3 thoughts refining previous suggestions for the bboard presentation format:
1. Fragment each message to 3 tables: header, content, footer
Instead of containing each message by a table, further fragment each message, so that message headers/footers and content are separate tables. Only the body/content of messages using long lines in pre-tags will extend off the screen to the right. The headers/footers of each message, which contains the author-link, date etc, will remain within the screen limits according to the table attributes applied.
This seems to be the most durable compromise of using tables while maintaining practical viewing --according to previous presentation styles and html usage within messages.
2. Left or center justify tables/messages
If tables are left or center justified, there will be more visible flex-space available for any variations in table width caused by long-lines in pre tags etc. This reduces any nuisance for users/browsers using computers with small chip-cache's, bus rates etc when needing to scroll entire threads horizontally.
3. Offset the first message without using margins.
Is it important for responses to first messages to have larger margins (a narrower text area) than the initial thread posts?
It seems more spatially practical to narrow the first message, and expand the replies... But then why not keep the messages consistent altogether? If offsetting the first post is important (flexing OpenACS' templating capabilities for example), perhaps another technique could be used, such as a light yellow background (as in highlighting) or a bolder table border?
