326088 - Composition can't wrap to window width with format=flowed off

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[John Middlemas]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.5 (20051201) http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=thunderbird-1.5&os=win&lang=en-US  

Turning off format=flowed causes wrapping to window width to fail when composing and replying to messages. E.g with Tools | Options | Composition | Wrap plain text messages, set to 900 say, and also Tools | Options | Display | Wrap text to fit window width ticked. All lines always go off the right side of the window and will not wrap to window width, both for quoted text in replies and for typing new text.

So turning off format=flowed does not work due to this drawback.

Format=flowed was turned off using the following two lines in user.js:-

user_pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false);
user_pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true);


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Turn off format=flowed using the following two lines in user.js:-

user_pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false);
user_pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true);

See this url for location of profile folder where user.js is:-
http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/edit

2. Tools | Options | Composition | Wrap plain text messages, set to 900.
Tools | Options | Display | Wrap text to fit window width ticked.

3. Reply to an email that has a long line say more than 200 characters and type a reply (of spaced words) that goes over the window width. 
Actual Results:  
You should see that the quoted text does not wrap to window width but is on one line and you have to horizontal scroll to see it all.

Also, when typing your reply, the words won't wrap to window width but will continue in one long line.







Expected Results:  
This behaviour contrasts that of say Netscape 4.7x messenger which correctly wraps long lines to window width when composing and replying.

If Tools | Options | Display | Wrap text to fit window width is ticked, then Thunderbird should do exactly that (under all conditions) when composing or replying to email because you are using the Display. It does not do so when format=flowed (f=f) is off so this is a bug in my opinion.

Also, inability to wrap to window width (with f=f off) is highly inconvenient. If you don't like f=f then you are stuck.



The standard RFC 2822 is wrong where it states there should be a limit of 998 characters on email line length. To get round wrapping problems with email there should never be added line breaks (hard wrapping) either when sending or receiving email. There should only be (soft) wrapping to window width on display, composition and replying to email. That way the original content of the email is not affected. What gives anyone the right to impose line breaks in my emails? Long paragraphs should be sent as one line without breaks if they were written like that.

The 998 limit was imposed "due to limitations in many implementations which send, receive, or store Internet Message Format messages". However, implementations that have trouble with long lines should be upgraded (or some other solution sought) rather than adhering to this standard. Setting standards in order to conform with poor software is wrong.

Format=Flowed is not a solution because the philosophy is still to hard wrap and this will always destroy original 

Someone else has written a better account of this here:-

http://www.tnlc.com/eep/wrap.html

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> Turning off format=flowed causes wrapping to window width to fail when
> composing and replying to messages. E.g with ...
>  Compostion | Wrap plain text messages, set to 900 say, and 
>  Display | Wrap text to fit window width ticked.
>
> All lines always go off the right side of the window and will not wrap to
> window width, both for quoted text in replies and for typing new text.

Instead of '900' you can use '0' instead -- that means "wrap to window width."

However, quoted text is never auto-rewrapped, with or without f=f -- 
bug 196033.  The reasoning here is, some messages have long lines that are better preserved (e.g., a sample command line) and it's harder to un-wrap 
such lines than it is to manually wrap them.

Comment 2

[John Middlemas]

In what follows I am using the following two terms:-

soft wrap: Wrap to window width while composing. Doesn't add permanent line breaks to emails.

hard wrap: Automatically adding line breaks permanently to emails.

OK, you can set 'Wrap plain text messages' to 0 and that will cause new written text in the composition window to soft wrap to the window width. This is an acceptable but the use of 0 is a very strange way to do it. I would prefer a clear written option on this point. I don't think many users will understand the difference between the Display window and the Composition window anyway and will think that the 'Wrap text to fit window width' setting for Display options applies to composing too. Highly confusing.

However I am reopening the bug because of there is no way to soft wrap quoted text to window width while composing. Bug 196033 is referring to permanent hard wrapping and this needs to be carefully distinguished from soft wrapping for display and editing purposes. 

Consequently quoted long lines appear as one long line in the composition window and it is difficult to find anything. This is unacceptable in my opinion since many people don't want to ever use hard wrapping. Quoted lines should soft wrap to window width if the new written text does. Why wouldn't you want that? Nothing is being permanently changed, it's just for display purposes so why not?

Netscape 4.7x is the perfect example of how to do it right. Select Edit + Preferences + Mail & Newsgroups + Messages and tick 'Wrap incoming plain text messages to window width'. This soft wraps both new typed text and quoted long lines to window width in the Composition window. Why can't Thunderbird do this simple thing?

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #2)
> This is unacceptable in my opinion since many people don't want to ever
> use hard wrapping. 

No.  *You* don't want to ever use hard wrapping.  Most people simply do not care, so long as the message is readable on the other side.


> Quoted lines should soft wrap to window width if the new written text does.
> Why wouldn't you want that? 

I forgot, yesterday, that there is another pref you can use, which does in fact provide soft-wrapping for the quotes: mail.compose.wrap_to_window_width
However, see bug 233705.

Don't reopen this bug.  If you believe there should be more UI to expose the preferences in question, then open an RFE (bug with severity=enhancement) about that.