482386 - "HTML Mail Question" dialog recommends sending e-mails in plain text only despite loss of formatting

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 466674

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Alex Henrie]

User-Agent:       Opera/10.00 (X11; Linux i686 ; U; en) Presto/2.2.0
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.19 (20090105)

When sending an e-mail in Thunderbird to a recipient that has not been listed as being able to receive HTML mail, and the e-mail you are sending needs HTML formatting to be displayed as it was composed, a dialog appears which states:


Some of the recipients are not listed as being able to receive HTML mail.

Your message can be converted to plain text without losing important information. However, the plain text version might look different from what you saw in the composer.

Would you like to convert the message to plain text or send it in HTML anyway?

( ) Send in Plain Text and HTML
(*) Send in Plain Text Only (recommended)
( ) Send in HTML Only


The MIME specification, which unleashed HTML e-mail on the world, was published in 1992 (RFC 1341). Fast forward to 2009 and practically every e-mail client in use can handle HTML messages. At minimum, clients can display just the plain text portion of an e-mail sent in both plain text and HTML.

In light of the wide support for MIME and HTML, Thunderbird's recommendation that users send messages in plain text only, despite the loss of formatting that will result, does not make sense. It is particularly confusing to users when slashes are inserted into their messages in place of italics, or stars instead of boldface. Other e-mail clients like the web interfaces to Hotmail and Gmail always send messages in both plain text and HTML and no one complains.

Please tweak Thunderbird to recommend the option "Send in Plain Text and HTML". Better yet, consider sending in both formats automatically by default and not expecting the average user to be able to make an informed decision about it.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click "Write".
2. Address the message to someone that is not listed as being able to receive HTML mail. Using your own e-mail address is a good example.
3. Use bold, italics, or other formatting in the message body.
4. Click "Send".
Actual Results:  
A dialog pops up recommending that you send the message in plain text despite the loss of formatting, insertion of slashes instead of italics, etc. How the message will be altered if sent in plain text is not made clear, and the dialog implies that most e-mail users cannot receive HTML mail, which is not true.

Expected Results:  
The dialog should recommend that you send the message in both plain text and HTML, or Thunderbird should just sent the message in both formats without asking you.

See also bug 28735, 'Need Better Text in "Ask Me" Dialog of HTML Intelligent Send'

Comment 1

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

So, you think "default action should be to send out html + plaintext w/o asking"?

Okay, done.

Comment 2

[Alex Henrie]

Ah, thank you for the link to the other bug. I'm glad to hear it's been fixed!