Inserting > at the start of each line in reply e-mails

Question

In my Rails app I have a mail section in which I want to append a > character at the start of each line when replying to a message. The challenge is, how do I know when to insert a > character given the block of text doesn't contain carriage returns according to the width of the textbox.

Answer 1

Hi Alamodey, I don't have a Rails answer, but I would suggest cutting off all lines > 75 characters.

This is how most (proper) email clients behave. Also don't forget to set the In-Reply-To: and References: headers.