181028 - quote message problems with compose from stand alone msg window

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

quote problems with compose from stand alone msg window

from this:

+++ MsgComposeCommands.js	20 Nov 2002 02:09:16 -0000

+function GetSelectedMessages()
+{
   if (gMsgCompose) {
     var mailWindow = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/appshell/window-
mediator;1"].getService()
                      .QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIWindowMediator)
                      .getMostRecentWindow("mail:3pane");

1)  start up 3 pane
2)  open stand alone msg window
3)  close 3 pane
4)  from stand alone msg window, do reply or new msg
5)  quote won't quote the message (in either scenario!)

whoa, one more

1) open 3 pane
2) select message, hit reply 
3) select different message in 3 pane
4) got back to compose window, do quote
5) we quote the current selected message.

is that how it's supposed to work, according to the spec?

should we be passing in the selected uris to the compose window, from the 
mailWindow that opens the compose window, and use them first, and if none (or 
the messages are deleted) then use the front most mail window (3 pane or stand 
alone)?

Comment 1

[Pete Zha]

Quote message is to quote whatever message current selected. It's different with
the same function in Netscape 4.x, but it's cool. You could quote more than one
message to the composer.

Comment 2

[Pete Zha]

Attachment: patch to fix the first problem

This patch is to fix the first problem mentioned in the description. We can
quote orignial message if no message is selected or 3 pane is closed.
For the second problem, we need another menu item to fix it. Maybe named "Quote
Orignial Message", or like this.
Any suggestion?

Comment 3

[Pete Zha]

taking

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 226014 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Tweaking summary so search on "quote message" will work; reducing severity.

Comment 6

[Gary Aitken]

The current behavior is pretty non-intuitive, and violates the principle of
least surprise.
The default of a "Quote Message" in the composition window should be to quote
the message being replied to.
If some other message is to be quoted, some additional action / a different
paradigm should be used; much as "save" and "save as".  e.g. "quote additional
message" brings up a message summary window in which one can select the message
to be quoted.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 261604 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 241691 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[[e-mail]]

Perhaps we need a separate menuitem to quote the original message? Of course, it
would only need to be displayed when the original message is not the selected
message, so as to avoid cluttering up the UI.

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #9)
> Perhaps we need a separate menuitem to quote the original message? Of course,
> it would only need to be displayed when the original message is not the
> selected message, so as to avoid cluttering up the UI.

Perhaps we could simply remove the feature entirely.  I know I never use it;
Paste-as-Quotation is your friend.

Besides, what's the behavior supposed to be when there are multiple 3-pane 
windows open?

Comment 11

[Gary Aitken]

Suggestion:
If the currently selected message is the same as the one being replied to,
simply quote the current message.  Otherwise, dynamically add a drop-down
with two possibilities:
  quote currently selected message
  quote original message
This servess several purposes:
  Allows original behavior, which some people use once they know it is
possible (e.g. I use it now that I know it's possible)
  Educates people that the two behaviors are possible
  Works the way you expect in the simple case when the selection hasn't been
changed.

Comment 12

[Sam Garnham]

I agree with Gary's two comments on this. I disagree with #10; Paste As
Quotation doesn't insert the reply header (by default "[author] wrote:")

One further counter-intuitive area is how to remove a quoted a message.
'Edit>Undo' is greyed out. Options menu does not have 'Remove quoted message',
and 'Options>Quote Message' quotes it a second time.

Finally trying to insert inline comments into quoted messages is awkward. I
usually find myself attempting to trim unwanted areas of the quoted message,
then clicking undo because my change would affect the nesting of coloured bars
and theres little user control over this nesting. Perhaps like 'indent/undent'
there should be 'inquote/unquote'.

Comment 13

[zug_treno]

*** Bug 332186 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Greg Colyer]

I'm used to the current behaviour, and in the case of zero or one 3-panes (the two originally reported bugs) I'm not sure that anything needs to be done.

However, with 2 or more 3-panes I agree with Mike that there is a problem. There's also a combination of the first two cases that is confusing:

1. Have one 3-pane open
2. Open a message in a standalone message window
3. In the 3-pane, select a different message
4. In the message window, click Reply to open a compose window
5. In the compose window, choose Options > Quote Message

The newly selected message in the 3-pane is quoted, even though (unlike the 3-pane only case) the message being replied to is still visible.

Comment 15

[Meichthys]

9 years later and this one caught me by surprise. I was expecting that the Quote button would quote the original message by default.
Perhaps we can re-name the tool-tip for the quote button to read "Quote currently selected message" instead of "Quote the previous message" which is clearly not what's happening.