1360954 - When selecting text in mailing list digest, adjust subject/recipient of reply based on selected text

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, enhancement)

Description

[Dexdter N Muir]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/53.0
Build ID: 20170418122848

Steps to reproduce:

Reply to message in reflector issue: Highlight header and message, click "Reply" button.

p.s. Version 45.8.0 (from Help/About), hopefully 17 Branch as selected? How about some sanity here! ...


Actual results:

Generates reply using To: of highlighted header as its To:  and Re: Subject: of issue as Subject: of its header.

Highlighted message quoted with header, prefaced by "On <date-time>, <From: of issue> wrote"


Expected results:

Generate reply using To: of highlighted header as its To: (as above, correct!) and Re: Subject: in highlighted header as Subject: of its header.

Highlighted message quoted (header now redundant if), prefaced by "On <Date: , From: of highlighted header> wrote"

This may differ for differing reflector formats, but several I subscribe to behave this way ...

Comment 1

[Dexdter N Muir]

Can supply .eml files if required.

Comment 3

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

45 is 45, not 17, I think that's pretty sane ;-)

Otherwise I don't understand the report at all.

In a reply, the From: on the original message normally(*) becomes the To: of the reply, the subject gets a "Re:" prefix and the quoted part in the message gets a so-called "cite prefix", for example:
  On 01/05/2017 10:07, Wayne Mery wrote:

So what is not right for you?

I something appears to be wrong, run Thunderbird with add-ons disables, see Help menu.

(*) There are cases called "reply to self", where you reply to a message that you sent yourself, in this case the To: header remains unchanged.

Comment 4

[Dexdter N Muir]

OK, English-as-second-language? Herewith a more extensive explanation ...

email reflector is [e-mail]. It sends out a daily digest from its 'sending' address, appearing to my Thunderbird with header:
From: [e-mail]
Subject: NZ-Folk Digest, Vol 148, Issue 21
 and listing of messages.

I select the Message I want to reply to, highlighting it, and hit the Reply button up top (It's a pure-ASCII non-HTML reflector, so there's no Reply link for each message). That message's header is:
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:45:26 +1200
From: Dexter N Muir <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [Nz-folk] For the historians ...
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Thunderbird generates a reply. Its header is:
 To: [e-mail]
 Subject: Re: NZ-Folk Digest, Vol 148, Issue 21

and it contains:
<space here for reply message>

On 30/04/17 12:00, [e-mail] wrote:
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 17:45:26 +1200
> From: Dexter N Muir <[e-mail]>
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: [Nz-folk] For the historians ...
> Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> Why we're never told Friar Tuck's full name? He was christened Phelim. :/

It should be headed:
 To: [e-mail]
 Subject: Re: [Nz-folk] For the historians ...

and contain:
<my reply :
Spoonerise it!>

On 29/04/17 12:00, [e-mail] wrote:
> Why we're never told Friar Tuck's full name? He was christened Phelim. :/

Hopefully comprehensible - and amusing.

p.s. 17 was greatest in the list. Now up to 45 and more attentively updated?

Comment 5

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

OK, now I understand it. You receive a mailing list digest, which is basically a plain text list of posts to that mailing list in the last 24 hours or so.

You select some *text* in that digest message and hit reply. Note: You do *not* select a message as you said.

The reply goes to the original sender, [e-mail], and is sent with the original subject of the message, Re: NZ-Folk Digest, Vol 148, Issue 21.

Sorry, we have no function that will recognise that you've selected text in a digest that contains a reference to another message and adjust the subject (and recipient) according to the text selected.

This is at best an enhancement request, but I don't think we would want such a function at all, so that would make it a WONTFIX. Magnus?

BTW, I have an Australian passport.

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Depends on what kind of digest it is. If it's indeed just plain texts, there's no way for Thunderbird to really know about the message it came from. 

I think some digest systems send out the mails as .emls, and then it can work. Should work already. 

Please attach a sample digest message to this bug to clarify.

Comment 7

[Dexdter N Muir]

Yes, Jorg K, most likely a WONTFIX. I was hoping there would/could be a function to locate header info in selected text 'message' and parse origin info from it. Seems not :( . No worries, mate, just grin and bear the ordeal of manual jiggery-pokery.
Mark it [SOLVED].

Comment 8

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Just out of interest, please attach one of those digests here. Drag the message out to the desktop or a folder as .eml file, then "Attach File" above.

Comment 9

[Dexdter N Muir]

Attachment: NZ-Folk Digest, Vol 148, Issue 21.eml

As requested by Jorg K

Comment 10

[Dexdter N Muir]

Finally found the link. Hope it gets through. It's the one I've been quoting.

Comment 11

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Try this: In the .eml you submitted, change
To: [e-mail]
to
To: [e-mail]?subject=%5BNz-folk%5D%20Irish%20Music%20on%20Sarode
(subject is "URL encoded") or try
To: [e-mail]?subject=Irish_Music.
Then import the message again.

You will see that you can then click onto that link and get a new message with the correct subject.

If you're on good terms with the mailing list owner, suggest that they improve their content in that way.

Comment 12

[Dexdter N Muir]

Questions:
Where to make the change? The .eml file's header, or in the header of the contained 'message' you want to reply to? or all of them?
Include the bracketed phrase in the change(s)? Does this trigger some alteration to Thunderbird's interpretation of the text? The query-mark (?) would seem to me to be a trigger for some php-type function.
What's the significance of the "on Sarode"? (the %20's are blank spaces)
Why "Irish Music"? Folk is a helluva lot more comprehensive than just Irish ...

I need much more info for the list manager, or should I refer him here?
I'm reluctant to mess with something that could break something else.

You've got my email address from this - I struggle with web-form interfaces.

Comment 13

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Attachment: NZ-Folk Digest, Vol 148, Issue 21.eml (modified)

Here is what I mean:
To: [e-mail]?subject=%5BNz-folk%5D%20Irish%20Music%20on%20Sarode
To: [e-mail]?subject=Irish_Music
Note: Original subject was: [Nz-folk] Irish Music on Sarode

Download this attachment and import it into TB, click onto those links and you'll see what I mean. Pass this on to the list owner.

Also note what the digest actually says:
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of NZ-Folk digest..."