354744 - Formatting wildly inconsistent between reply compose and the sent e-mail; no true plain text compose

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Dave F]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7

I want to be able to compose a reply to an HTML message or a simple plain text e-mail, with the original text include using blue quote bars, and have the sent e-mail look the same as it does in the compose window. What happens is that the nicely spaced e-mail gets vertically scrunched once sent. It makes me look unable to format an e-mail. I have fiddled with every setting I could find, tinkered with prefs.js... nada. What I want is either for the mail formatting to stay the same or to go into a true plain text compose mode (not an HTML edit mode).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. reply to an email
2. add some comments inline; you'll see lots of whitespace between paragraphs
3. send the mail and look in the sent mail folder... all that whitespace is GONE.
VERY FRUSTRATING



Expected Results:  
Sending the message should NOT CHANGE THE FORMATTING!!!!!
 - OR -
When replying, provide an option to remove the blue quote bars and just use ">" chars so the formatting doesn't get trashed.
 - OR - 
Provide some way to turn off the HTML editor and use simple plain text editor.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

You can uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" under account settings to compose in plain text.

The lost empty lines sounds like bug 314213.

Comment 2

[Dave F]

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7)
> Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.7)
> Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
> 
> I want to be able to compose a reply to an HTML message or a simple plain text
> e-mail, with the original text include using blue quote bars, and have the sent
> e-mail look the same as it does in the compose window. What happens is that the
> nicely spaced e-mail gets vertically scrunched once sent. It makes me look
> unable to format an e-mail. I have fiddled with every setting I could find,
> tinkered with prefs.js... nada. What I want is either for the mail formatting
> to stay the same or to go into a true plain text compose mode (not an HTML edit
> mode).
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. reply to an email
> 2. add some comments inline; you'll see lots of whitespace between paragraphs
> 3. send the mail and look in the sent mail folder... all that whitespace is
> GONE.
> VERY FRUSTRATING
> 
> 
> 
> Expected Results:  
> Sending the message should NOT CHANGE THE FORMATTING!!!!!
>  - OR -
> When replying, provide an option to remove the blue quote bars and just use ">"
> chars so the formatting doesn't get trashed.
>  - OR - 
> Provide some way to turn off the HTML editor and use simple plain text editor.
> 

(In reply to comment #1)
> You can uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" under account settings to
> compose in plain text.
> 
> The lost empty lines sounds like bug 314213.
> 

(In reply to comment #1)
> You can uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" under account settings to
> compose in plain text.
> 
> The lost empty lines sounds like bug 314213.
> 

Yes, bug 314213 does document the line spacing problem, but provides almost no context about why this it's so exasperating. This bug has been annoying people for years. If anyone consolidates these two bugs, please retain the information from both bug reports. Thanks.

Comment 3

[Dave F]

!?! What is this setting doing in account settings? BIZARRE. 
I think that should be a bug. Well at least *I'll* never forget it.

Yes, this fixes it. Thanks!!!!!!!

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Yes, bug 314213 does document the line spacing problem, but provides almost
> no context about why this it's so exasperating. This bug has been annoying
> people for years. 

No, it hasn't -- that bug was a (relatively) recent regression from another patch checked in about a year ago.


(In reply to comment #3)
> !?! What is this setting doing in account settings? BIZARRE.

See bug 209744.  It's there because the HTML-compose option needs to be different for different identities, and Account Settings is the current interface we have for identity setting.  Strictly speaking, accounts and identities are two different things.

=> WFM per reporter's comment 3.