578622 - Create links automatically when entering URLs directly in email body text

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement)

Description

[ianfraser]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1 ThunderBrowse/3.3.1
Build Identifier: 3.1

Coming from Outlook Express, I find one of the most annoying things about Thunderbird is its inability to recognise some like

www.anywebsite.com

as a link.  I should be able to enter, or cut and paste it in, and have the link appeared underlined in blue.

Instead of that, I need to click on:

Insert

Link

(having copied the link) tab to Link Location

Insert the URL by Shift-Insert

Click on OK

... when a simple Shift-Insert ought to place the copied text directly into the e-mail being composed and have it recognised as a link.

Surely this feature can be included?  It's so frustrating to have to 4 unnecessary extra keystrokes and/or use of the mouse for each and every link.



Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

Thunderbird already does this, but the link isn't clickable in the composer.

Comment 2

[Joe Sabash [:JoeS1]]

ianfraser,
To satisfy yourself that links can in fact be added, please try the following:
Compose a message and paste or type in a valid link.
Either send it to yourself, or use File>>send later.
Open the mail and you will see the link. The confusing thing here is that the link is added just before sending,(or saving)
At the time of composition the link is not actually there yet.

If you are satisfied that this actually works, please mark this bug as "worksforme"

Comment 3

[ianfraser]

Tried what you suggested.  I agree that I see it the link in the received message (one that I sent to myself).

However, when drafting, why cannot a link be immediately recognised and appear in blue (as it would in Outlook Express, for example, from which many users have migrated)?

It's confusing and uncertain when it appears as just text.  If I go through the lengthy procedure that I described in my original posting then the link DOES appear in blue and underlined in the originally composed message.  I'd like to see Thunderbird recognise it as a link straight away when a link is pasted into the message.  This is what most users need.

Small issues like this and the necessity to click on the box "Don't use alternate text" when trying to attach an image to an email (3 votes on this but no one working on it) are absolutely maddening.  Most users don't know, I suspect, what alternate text is.  I certainly don't.

Ian

Comment 4

[Joe Sabash [:JoeS1]]

(In reply to comment #3)

> It's confusing and uncertain when it appears as just text.  If I go through the
> lengthy procedure that I described in my original posting then the link DOES
> appear in blue and underlined in the originally composed message.  I'd like to
> see Thunderbird recognise it as a link straight away when a link is pasted into
> the message.  This is what most users need.
> 
> Small issues like this and the necessity to click on the box "Don't use
> alternate text" when trying to attach an image to an email (3 votes on this but
> no one working on it) are absolutely maddening.  Most users don't know, I
> suspect, what alternate text is.  I certainly don't.
> 
> Ian

I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I'm doing what I can to point TB devs in this direction.