283382 - space character delays printing until next word is started

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[John Doffing]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

  I've been using Mozilla and its email client for almost a year now. 
Sometimes, when I'm typing in a message and press the space bar at the end of a
word the space does not appear until the I start typing in the next word.  It's
very disconcerting to not see the space, think I must have not hit the space bar
properly, type in another space, and then have two spaces appear when I start
the next word.  
  I tried previous versions of Mozilla and Netscape 7.1 both and they had the
same problem.  The problem doesn't seem to occur as often with my present
version of Thunderbird (version 0.9 (20041103)).  Some emails I do not even
notice the problem.  However, with the old Mozilla or Netscape it was a problem
with every email. 

Reproducible: Sometimes

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the Thunderbird Message Compose window
2. Start typing an email message.
3. Get frustrated when the space doesn't always appear after typing a word.

Actual Results:  
I have been putting up with the problem, but after upgrading a friends PC to
Netscape they were very unhappy with the way the software works and asked for it
to be uninstalled.

Expected Results:  
1. Open the Thunderbird Message Compose window
2. Start typing an email message
3. The space appears at the end of every word after pressing the space bar.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Assuming you see the symptom only when you're at the maximum line width, this is 
a duplicate of bug 87314.

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Reporter responded by email.  Please do not do that; use the bug's webpage for 
further response.
====
My report was really just about spaces not appearing when the space bar is hit 
at the end of words.  Sometimes the space character will delay and not display 
until I start typing the next word.  If that's what bug 87314 was about that was 
not apparent to me. 

[...] I will try to leave the font set to fixed width for a while to see if that 
makes any difference. 
====

That comment about the font makes me wonder if you're using HTML compose mode 
rather than plain-text; if so, then this definitely is not a duplicate.  If 
you've overridden the "monospace" font setting in Thunderbird to a variable-
width font, then I don't know what to tell you; that's certainly not a 
recommended setting.

But if you're composing as plain text with a fixed-width font:

From bug 87314 comment 5:
> end-of-line spaces will be shown as typed *until* the wrap column is passed,
> at which point all the spaces will collapse to zero width.

This means: if your wrap column is 72 and you have typed such that a non-space 
character at the end of the line is in column 72, and you then type a space, it 
won't appear.  Any number of spaces won't appear until a non-space is typed in.  
That's a special case of the behavior described above.

Comment 3

[John Doffing]

  I don't remember overriding the default font setting to variable, maybe it
picked up that setting when converting from outlook express.  I tried to set the
font to fixed width and the problem is certainly still there.
  The space delay definitely happens at the end of a 72 column line, which I can
understand, but I just finished typing an email and after typing in a couple of
paragraphs it was happening after every word. That means it was happening at the
4th character from the left, the 12th character, the 18th character, after every
word.
  Is that what bug 87314 is talking about?
  Maybe I just have something configured incorrectly.  I seem to remember
turning off the spell checker w/o any luck.  Is there something about the way
Thunderbird's compose window works that it would get confused about spaces or
end of lines after a couple of paragraphs?

JD

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #3)
> I don't remember overriding the default font setting to variable, maybe it
> picked up that setting when converting from outlook express.  

No, this wouldn't have happened.  You would have had to make that change 
deliberately.  I suspect, now, that you are composing as HTML, not plain text, 
and so the proposed duplicate does not apply.

The HTML compose window always has a Format menu, and usually has a formatting 
toolbar (unless you turn it off); the plain text compose window has neither.


> That means it was happening at the 4th character from the left, the 12th
> character, the 18th character, after every word.
>   Is that what bug 87314 is talking about?

No.

There *was* a problem -- bug 235223 -- which exhibited the symptom you're 
reporting for HTML composition, but the patch that caused that problem was 
pulled out of the build long before TB 0.9 was released; I did see the symptom 
in builds at that time, but not since it was fixed.

Comment 5

[John Doffing]

  I had the Compose window format set to Auto-Detect. Does that mean it uses
HTML mode when composing messages? I've re-set the format to Plain Text Only and
will try it for a few days to let you know what happens.
  My first version of Mozilla was installed just before, within a month or so,
of when they released Netscape 7.1. Not sure what version that would be.  Maybe
it inherited the problem from that first install and for some reason the upgrade
to Thunderbird 0.9 (20041103) and patch did not install correctly.

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #5)
>   I had the Compose window format set to Auto-Detect. Does that mean it uses
> HTML mode when composing messages? I've re-set the format to Plain Text Only
> and will try it for a few days to let you know what happens.

You're looking at the wrong setting.  To select HTML mail composition, look at
  Account Settings | <account> | Composition & Addressing
   [] Compose messages in HTML format
The setting you changed has to do with whether HTML messages should be converted 
to plain text before sending -- which is a whole other can of worms.


> Maybe it inherited the problem from that first install

This is quite unlikely.

Comment 7

[John Doffing]

Mike,
  You were correct about my Composition mode being set to HTML. I unchecked the
Compose Messages in HTML Format account settings and have tried a couple of
emails in text mode with no problems. I'd still like to check it for a couple
more days to make sure the problem does not recur.
  If it appears the problem is fixed w/o HTML mode, is there anything you would
like me to try to fix the HTML mode problem?

Comment 8

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Any reason to keep this bug open?

Comment 9

[John Doffing]

(In reply to comment #8)
> Any reason to keep this bug open?

I can see no reason to keep this bug (283382) open.  The problem has not
recurred since I shut off the Compose Messages in HTML format option under my
ISP account settings in Thunderbird.

Thank you,
John Doffing

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

=> WFM per reporter's comment 9.