1298761 - When sending table, warn composer if the recipient is not HTML-ready (and we don't send both HTML and plain text version, and just send plain text version by addressbook preference). Table gets sent/converted to text-only format.

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[ISHIKAWA, Chiaki]

I hit an issue with inadvertently incorrect setting.

This is with TB 45.2.0 (the current version) on my linux PC (Debian GNU/Linux 64-bit).

Repeat-by:
Compose an HTML message.

Create a table with insert and select table.

Use a default size (although I noticed the problem initially with a larger table.)

When the option is set to send only plain text version, the table is decomposed into its constituent strings, and the receive cannot recognize it is a table *IF* the recipient is not marked as HTML-capable,
and the default setting on this PC was, 
[x] Send messages as plain text if possible
AND 
when sendig ... : => "Convert the message to plain text".

(Sidenote: I now know that there is "Ask me what to do", but on a newly setup machine or something, people may forget and/or due to a flakey update this setting may be set to "Convert the message to plain text". [I have no idea why this setting was "Convert the essage to plain text" since on my home PC, I think I set this to "Send the mesage in both plain text and HTML" and all is well there as far as I am concerned.)

Now it is not often that I send table in their HTML e-mails (usually I use PDF or EXCEL attachment).

In this instance, I have received the table in HTML file from someone.
I could read the table as is.
I forward it thinking that the recipient could read it.
(No loss of information/layout was expected.)
But the table layout was lost when that person received it.

Due to the setting of HTML handlling as above,
and I did not have the special setting to specify that this particular recipient could receive HTML mail, TB has decided to send a plain text version, and the layout was lost.

This caused a confusion on an unsuspecting user when the recipient 
told me that the table was not there since I could read it.

So I want TBto warn that the table layout was lost (or for that matter, HTML layout in general was lost due to the setting above) upon sending out the message in which a table existed.

This proposed additional warning should give the general users the least surprise when an HTML e-mail is received and slightly edited and forwarded to a third party, which is not specified as capable of receiving HTML mail and thus when TB decides to drop HTML formatting because of the circumstances.

Like I said, the setting may be inadvertently changed due to user mistake, corrupt upgrade, etc., or that the user moves between multiple machines where a setting may be different, and thus the warning issued would be very useful to warn the unsuspecting user who thinks the table in HTML page is sent unbroken. (If people think such a warning too verbose, especially for mailing list usage, it should be switchable).

TIA





 
Anyway
  
Preference -> Compsition [General] -> HTML -> "Configure text format behavior" [Send Opitions.]

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

FWIW other format related bugs https://mzl.la/2c2J3A6