223851 - missing -- when replying with signature, text above quote, sign. below text

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[Jurij Čakardič]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

When replying to a message, with reply text above quoted text and the signature
below my reply, the -- line above the signature is missing.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. set "start my reply above the quote"
2. set place signature to "below my reply"
3. reply to a message

Actual Results:  
the -- line above the signature is missing

Expected Results:  
the -- should be there :-)

Comment 1

[John-Mason P. Shackelford]

Perhaps this is a feature not a bug :). See bug 223851.

Comment 2

[John-Mason P. Shackelford]

Sorry, I meant see bug 232621.

Comment 3

[ulli]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Sorry, I meant see bug 232621.

but then the '--' should also not be there when beginning a new message :)

Comment 4

[Jurij Čakardič]

That would be even nicer, not to have -- at all and put it in the signature if
you wanted to.

Comment 5

[Rishi Chopra]

Either the dashses should be taken away (allowing users to manually add them to
their signature files) or the dashes should always show up, both when replying
to email and composing new mail.

Comment 6

[Dan Tobias]

I disagree; I think the current setup is the most reasonable compromise -- the
standard sig separator is added when the signature is the last thing in the
message (i.e., on all new messages and on replies using signatures at the very
bottom), but left out in the case of top-posted replies with signature above
quoted material (where, if the sig separator were used, that would result in the
quoted material being considered part of the signature).

Many people regard top-posting (and its associated middle-posted signature
blocks) as an abomination before whatever deity might exist, but if Mozilla /
TBird is to support this (for which, unfortunately, there's enough demand to
make it a "must"), then its behavior regarding sig separators makes sense.

Some more background:
http://mailformat.dan.info/trailers/sigblocks.html

Comment 7

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

This is all OS, and really a MailNews issue.

Comment 8

[Rishi Chopra]

Removing the dashes would allow users to have bottom-quoted or top-quoted style,
and the choice of dashes or no dashes (i.e. dashes can be added to the signature
file)

Comment 9

[Thomas Winzig]

I believe a good compromise would be to retain the current behavior of
adding dashes when it thinks it is "right," but only if the person
does not start their signature with two dashes. If someone has that 
in the beginning of their signature file, it should tell the mail client,
"Hey, this person wants dashes above their signature every time." 

Comment 10

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

The dashes are *intentionally* left out in that case. Comment 6 is right (but I
strongly disagree about the "must" :) ). See also my comments in bug 62429.

INVALID.

Comment 11

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Dup of 231160
See also bug 62429 comment 324.

Comment 12

[Dan Tobias]

Since bug 231160 is later than this one, how come this is considered a dupe of
that instead of the other way 'round?

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 292043 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 302953 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 316297 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 318893 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 331695 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 337584 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[Martin Arndt]

(In reply to comment #10)
> The dashes are *intentionally* left out in that case. Comment 6 is right (but I
> strongly disagree about the "must" :) ). See also my comments in bug 62429.
> 
> INVALID.

But what about adding the "--" as it where a new mail and when the line with "<ENTER A NAME> wrote:" comes in, the "graying out"-effect is stopped?

Comment 20

[Dan Tobias]

(In reply to comment #19)
> But what about adding the "--" as it where a new mail and when the line with
> "<ENTER A NAME> wrote:" comes in, the "graying out"-effect is stopped?

A problem with that is that it's not just your own mail program that's involved in a sequence of receiving a message, replying to it, and having your reply read (and perhaps replied to again); the other person's mail program is also involved, and this might be a new version of Thunderbird/Mozilla (with your proposed feature change), an old version (without this "feature"), or some completely different mail program; you have no control of this.  Even if your own mail program stops graying-out when it hits the "[Name] wrote" line, maybe your recipient's program won't.  And maybe you or your correspondent is using a different format for the attribution line that won't trigger this feature at any rate.

Comment 21

[Martin Arndt]

(In reply to comment #20)
> A problem with that is that it's not just your own mail program that's involved
> in a sequence of receiving a message, replying to it, and having your reply
> read (and perhaps replied to again); the other person's mail program is also
> involved, and this might be a new version of Thunderbird/Mozilla (with your
> proposed feature change), an old version (without this "feature"), or some
> completely different mail program; you have no control of this.  Even if your
> own mail program stops graying-out when it hits the "[Name] wrote" line, maybe
> your recipient's program won't.  And maybe you or your correspondent is using a
> different format for the attribution line that won't trigger this feature at
> any rate.
> 

OK, I see the problem with that.. But I've got a new idea: what about comparing a mail with the signature file a user assigns?
I mean something like opening the signature file, reading the signature and then searching through the mail for that snippet? :)

Comment 22

[celian.godefroid]

Bumping up this issue, because I find it annoying having to add the double-dash above my signature each time I reply to an e-mail.