278258 - selected text doesn't "Edit/Rewrap" with ">" marks.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 187997

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Steven Boothe]

For example the following text:

> Please don't take offense to my request--I just don't know much about your
organization and want to make sure my donation is being properly used to
directly help the kids.

If I just call the menu item to "Rewrap" from the "Edit" menu I get this:

> Please don't take offense to my request--I just don't know much about
> your organization and want to make sure my donation is being properly
> used to directly help the kids.

But if I don't want the whole message rewrapped (such as the header info) and I
just select the sentences that I want rewrapped, I end up with the following:

> Please don't take offense to my request--I just don't know much about
> 
your organization and want to make sure my donation is being properly
used to directly help the kids.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Are you using HTML or plain-text mail composition?  
Is the original message HTML or plain text?

When the original quoted text is displayed in the message, is it all shown in 
blue?

Comment 2

[Steven Boothe]

Under [Tools / Accounts / Composition & Addressing] I've got the button
UNchecked for composing messages in HTML format.

When I hit <control-r> to reply on a message with an unwrapped line it looks
like the following unwrapped (in all blue text):

horst wrote:
> Steven, I would be happy to help out with data entry, but be forewarned, I
don't have a lot of computer skills.  If you don't think this would be a
problem, e-mail me back or give me a call @ xxx-xxx, and we can set up a time. 
Thanks, xxxxx xxxxx

If the message had multiple unwrapped paragraphs, refer to my first post.

Comment 3

[gdub]

I get this behavior also, using v1.0.2 on Linux.
Plain-text composition and, I believe, plain-text original message.

First, I hit <ctrl+r> to bring up a reply window.  Of the 10 or so lines in the
quote, only 1 is very long.  Then, here are different senarios:

If I do "Edit/Rewrap", everything is fine: the line wraps, the '>' get inserted
correclty, and everything stays blue.

If I highlight just the long line then do "Edit/Rewrap", the line wraps and all
lines are blue, but no '>' symbols are inserted.

If I delete all but the long line of the quote, then do "Edit/Rewrap",
everything is fine: the line wraps, the '>' get inserted correclty, and
everything stays blue.

If I delete all but the long line of the quote, then highlight the line, then do
"Edit/Rewrap", the line wraps, no '>' symbols are inserted, and only the first
line stays blue.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Rewrap is known to be problematic.  Bug 187997 is specifically about the 
problem(s) with selected text.  What has helped for me is to select the quoted 
text plus a blank, unquoted line that directly follows the quoted portion; then 
the rewrap seems to work better.


However: I'm not sure how to have a quote appear as described in comment 2.

When I see a long line quoted in a reply, it either maintains its original 
length (and puts a horizontal scrollbar in the window) rather than wrapping
(as in attachment 114301 [details] from that other bug), or (if the original is HTML or 
text/plain;format=flowed) the long line is reflowed to the column width, but 
each line of the paragraph is properly quoted.

If I rewrap those long lines once, then the *result* is the same as comment 2's 
description of the *original*: multiple lines, all in blue, but with a quote 
mark only at the beginning of the first.  Rewrapping *again* -- either with the 
text selected or not -- only changes the text such that the lines without the 
quote marks are no longer shown in blue.

Alternately: if I set the hidden preference  mail.compose.wrap_to_window_width  
to True, then when I reply, the long line is wrapped as described in comment 2, 
but does not appear in blue.  Interestingly, Rewrap of a selection appears to 
work better in this case.


(In reply to comment #2)
> Under [Tools / Accounts / Composition & Addressing] I've got the button
> UNchecked for composing messages in HTML format.

This doesn't actually answer my question, since there are several ways to open 
an HTML reply window despite that setting.  However, I'll assume you're using 
the plain-text composition window.  (How do you tell?  The HTML window always 
has a Format item in the Option menu, the plain-text one does not.  The HTML 
window can have a Format menu and a formatting toolbar, but both of those can be 
hidden, depending on how you set things up.)

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 187997 ***