# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
# 
# Usage:
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users              View list of users and latest twt date.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt                View all twts.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri  View all mentions for uri.
#     https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash         View all twts for a conversation subject.
# 
# Options:
#     uri     Filter to show a specific users twts.
#     offset  Start index for quey.
#     limit   Count of items to return (going back in time).
# 
# twt range = 1 8
# self = https://watcher.sour.is/conv/wql4w5q
prologic
twtxt.net
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#215 - Newlines without Unicode - yarn - Mills -- We discussed the idea of changing the way we handle Newlines in Twts once upon a time, but nobody adopted it, we didn't amend the spec and really we just kept the existing spec as-is using the \2028 and simpler search/replace in place. Did we want to revisit this again in a potential Twtxt v2 spec rewrite, or are we happy with how this works? 🤔 cc @movq @lyse @tkanos (please add other client authors to this thread) #Twtxt #Spec #Multiline
prologic
twtxt.net
View Thread
#215 - Newlines without Unicode - yarn - Mills -- We discussed the idea of changing the way we handle Newlines in Twts once upon a time, but nobody adopted it, we didn't amend the spec and really we just kept the existing spec as-is using the \2028 and simpler search/replace in place. Did we want to revisit this again in a potential Twtxt v2 spec rewrite, or are we happy with how this works? 🤔 cc @movq @lyse @tkanos (please add other client authors to this thread) #Twtxt #Spec #Multiline
mckinley
twtxt.net
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@prologic I don't think the solution proposed there is a good one, and here are my reasons.

1. The specification says quite clearly, "The file must be encoded with UTF-8". If an old piece of software can't handle UTF-8, it can't produce a valid twtxt feed at all.

2. I believe the intention behind this solution is to make it render in an acceptable fashion in clients that don't support the convention, but I think it's the opposite in reality. Separating posts like that could make it very frustrating to read in a feed. I would much rather have nothing or a replacement character separating logical lines.

3. I think it interferes quite heavily with human readability for the same reason. When reading a twtxt feed, it's helpful to know that each line with a timestamp represents one post.
mckinley
twtxt.net
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4. It also says "A specific ordering of the statuses is not mandatory," implying that the order of the lines in the file is irrelevant. If newlines are separate posts with the same timestamp, the original line order becomes very relevant. I can see how a client might display posts with the same timestamp in the wrong order.
mckinley
twtxt.net
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It also says "A specific ordering of the statuses is not mandatory," implying that the order of the lines in the file is irrelevant. If newlines are separate posts with the same timestamp, the original line order becomes very relevant. I can see how a client (that doesn't support this newline syntax) might display posts with the same timestamp in the wrong order because of this.
prologic
twtxt.net
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@mckinley Agree on all points 👌
prologic
twtxt.net
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@mckinley Agree on all points 👌
lyse
lyse.isobeef.org
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@prologic @mckinley I share the same opinion.