192359 - typing after pasting should not use formatting of pasted text

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Editor, defect, P5)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

Steps to reproduce:
1. Type some text in a message composition window.
2. Paste some text from a web page with formatting (fixed-width font, bold, etc).
3. Continue typing in the mail message, with or without starting a new paragraph
first.

Results: the text you type in step 3 has the formatting of the pasted text. 
There's no obvious way to get back to normal formatting.

Workaround: copy some of your own text from before the pasted text, paste it,
type more stuff, then delete the duplicated text.

Older versions of AIM for Windows had this bug, but it was fixed in the last few
months.  (I'm using AIM 5.1.3036, which has this bug fixed.)  So this bug is
P-AIM for NIM.

Comment 1

[Joe Francis]

Again, this is by design.  When your create of insert styled content, the style
continues until you turn it off.  The one exception to this are links.  Use
"Discontinue Text Styles" (which has a hotkey) in the Format menu to terminate
any styles at your insertion point.

Comment 2

[Joe Francis]

Something we should do though is to make sure midas has a button for removing
styles.  Do you agree, Kathy?

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

> Again, this is by design.

Reopening until you have a reason other than "this is by design".  That sounds
way too much like "this is the way it is, so this is the way it should be".

I filed this bug because I think Mozilla's UI for pasting is confusing and
inefficient, and I think AIM's recent change in behavior is evidence that I'm
not alone.

> When your create of insert styled content...

Huh?

> Use "Discontinue Text Styles" (which has a hotkey) in the Format menu to 
> terminate any styles at your insertion point.

I'm not trying to "terminate styles"; I'm trying to continue typing using the
same style I was using before pasting.  What if the text I had been typing
before was styled?

I don't think in terms of "discontinuing styles" and so I didn't think to use
that command even though I knew it existed.  If I don't think of trying
something before filing a bug, I think it's unlikely that a majority of users
will think of it before giving up and using a lame, time-consuming workaround.

Making me use "discontinue text styles" makes pasting a two-step process (or
more if I had been typing styled text).  Pasting shouldn't be a multi-step process.

Comment 4

[Joe Francis]

There are some interesting ramifications to the approach you are suggesting. 
The first is that two identical looking documents with identical selections can
yield different results when you type (depending on whether earlier styled
content was pasted in or created directly).  The next is that if you paste
something at the end, then click back at the beggining and edit, then click back
at the end and type, now you have to onor the style that was pasted.  This is
because you must always honor the styles present where the user places the
selection.

Comment 5

[Joe Francis]

cc'ing a few folks to see what they think about this issue.

Comment 6

[Daniel Glazman (:glazou) (not active in Mozilla any more)]

WONTFIX from my point of view, because of all the reasons Joe gave

Comment 7

[Kathleen :Brade]

regarding comment 2: Midas authors can add a button for removing styles or not
(doc.execCommand("removeformat", null, null))

Comment 8

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 281860 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[david.dieterich]

This bug has been sitting dormant for 2 years and most of what I'm reading here
seems obsolete to Thunderbird today (Midas, Format menu, etc).  Hey Joe, how
about an update?

What percentage of the time are you typing along in a new message, paste in
something (with a different text format), keep typing with the new format, and
say to yourself "I'm glad that Thunderbird changed my text format"? Or "I
intended to finish my email with a font and size different than I started with"?
For me it is 0% to both.  This is one of the few pesky problems that I encounter
every day with Thunderbird.  Please fix this one soon.

Sidenote: I'm surprised that I couldn't find this bug prior to logging dup
281860, - the bugzilla search mechanism needs work.  Being sure that this bug
must have been logged, I looked pretty hard. Try 'paste format' and see what I mean.

Comment 10

[Hugo]

Seriously, 2007???  This issue is still not fixed, is anyone going to do anything about this?  So terribly annoying.  David is 100% correct that 0% of the time is someone going to want to continue typing in the same text as the pasted content.  What is even worse, there are many aspects of your newly typed text, after your insert, that you cannot reformat.  The only way around this I have found is to hit enter a few times so you have your original format on a few empty lines, then, make your insert somewhere between the empty lines.  Again, that is a work around.
There is no way to correct the text after an insert if you have not previously formatted empty lines or re insert text with formatting to match your original.  This is a BUG, not a "by design".  
This stands true for the "insert" also.  Why can't you change your inserted text?  Do you mean to say that you need to make sure your inserted text is exactly the way you want it prior to insertion?  Many times the way text looks, even in Open Office, will be different in Thunderbird, you need to be able to change it, such as, even being able to remove "bold" which you cannot do.
Issue appears on Windows 8, Thunderbird 31.4.0

Comment 11

[Jens Stutte [:jstutte]]

Bulk-downgrade of unassigned, >=5 years untouched DOM/Storage bugs' priority.

If you have reason to believe this is wrong (especially for the severity), please write a comment and ni :jstutte.