1140894 - rewrap produces inconsistent results

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 1a.select1line.before.png: This is before re-wrap, when I select just the one quoted long line.

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.9; rv:36.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/36.0
Build ID: 20150222232811

Steps to reproduce:

Replied to a message. Selected one long quoted line, and did re-wrap (command-R). Then undid it, and selected the long line plus one above and one below, and did re-wrap. Then undid it, and selected the long line plus two above and two below, and did re-wrap.

Note that I am composing a message in text format, not HTML format. This is with Version 31.5.0, although the problem has existed for as long as I can remember.


Actual results:

Depending on how many lines I selected, the rewrap produced different results. I will attach the following files:
1a.select1line.before.png: This is before re-wrap, when I select just the one quoted long line.
1b.select1line.after.png: After re-wrap. Note that there is no ">" in front of the second line.
2a.select3lines.before.png: Again before re-wrap, when I select both the quoted long line and the quoted blank lines above and below it.
2b.select3lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The long line is re-wrapped as in 1b.select1line.after.png, and in addition a non-quoted blank line is inserted both above and below it. The quoted blank line that was above the quoted long line remains, but the quoted blank line that was below the quoted long line is gone.
3a.select5lines.before.png: Before re-wrap. I've selected five lines, from the text-containing line above the long blank line through the text-containing line after the long blank line.
3b.select5lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The quoted long line is wrapped with a quote mark as I want, and the other lines are left quoted as is. No blank lines are inserted, no quote marks removed.


Expected results:

I would have expected re-wrap to produce the results in 3b.select5lines.after.png, no matter how many lines I selected.

Comment 1

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 1b.select1line.after.png: After re-wrap. Note that there is no ">" in front of the second line.

Comment 2

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 2a.select3lines.before.png: Again before re-wrap, when I select both the quoted long line and the quoted blank lines above and below it.

Comment 3

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 2b.select3lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The long line is re-wrapped as in 1b.select1line.after.png, and in addition a non-quoted blank line is inserted both above and below it. The quoted blank line

Comment 4

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 3a.select5lines.before.png: Before re-wrap. I've selected five lines, from the text-containing line above the long blank line through the text-containing line after the long blank line.

Comment 5

[Steve Chessin]

(In reply to Steve Chessin from comment #3)
> Created attachment 8574440 [details]
> 2b.select3lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The long line is re-wrapped as in
> 1b.select1line.after.png, and in addition a non-quoted blank line is
> inserted both above and below it. The quoted blank line

The full comment should be:
2b.select3lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The long line is re-wrapped as in 1b.select1line.after.png, and in addition a non-quoted blank line is inserted both above and below it. The quoted blank line that was above the quoted long line remains, but the quoted blank line that was below the quoted long line is gone.

Comment 6

[Steve Chessin]

Attachment: 3b.select5lines.after.png: After re-wrap. The quoted long line is wrapped with a quote mark as I want, and the other lines are left quoted as is. No blank lines are inserted, no quote marks removed.

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Steve, thanks for filing and providing painstaking evidence.
Yes, rewrap doesn't live up to users' expectations:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=%3Athun,mailn%20rewrap&list_id=12284609
On the other hand, I'd assume rewrapping is not a highly frequent or important scenario.
So realistically, this corner is unlikely to get much attention.

Comment 8

[Steve Chessin]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #7)
> Steve, thanks for filing and providing painstaking evidence.
> Yes, rewrap doesn't live up to users' expectations:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=%3Athun,
> mailn%20rewrap&list_id=12284609
> On the other hand, I'd assume rewrapping is not a highly frequent or
> important scenario.

Well, 24 people filed bugs on it, so it's important to at least a few of us. (I'm sure there are other features that have a lot more bugs open on them.)

(I yearn for the old days when I could compose my email using vi and then pipe it to fmt or any other command of my choosing.)

> So realistically, this corner is unlikely to get much attention.

Maybe not, but at least no one can say that the problem is not documented.

Thanks,
--Steve