328869 - In fixed width font displays the vertical bar indicating quoted text doesn't have a width of one character - it should

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Michael Rozdoba]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 8.50
Build Identifier: version 1.5 (20051201)

When messages use fixed width font this is typically so characters form orderly columns & can be relied upon to line up. If such regions include standard quoted text which Thunderbird pleasantly marks by replacing the indenting leading '>' with contiguous vertical bars, this /should not/ interfere with fixed width alignment.

Unfortunately the rendered width of the vertical bars & spacing is less than a single character width (IME) & thus alignment is broken.

Example:

Someone posts the line

Thinderbird is wonderful

& I respond with

Someone wrote:
> Thinderbird is wonderful
    ^
I think you meant Thunderbird

I ought to be able to rely on the '^' appearing beneath the 'i' if everyone's using a fixed width display. Unfortunately it won't, but will instead appear shifted slightly to the right of the 'i'.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Use Thunderbird to view a posted message including such an example as shown above, with fixed width font as the display choice.

Actual Results:  
<graphical hence can't be shown here> See above description or modify bugzilla to allow screenshots to be uploaded

Expected Results:  
Same comments as for actual results

I appreciate you need to try to force users to report bugs in a useful programmer friendly way & it would help if they avoided posting duplicates, but...

At the end of the day IME if you force them to jump through too many hoops, such as registering & being persuaded to read several guides on how to report a bug (rather than just making such guides available), they won't bother & the software will suffer.

As you care about the product little will be gained from responding that the users lose out too. The result will be the same either way.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

There are other reasons why alignment won't necessarily work even if the quote bar width is changed:
1) the recipient may be using a proportional-width font to display messages
2) if the message has format=flowed (on by default for Mozilla), the quoted 
text can reflow on display.

That said: You can set this width yourself.  Add the following to your userChrome.css file:
 blockquote[type=cite] { border-left-width: 1ex !important; }

Comment 2

[Michael Rozdoba]

> That said: You can set this width yourself.
> Add the following to your userChrome.css file:
> blockquote[type=cite] { border-left-width: 1ex !important; }

Now that I didn't know - thanks :)

Comment 3

[Michael Rozdoba]

(In reply to comment #1)
> That said: You can set this width yourself. Add the following to your
> userChrome.css file:

I take it you meant chrome/userContent.css ?

>  blockquote[type=cite] { border-left-width: 1ex !important; }

I've tried fiddling with blockquote border-width, margin & padding but realised it's a little more complicated for the general case of multiple levels of indenting, such as

>> 1234
>     4
      4

as the indent isn't a simple multiple of the number of quote levels. I imagine it could be worked around (specify suitable adjustments for selectors blockquote & blockquote blockquote I suppose), but this gives me flashbacks of the last time I tried to sort out some positional issues with someone else's markup using css, so I'm going to cook steak & mushrooms instead ;)

Comment 4

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Reporter, does the issue still occur in the latest supported 2.0.0.x / Shredder trunk nightlies?

(1.5.0.x is now end-of-life and the latest supported 2.0.0.x is version 2.0.0.16)

Comment 5

[Michael Rozdoba]

Wow, a comment on a two year old bug... guess you're tidying up.

<goes & checks>

I'm running 2.0.0.16 atm & it seems I can't see this issue with it anymore. I can't be sure I haven't tweaked a config (without reinstalling, that is) but I doubt I have.

Still using Thunderbird & loving it :)

Comment 6

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Still using Thunderbird & loving it :)

Glad to hear that. :)

Gladly resolving WFM based on comment #5.