that display better in fixed-width. Not
often tables - though it's far from unknown for people to post tables,
while being quite aware of the 7x-character lines.
>
> I use Verdana because I like the combination of maximum
>readability with minimum ugliness. I read and write in Verdana.

That is your prerogative.

>I've never used fixed width for anything, except some programming
>code. Even with code I usually like Verdana. But in some situations
>Courier New seems better for maximum readability to avoid typos.
>Since it's unforgivably ugly I avoid it except when really necessary.
>
Each to his own.
>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Well I wish you'd just tell me, rather than trying to engage my enthusiasm,
because I haven't got one. (Marvin; first series, fit the fifth.)

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> In my case I want to be able to see if a quoted line might have become
> too long, needing reformatting.

I don't rely on OE but use a decent text editor.

> For some reason neither OE's pick list nor the start -> Settings ->
> Fonts shows if a font is fixed-width.

There should be two pick-lists, one for proportional and one for
fixed.

> But I took a "wild guess" and selected "Lucinda console". It seems to
> do the trick - and doesn't even stand out as much as I thought it would.

I don't know why, but the fixed fonts also show in the proportional
list.

While we're on the subject of OE wierdness, when "read msgs in plain
text" is ticked on the "Read" tab it affects other aspects of message
viewing. Find "text in this message" isn't available, neither is
unscramble (rot-13) nor "copy shortcut" for URLs. If you want that you
have to "View -> Message in HTML" to temporarily change the setting.

OE would be a very capable news and mail client if they had finished
it (as Mayayana is hoping!). Instead, they superceded it with Windows
Live Mail which is horrible.

R.Wieser wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm using OE6 to view and post newsgroup messages.
>
> When reading and writing replies I would like to see if another font
> is easier to work with. Although I can find where to change the font
> size, changing the the font itself does not seem to be offered.
>
> I've also looked in the register and found the "Outlook
> Express\5.0\News\Font" key, with the value "Arial". Alas, when I
> changed it (to "Arial Italic" for testing) I saw no change.
>
> So, the question is : Is it possible to change the read / compose
> font for newsgroup messages, and if so how do I do it ?
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser

I am glad to see others are still using OE. I am running on Windows 10 Pro
64bit. Where did you get your OE hack?

<Bill>

On 10/9/2021 10:07 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 09:59:18, Mayayana <mayayana@invalid.nospam> wrote (my responses usually follow points raised):
>> "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote
>>
>> | Probably best to use fixed width anyway - otherwise anything anyone's
>> | laid out assuming you are won't line up, and anything you design
>> | likewise is even less likely to line up when others read it. (The
>> | majority of newsgroups assume fixed width where it's relevant.)
>>
>> ?? Where do you hang out? alt.drawing.alphabet?
>
> No need to be abusive.

*******
** | :) \____
* /| |
********************* \__________ Voof! Voof!
* *
* *
* * * * ASCIIart ist the best art
* * * *
* *** * ***
*** ***

When God created the heavens and earth, his first
animals came off the printer as ASCIIart.

voof,
Paul

Apd,

> There should be two pick-lists, one for proportional and one
> for fixed.

Yes, I have them. But as I could not remember having seen any setting
anywhere to choose between them and the changing of the proportional font
seemed to do its thing I decided not to ask.

.... But as you are mentioning it, where does that fixed on get used ? :-)

> when "read msgs in plain text" is ticked on the "Read" tab

As I have it.

> Find "text in this message" isn't available

Yup, noticed that too.

> neither is unscramble (rot-13)

Here it seems to be available.

> nor "copy shortcut" for URLs

I don't quite follow. in "plain text" mode the URL is not (and cannot be)
hidden, so it can be copied anyway.

Handy: I can click the URL and my default browser opens on it.

Funny: I can't do that when there is an URL, quoted or not, in the compose
window.

Another odd thing : when composing a message in "plain text" mode you can
/still/ paste "rich text" stuff (text as well as images) into that text
window. And as copy-pasting from a HTML document is done in "rich text"
format ... Not funny.

> OE would be a very capable news and mail client if they had finished it

In that regard :

The "blocked senders" list has been coded to grab the action for it from the
registry. The problem is, the only action it will recognise is "delete
message".

Also, when you change the data in the registry (and by it disable the
"delete message" action) it will /still/ ask if you want to delete all the
posters previous messages, and actually do that (ignoring the registry
setting).

And oh yeah, the "killfile" only works with exact matches. No wildcards.

Setting up criteria for, for example, the view filter.

The "priority" for emails can be tested - but only for an exact match with
either "high" or Low" (not "none" or "normal". Yes, the priority is
/stored/ using four different values). No possibility to say "all above
normal priority" or "all below high priority"

The criteria creator only allows you to do a simple AND and OR, but (afaik)
no grouping (no "if A or (B and C)"). No negation either, and each item can
only be selected once (no "if low priortity or high priority"). Although
that latter part can be circumvented by using the registry.

> ... if they had finished it (as Mayayana is hoping!)

I always thought that they intentionally crippled it so you would buy its
"big brother" Outlook. Only recently I found out that they are only
related by name, not so much otherwise. :-|

But in that regard I found www.oeclassic.com . It even has a free version,
if you do not mind the small advertisement they than append to every
message. Might be worth a look ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Bill,

> Where did you get your OE hack?

I take it you are talking about QuoteFix ? In that case, I didn't. I
still do the quote reformatting by hand.

In all other cases, I had too much fun to "hack" OE (read : muck around with
it) myself. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 17:00:31, Apd <not@all.invalid> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>"R.Wieser" wrote:
[]
>> For some reason neither OE's pick list nor the start -> Settings ->
>> Fonts shows if a font is fixed-width.

No, I've not seen that anywhere - but there must _be_ a flag, because ..
>
>There should be two pick-lists, one for proportional and one for
>fixed.

... such lists exist, so they must know.
[]
>I don't know why, but the fixed fonts also show in the proportional
>list.

I suppose because some people might want to view proportional text in a
fixed-width font, and doing so has no ill effects, unlike viewing
material that it intended to be viewed with a fixed-width font with a
variable-width one.
>
>While we're on the subject of OE wierdness, when "read msgs in plain
>text" is ticked on the "Read" tab it affects other aspects of message

Interesting!

>viewing. Find "text in this message" isn't available, neither is

Do Ctrl-F or F3 work?

>unscramble (rot-13) nor "copy shortcut" for URLs. If you want that you
>have to "View -> Message in HTML" to temporarily change the setting.
>
>OE would be a very capable news and mail client if they had finished

It's a lot better than it was at one time painted, especially if you use
OE-Quotefix.

>it (as Mayayana is hoping!). Instead, they superceded it with Windows
>Live Mail which is horrible.
>
From version 15 on, it broke quoting terribly - to the extent that in
several 'groups I take, people actually killfiled people who used it.
(I'm not sure if earlier versions were bad in other ways.)
>
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Tolerating intolerance is not a virtue." - Barry Shein

"R.Wieser" wrote:
> Apd,
>> There should be two pick-lists, one for proportional and one
>> for fixed.
>
> Yes, I have them. But as I could not remember having seen any setting
> anywhere to choose between them and the changing of the proportional font
> seemed to do its thing I decided not to ask.
>
> ... But as you are mentioning it, where does that fixed on get used ? :-)

Same place (reading & replying to messages) - they just made two
lists.

>> neither is unscramble (rot-13)
>
> Here it seems to be available.

Definitely not here (on the same OE version as you but not on this
machine, where I'm using OE5).

>> nor "copy shortcut" for URLs
>
> I don't quite follow. in "plain text" mode the URL is not (and cannot be)
> hidden, so it can be copied anyway.

I mean right-click (context menu) -> copy shortcut. You can still do a
normal copy.

>> OE would be a very capable news and mail client if they had finished it

[...]

> And oh yeah, the "killfile" only works with exact matches. No
> wildcards.

Also, not being able to select any header to filter on.

> The criteria creator only allows you to do a simple AND and OR, but
> (afaik) no grouping (no "if A or (B and C)").

And that.

>> ... if they had finished it (as Mayayana is hoping!)
>
> I always thought that they intentionally crippled it so you would buy its
> "big brother" Outlook. Only recently I found out that they are only
> related by name, not so much otherwise. :-|

I remember telling you!

> But in that regard I found www.oeclassic.com . It even has a free version,
> if you do not mind the small advertisement they than append to every
> message. Might be worth a look ?

Not good for news, it seems. This was said about it in another group:

"The only issues that I have are that the Usenet groups do not thread
and I have yet to find any way of contributing to Usenet groups - it
insists on replying to the last contributor directly".

That's a big problem. According to the writer, the author is not much
interested in improving its NNTP capabilities.

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 at 17:00:31, Apd wrote:
>>viewing. Find "text in this message" isn't available
>
> Do Ctrl-F or F3 work?

Yes, but they're for different operations. I'm talking about
Ctrt+Shift+F when a message is open in its own window.

> It's a lot better than it was at one time painted, especially if you use
> OE-Quotefix.

I agree but I don't bother with Quotefix.

Apd,

>> ... But as you are mentioning it, where does that fixed on get used ? :-)
>
> Same place (reading & replying to messages) - they just made two lists.

It was more a question about in which circumstances its used. Though I just
realized that I was thinking about plain text (assuming some kind of
toggle), when that section is all about HTML. In that case I could imagine
its used for "pre" tags.

> I mean right-click (context menu) -> copy shortcut. You can still do a
> normal copy.

I just took a peek there and didn't see a "copy shortcut". But I do see a
grayed-out "copy image" and "save background as". If they have hidden
"copy shortcut" than why are the other two still there ?

> Also, not being able to select any header to filter on.

Depends on where you filter : the view or incoming messages.

The latter you can do (for /some/ header entries) under tools -> message
rules -> news. Its how I give my own messages a distinctive color and mark
them watched (so I can easily recognise replies in a chronological list,
which is my default)

> Not good for news, it seems. This was said about it in another group:
[snip]

Yep, that is indeed a big problem. An OE replacement which can't even do a
newsgroup message reply ? Sacrilege !

Oh well, onto the junk heap with it I guess. :-\

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

R.Wieser wrote:
> Bill,
>
>> Where did you get your OE hack?
>
> I take it you are talking about QuoteFix ? In that case, I didn't. I
> still do the quote reformatting by hand.
>
> In all other cases, I had too much fun to "hack" OE (read : muck
> around with it) myself. :-)
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser

Maybe I should have mentioned I am running OE on Windows 10 Pro 64bit.
Maybe you are running it on a different operating system.
--
<Bill>

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

On 10/10/2021 1:17 PM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:
> R.Wieser wrote:
>> Bill,
>>
>>> Where did you get your OE hack?
>>
>> I take it you are talking about QuoteFix ? In that case, I didn't. I
>> still do the quote reformatting by hand.
>>
>> In all other cases, I had too much fun to "hack" OE (read : muck
>> around with it) myself. :-)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>
> Maybe I should have mentioned I am running OE on Windows 10 Pro 64bit.
> Maybe you are running it on a different operating system.
>

Look at his header.

Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512 == Outlook Express 6.0

There are two different animals

Outlook Express
Outlook

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlook_Express

Microsoft Internet Mail and News 1.0
Microsoft Internet Mail and News 2.0
Outlook Express 4.0, which was included in Windows 98 (June 1998)
Outlook Express 5.0, which was included in Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) (June 1999)
Outlook Express 5.01 was included in Windows 2000 (February 2000)
Outlook Express 5.5 was included in Windows Me (June 2000)
Outlook Express 6.0 was included in Windows XP (October 2001)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook

Outlook 97 8.0 January 16, 1997
...
Outlook 2019 16 September 24, 2018

Try doing an "About:" on the tool you've got,
to see what the name of it is.

Paul

Bill,

> Maybe I should have mentioned I am running OE on Windows 10 Pro 64bit.
> Maybe you are running it on a different operating system.

Thanks for telling me, but it doesn't make your question any clearer to me.

What did you actually want to know ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 10/10/2021 10:17 AM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:
> R.Wieser wrote:
>> Bill,
>>
>>> Where did you get your OE hack?
>>
>> I take it you are talking about QuoteFix ? In that case, I didn't. I
>> still do the quote reformatting by hand.
>>
>> In all other cases, I had too much fun to "hack" OE (read : muck
>> around with it) myself. :-)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>
> Maybe I should have mentioned I am running OE on Windows 10 Pro 64bit.
> Maybe you are running it on a different operating system.

You can't be running OE on Windows 10. It doesn't run on Windows 10,
only on XP.

You *could* be running some hack of OE, such as
https://www.oeclassic.com/, but that's not the real OE, and you
shouldn't call it that, let you confuse others.

--
Ken

Ken Blake wrote:
> On 10/10/2021 10:17 AM, Bill Bradshaw wrote:
>> R.Wieser wrote:
>>> Bill,
>>>
>>>> Where did you get your OE hack?
>>>
>>> I take it you are talking about QuoteFix ? In that case, I
>>> didn't. I still do the quote reformatting by hand.
>>>
>>> In all other cases, I had too much fun to "hack" OE (read : muck
>>> around with it) myself. :-)
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Rudy Wieser
>>
>> Maybe I should have mentioned I am running OE on Windows 10 Pro
>> 64bit. Maybe you are running it on a different operating system.
>
>
>
> You can't be running OE on Windows 10. It doesn't run on Windows 10,
> only on XP.
>
> You *could* be running some hack of OE, such as
> https://www.oeclassic.com/, but that's not the real OE, and you
> shouldn't call it that, let you confuse others.

I run the hack version you find here. It has a couple of quirks but works
fine for me.

https://sites.google.com/site/simpledotnet/outlook-express-6

I have run this just fine since Windows 7 and now on Windows 10 Pro x64. I
have 2 copies of the msimn.exe file with one under a different name and each
file runs with a different compatibility to handle a couple of issues. I
will go into this further if somebody wants use this. I also run it just
fine with QuoteFix. I have been using a personal computers since 1984 and
at times have made living as a programmer.
--
<Bill>

Brought to you from Anchorage, Alaska

Bill,

> I run the hack version you find here. It has a couple of quirks but works
> fine for me.

Ah, I see. You really ment a hacked version of OE6(?) for later a later
Windows version.

In that case Ken is right. I'm running OE6 on XP on which its part of the
standard installation. IOW, I did not (need to) download anyting.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser