262475 - unwrap selected text by applying `white-space:pre`: need plain-text composition 'style' to prevent wrapping of long lines (Unwrap) - long lines now always displayed non-wrapped in plain text composition

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement)

Description

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

In some cases, it is desirable to enter a long line of text into a plain text 
composition and not have it be wrapped to the window width.

When replying to a message with long source lines, the quoted text maintains the 
original line length; the text is displayed (in the plain text composition 
window) without wrapping (and in blue).  This text is styled with
  white-space:pre
Sometimes maintaining the line length is a problem, but it can easily be fixed 
using Edit|Rewrap.

I propose a means to provide  white-space:pre  styling of any text within the 
window, suppressing the wrapping during composition in the same way.

 # 1) This text probably should be color-coded, but not necessarily in blue like 
the quoted text; perhaps in green.
 # 2) The user should be able to select text and apply "suppress wrapping" via 
an item in the Edit menu.  (Perhaps "Unwrap" to complement "Rewrap".)  Any text 
so treated would be re-rendered immediately.  Unwrap would be disabled if no 
select applied; when enabled, the action would apply to every line of text 
included (or partially included) in the selection.
 # 3) This style would also be automatically applied when using Forward Inline 
on a text/plain message (without f=f) or for text within an HTML message that 
has been enclosed within a <pre> block.
 # 4) Character-level editing would behave just as it does (or rather, as it 
should) for quoted text; joining or splitting lines in particular would preserve 
the attribute.

To turn off the mode, the user would select Edit|Rewrap on the text (either on 
the selection or on the entire message body, as is done now).

Transmitting these lines via SMTP should be handled just as the long quoted 
lines are handled now.  (It might be worth considering converting messages 
containing long lines to quoted-printable to allow breaking the source lines to 
a sensible length, but that's another bug.)

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
>  # 3) This style would also be automatically applied when using Forward Inline 
> on a text/plain message (without f=f) or for text within an HTML message that 
> has been enclosed within a <pre> block.

Bug 262476 opened for this particular case.

Note that messages which contain Unwrapped styling should probably not be sent 
with format=flowed.

Comment 2

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

*** Bug 244784 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

from bug 244784 comment 0:
> I have tested Ximian Evolution: The word-wrap border is kept at 72 chars, but I
> can switch off word-wrap for any mail parts. This works by selecting some part
> and changing a combobox fron "Normal" to "Preformatted".

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 170178 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

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

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

This sure is annoying with outlook always sending loooooong lines.

Comment 7

[chrizilla]

(In reply to Mike Cowperthwaite from comment #0)

#1) This text probably should be color-coded, but not necessarily in blue like the quoted text; perhaps in green.

Good idea, but what color does the text portion have if text is unwrapped (green) and quoted (blue) ?