102591 - read msg hdr pane doesn't show messages true Date: line

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Running nightly build of N6.x from last week (from release candidate branch
not from trunk).  

In Communicator, when one is reading a message, the Date: header is shown
exactly as it appears in the message.  It is not modified in any way.

In N6, the only date displayed is the date as interpreted by N6.  
If the original email's date is not in standard format, N6 displays 
something useless.  
If the original email is in standard format, N6's display hides such
valuable information as the sender's time zone.

Loss of functionality and usability.

Workaround:  read email source window.  Sigh.

Comment 1

[Boris 'pi' Piwinger]

Well, this here is for Mozilla, not Netscape, but it should be the same effect.
I don't get the point of this bug. Yes, the date is displayed after parsing it,
it is a feature. About wrong display, see bug 32216 and bug 142504. Either this
bug is INVALID or a dupe of one of them. Please mark it accordingly.

pi

Comment 2

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

This bug is not a duplicate of the other bugs cited above, although they all
related to similar subjects.  

In the window that displays the message (not the message list pane), in the 
portiong that displays the message's header lines, the display of the "Date:"
line should display the message's Date: header line exactly as it appears in
the message, not some (often flawed) interpretation of it.  

Even when the message's Date: line is perfectly formatted according to the 
standard, displaying an interpretation of that date, rather than the original
date, causes valuable information to be lost.  Specifically, it hides the
information about the sender's timezone.  

So, whether or not mozilla can parse the date, when displaying the message and
its headers, the headers should be displayed as they are, not as they might be
interpreted to be.

Comment 3

[Boris 'pi' Piwinger]

Well, then I guess Seth or Esther will mark this as INVALID or WONTFIX.

pi

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

FWIW, I would like the message's header pane to show a full-format date, not
just the time; however, I don't want it to be the text of the original header,
I want it to be in my preferred date format.

I think the time-only display is appropriate for the list of messages in the
upper pane, but not for the headers of the current message.

Comment 5

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

Today, mozilla shows its interpretation of the message's timestamp, converted
to local time zone, in both the message list pane and the the message header
pane.  Nowhere does mozilla show the message's true original Date: line.

If the user wishes to see such information as the sender's time zone, or
if mozilla is unable to parse the date in the message, then the user has 
no recourse but to view message source to see the original Date header.
This is a BAD THING (tm).

Comment 6

[Michael Newton]

Is anything being done about this?  I think anyone looking at full headers of a
message is going to be looking for the *acutal* headers of that message.  Not
sure if Thunderbird is still using the same codebase as Mozilla Mail, or if it
branched, but this bug shows up there as well.

Comment 7

[Christian Eyrich]

I'm closing this as fixed.

Getting the date displayed in the unaltered original format including time zone can be achieved by setting the pref mailnews.display.original_date to true. This was introduced in bug 118899.