348697 - Mail Editor inserts two blank lines at top when using "start my reply above the quote"

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 227376

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[g.s]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060729 SeaMonkey/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060729 SeaMonkey/1.0.4

My settings are
[x] Automatically quote the original message when replying
and
Then [start my reply above the quote]

I use it this way, because I want to strip off some lines from the quoted message and insert my reply between the quoted lines. When I press the Reply-Button, I get the mail editor window with two leading blank lines before the "xy wrote:" line. In Netscape 4, it was possible to adjust the number of blank lines using "mailnews.reply_with_extra_lines" in prefs.js, however, this doesn't seem to work in Seamonkey.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set preferences to "Automatically quote the original message when replying" and "start my reply above the quote"
2. Choose a mail ar news message and click on "Reply"
3. Count the number of lines before "x wrote:"

Actual Results:  
I count two blank lines.

Expected Results:  
I expect to get no extra lines on top of my reply - or at least have a config lines which allows setting the extra lines to 0.

Further settings:
mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support: true
mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed: false
mail.quoteasblock: false
mail.quoted_graphical: false

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> My settings are
> [x] Automatically quote the original message when replying
> and
> Then [start my reply above the quote]
> 
> I use it this way, because I want to strip off some lines from the quoted
> message and insert my reply between the quoted lines.

I don't understand: why isn't the (recommended) Start Reply After the Quote suitable for this purpose?  That's the setting I use, and I'm always editing quotes and interleaving my response.  

Reply Above the Quote is intended for "business" use where the convention is to maintain a record of the entire conversation (in reverse-chronologic order).


> When I press the Reply-Button, I get the mail editor window with two leading
> blank lines before the "xy wrote:" line. In Netscape 4, it was possible to
> adjust the number of blank lines using "mailnews.reply_with_extra_lines" in
> prefs.js, however, this doesn't seem to work in Seamonkey.

Those blank lines are the space where you're expected to start your above-the-quote reply.  I'm pretty sure NS4 didn't support Above-the-Quote replies, as there was an enormous thrash about adding this feature (which is contrary to old-time mail conventions) sometime in the Moz1.0 to Moz1.4 timeframe.

Comment 2

[g.s]

> I don't understand: why isn't the (recommended) Start Reply After the
> Quote suitable for this purpose? 

If I used "Start Reply After the Quote", I would have to move the cursor to the beginning to start replying. If the same action has to be done for every reply, why not have it done by a machine?

> I'm pretty sure NS4 didn't support Above-the-Quote replies

You're pretty wrong then. I've used this Feature in Netscape 4 for ages. You can find it at Edit, Preferences, Mail & Newsgroups, Messages. And Netscape 4 did allow to change the number of lines inserted on top.

Comment 3

[Karsten Düsterloh]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I don't understand: why isn't the (recommended) Start Reply After the Quote
> suitable for this purpose?  That's the setting I use, and I'm always editing
> quotes and interleaving my response.  
> 
> Reply Above the Quote is intended for "business" use where the convention is
> to maintain a record of the entire conversation (in reverse-chronologic
> order).

Actually, "start reply above" and "inline reply editing" don't contradict.
I start all my replies _above_ the quote, sometimes adding a greeting there, usually just deleting the two lines, then I go down through the text, skipping and answering...

Comment 4

[John T]

This isn't a problem. To put a greeting and introduction on a message that's going to be snipped and have comments added, you can either cursor to the top and add a couple of returns to give yourself space to type, or you can let the program do it automatically. One line or two, the price is the same. Carriage return characters are only one byte apiece and they're free.

Comment 5

[g.s]

There is no need for additional blank lines - and I don't want to insert even more, I want to get rid of those which are unneccessary. I want to start my reply obove the quote because I read from top to bottom and thus insert my reply beginning at the top.

The way Seamonkey is doing it right now makes it look like this:


Alice wrote:
>
>
>Bob wrote:
>>
>>
>>Alice wrote:
>>> aaaa
>> bbbb
> aaaa
bbbb
[...]

(unless Alice and Bob like removing blank lines which are inserted superflously)

What I expect to get is:
Alice wrote:
>Bob wrote:
>>Alice wrote:
>>> aaaa
>> bbbb
> aaaa
bbbb
[...]

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

SeaMonkey v1.0.x is not supported anymore.

Can you reproduce with SeaMonkey v1.1.9 ?

Comment 7

[g.s]

Reproduced with
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080313 SeaMonkey/1.1.9

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

This got fixed last week.

Comment 9

[rsx11m]

I am reduping this against bug 227376 since bug 428040 was about empty-line handling involving a signature placed above the quote. The discussion here is generally about adding empty lines at the top, with or without a signature.