171822 - Provide UI to select reply header mode, eg date, author

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement)

Description

[Steve Wardell]

This is a stepping stone for Bug 107884 but it would allow configurability of:

user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_type", 2);

So with a simple checkbox, a user could enable date to be part of the reply
header. Since 107884 is taking a long time, this would be an interm solution
which would be simple to implement. Adding the ability to easily solve my
personal reason for wanting Bug 107884 resolved.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

not localization

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

I don't think this can be done with a checkbox; AFAIK they only work with
boolean prefs. You would have to choose between a radiogroup or menulist instead.

Comment 3

[Steve Wardell]

Either would be fine with me.

Comment 4

[Michael]

When replying need to have original message sender name, email address,
date/time, subject.  The date/time is essential to maintain accurate, legal and
very helpful information about mail thread transcript.

Comment 5

[Steve Wardell]

Is there any bug or should there be so we can just default to having the time in
the reply header while this bug and Bug 107884 await getting resolved? This
would make this less of an issue as for me personally, the main reason I want
configurability is to have the date in as I agree with Comment 4 that it really
should be part of the header.

Comment 6

[Bogdan Stroe]

*** Bug 241561 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 236355 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Giving this a better summary, similar to the dupe's.

Comment 9

[Christopher W. Curtis]

I'm not sure if this is the best place for this comment or if it should go with
bug 218258 or bug 107884, but this seems about the right level.

Can the feature be setup so that there is a pref for "Reply Styles" with some
fixed number of definable styles, say 5?  Style 1 is (i.e.) "Standard Internet",
style 2 is "Mail List / Usenet", style 3 is "Business", and 4 and 5 are "User
Custom 1 and 2" (4 and 5 being essentially undefined, and 1-3 being defaults).

A "default style" pref can be set to one of the 5 styles.  Clicking "reply" uses
the default style, but by holding down reply button, a dropdown showing the 5
available styles with which to reply is presented for selection.

The default "Standard Internet" would be the default, and is ideal for
one-on-one email conversations.  The "Mail List / Usenet" style does all the
funny stuff with signatures, etc, that's so important there.  And the "Business"
style is the Outlook-like top posting, included content with full header block form.

I've only recently come to appreciate the Outlook style where is does fit the
niche for "business email".  The utility of this mode exists because the
Engineer does not deal with the Customer.  Conversations go from Customer to
Customer Rep to Director/Supervisor, and then to Engineer.  There is no public
archive of the conversation, so the entire thread is self-contained by
necessity.  The full header, then, is very important to follow the thread when
you are actually supposed to turn the words into product.

Thoughts?

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 299962 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 303735 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[elaine]

Attachment: provide UI to custom replyheader setting

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

this may be considered by some to be applicable to the 'niche for "business
email"', but it is certainly not a small niche given business/institutional
sizes of employees (in our case 900). Glad to see there is a potential patch.

Comment 14

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

Comment on attachment 194273 [details] [diff] [review]
provide UI to custom replyheader setting

I am not in position to review such UI patch anymore. I've asked David Bienvenu
to reviewd it...

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

I'm not crazy about adding all this UI, but this is SeaMonkey only, right? If
so, you should have a Seamonkey module owner like Neil look at this. One thing
to note:

+<!ENTITY replyMsgHeader.label                 "Replying Messages">

that's not grammatically correct - either "Replying To Messages" or something
shorter would be better. Actually, I think it needs to be more descriptive about
what's happening - the user is picking what information to add to the quote
preface, right?

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Elaine, can you provide a screen shot of the resulting UI?  

Comment 17

[Karsten Düsterloh]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Elaine, can you provide a screen shot of the resulting UI?  

That would be nice, too.

But actually I don't think that these cripple prefs are worth any UI. A better
(though more complicated, I know) approach would be making templates able to use
predefined variables and use them when replying.

The prefs in question here are really just a very hackish snapshot to make the
attribution line at least a bit configurable and have been around for far too
long already. I don't think we want that in SeaMonkey.

Comment 18

[Ivan Baldo]

But it is needed by a lot of people! Currently the reply attribution line is too
dumb for a lot of people needs.
Some people need some sort of traceability of all replies, specially at work.
Some people need all the information as Outlook does, other prefer just a line
with the date, time and author of the replied email.
This must be configurable in the preferences account by account and it needs to
be supported.
Don't be so closed minded, to make a good program you must support most people
needs in adequate ways, without creeping the UI of course.

Please!

Thank you guys.



(In reply to comment #17)
> But actually I don't think that these cripple prefs are worth any UI. A better
> (though more complicated, I know) approach would be making templates able to use
> predefined variables and use them when replying.
> 
> The prefs in question here are really just a very hackish snapshot to make the
> attribution line at least a bit configurable and have been around for far too
> long already. I don't think we want that in SeaMonkey.

Comment 19

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #17)
> But actually I don't think that these cripple prefs are worth any UI. 

I agree with Karsten and I don't want this UI in Thunderbird (which it isn't),
sounds like Karsten doesn't want it in seamonkey mail either.

Also please note Bug 218258 which has had a similar effort but is still waiting
for someone to address my concerns before that can get checked in.

Comment 20

[elaine]

Attachment: UI by account for Quote preface setting when replying

The patch now is avaiable for setting quotepreface by account as Ivan Baldo
mentioned.About this UI,it is really needed by the average users since they are
not super users who can or would read/write the scripts.As a user many people
now feel inconvenient especially the date not in the quote preface. Why not let
the users happy?

Comment 21

[elaine]

Attachment: a screen shot of the resulting UI for 195356

Comment 22

[Karsten Düsterloh]

> About this UI,it is really needed by the average users since they are
> not super users who can or would read/write the scripts.As a user many people
> now feel inconvenient especially the date not in the quote preface. Why not let
> the users happy?

See, your efforts in enhancing the configurability of the attribution line are
very welcome! It's just the direction that's wrong...
These prefs are more of a excuse than a real feature and shouldn't have stayed
in for so long anyway. Providing a UI for this mess really isn't helpful.

Comment 23

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #17)
> (In reply to comment #16)
> > Elaine, can you provide a screen shot of the resulting UI?  
> 
> That would be nice, too.
> 
> But actually I don't think that these cripple prefs are worth any UI. A better
> (though more complicated, I know) approach would be making templates able to use
> predefined variables and use them when replying.

do examples or documentation exist on how to do this?

Comment 24

[Alex Janssen]

I think this UI is definitely worth it.  Any UI that improves the U experience
is worth it.  Programmers should program for the users, not themselves.  I've
been doing it for 23 years.  I say "Go Elaine!".  I want this UI.  The current
reply header is stupid.  It needs to display at least the date and time.  I like
CONTROL over my software.

Comment 25

[Karsten Düsterloh]

Re comment #24:
> Any UI that improves the U experience is worth it.

And that's exactly the point: it doesn't.
It just works around a deficient piece of code.

> I want this UI.

You can always use/write an addon/extension that does what you want.

Re comment #23:
> do examples or documentation exist on how to do this?

The template changes would have to be made in the libmime code
(and yes, that's a 'no', unfortunately).


Elaine,
rewriting the template code to be really ;-) useful is well out of the scope of
this bug (but you may try to fix bug 178263 if you like *g*), so how about this:

Fold the respective mailnews.reply_header* into one pref using variables for
certain information. These variables could then be filled in automagically.
Eg. mailnews.reply_header="On $date$, $time$, $author$) wrote in message $title$
with $mid$:\n(quoted):"

A possible UI for that could look like that:

+- attribution line ----------------------------------------------------------+
| You can have a self-defined attribution line when replying to mails, using  |
| certain variables like $author$ or $time$ (see help for details).           |
|                                                                             |
| Attribution Line: [$author$ wrote:________________________________________] |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Comment 26

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

|
> | certain variables like $author$ or $time$ (see help for details).           |
> |                                                                             |
> | Attribution Line: [$author$ wrote:________________________________________] |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> 

The Help files needs to be updated if this is implemented.

Comment 27

[Alex Janssen]

RE: comment #25
I like your variable substitution idea, Karsten.  It seems easy enough for the
average user to absorb, if it gets documented properly.  Make a lot of variables
available. *g*  $date$, $time$, $subject$ ...  I don't know what else would be
needed.  I just want somehow to get the date and time on the reply header.  I
use T-bird for all of my business email.  Ive been adding the date and time
manually.

Comment 28

[Ivan Baldo]

In my opinion, whatever solution is better than the actual state of things.
Some say that bug 178263 should be fixed instead, but that seems a lot of work
and it could take a long time to do.
I think something simple should be done _now_ and maybe in the future someone
could do bug 178263.
Programmers shouldn't pursue the perfect solution, since there is no perfect
solution, instead, programmers should strive to practical solutions and good
enough things, and improving those things over time.
Something is needed now, a practical solution to the problem, the perfect
solution could wait, since 90% of users would be fine with a practical solution.

Comment 29

[Alexander Kluss]

(In reply to comment #27)
> available. *g*  $date$, $time$, $subject$ ...  I don't know what else would be
> needed.

I will start the list :-)
$author$      - name <mail-adress>
$authorsname$ - name
$authorsmail$ - mail-adress
$date$        - short date like in OS
$longdate$    - long date like in OS
$time$, $subject$, $TO$, $CC$, $Quote$, $Sig$

and maybe the following
$MID$, $Newsgroup$, $Organisation$

Comment 30

[Alex Janssen]

This works for me ...
From http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/
// Change the reply header
// 0 - No Reply-Text
// 1 - <Author> wrote:   - Netscape 3.xx/4.xx style
// 2 - On <date> <author> wrote:
// 3 - user-defined string. Use the prefs below in conjuction with this.
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_type", 3);
// If you set 3 for the pref above then you may set the following prefs.
// The end result will be <authorwrote><separator><ondate><colon>
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_authorwrote", "%s said the following");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_ondate", "on %s");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_separator", " ");
user_pref("mailnews.reply_header_colon", ":");

This has to be put in the user.js file and so I imagine it is beyond most users
of t-bird.

Comment 31

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Comment 25 et seq really pertain to bug 107884, not this bug.  This bug was 
explicitly filed as a UI for one particular setting; if drivers think this 
feature is not worth it, they should WontFix this bug.

Comment 32

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 325051 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 33

[Brian]

I found the correct location of the main window when opening the TB, not under the open window when composing.

Ultimately, TB needs to have easy to configure menu from the main TB program.

Comment 34

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 325317 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 35

[Hiro]

*** Bug 275195 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 36

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 194273 [details] [diff] [review]
provide UI to custom replyheader setting

Marking obsolete, based on comment 19 and others.

Comment 37

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 195356 [details] [diff] [review]
UI by account for Quote preface setting when replying 

This too.

Comment 38

[Jose Luis Rodriguez Garcia]

Karsten, Scott, did you think about the templates that you proposed two years ago?

Two years and only a vague talking about templates, is a poor result, I think that it only helps to block the advances in the thunderbid project.


Reply header is basic feature for many people, and a basic implementation is enough for most of the people with this problem.

I think that a "hack" as you say is much better that 6 years without any 
solution, perhaps you think the opposite.

Comment 39

[[e-mail]]

Lets have the reply header as below and as in Outlook

______________________________________________
From: FirstName LastName
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 9:39 PM
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: reply Header

Comment 40

[rsx11m]

If you want this as a fixed-format reply header option, that's bug 218258.
The request here is on being able to pick and choose which headers to include.

Comment 41

[rsx11m]

FYI, bug 438375 has made mailnews.reply_header_type=2 the new default for Thunderbird/Shredder now, thus the "On <date>, <author> wrote:" heading.

Comment 42

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

wanted‑thunderbird3-; and i think this should probably be wontfixed at least for thunderbird.

Comment 43

[Steve Wardell]

Given that the date is now included, I am fine with WONTFIXing it. My main original concern (over 6 years ago) was to include the date which is now included.