352776 - Copy header / summary / address info from selected mail messages

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[Wayne Woods]

This is a Thunderbird equivalent of bug 177740. Or very similar, anyway.

I'd like to be able to copy select messages in the main message window, and have the header info, or some sort of summary list for each, added to the clipboard as a unicode text flavour. This is handy for people trying to generate summaries of their mail received.

There's at least a couple of possibilities here...

In Apple's Mail client, the basic header info for each message is copied. One header entry per line (Subject, From, To, etc.). So the copy for each message spans multiple lines.

In Eudora, I believe, it copies a one-line summary that matches the current header pane view. So the info copied is entirely dependent on what your view prefs are.

Both have their benefits. I'm currently leaning towards the former.

Comment 1

[Wayne Woods]

I've worked a bit on the code for this already. I found it was easy enough to enable copy for the threadpane, and to add something to the clipboard for each selected message.

That just leaves generating the header info to be added.

Is there already a function to generate a text summary of basic header info for a given message? Something like the table that's added to the top of all forward-inline messages, but as text with newlines instead of table rows.

If not, a suggestion of the best approach to this would be greatly appreciated! I could probably emulate a lot of the code forward-inline header table code, but maybe there's a better way.

Thanks :)

Comment 2

[Jan Hoogenraad]

In Outlook, the Eudora approach is followed.
This is convenient, as one can export easily into a spreadsheet program.