615865 - Allow Save As > File to append to an existing file

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 134526

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Chris Leslie]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6

1. (less important!) if one uses 'save as' to a text file the file type should be .txt rather than .eml (it makes it a lot easier to read with an editor afterwards which would be the usual reason for saving as .txt)
2. (picking up from my ancient steam driven Compuserve email client) it would be very useful to have an appending form of the 'save as' command. This could either be an extra tick box or a separate 'append to' commend. I have a lot of correspondence on some subjects and it would be nice to be able to produce a series of text files each with a common thread rather than having a significantly larger email store. This would seem a small, but powerful, change

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. not applicable
2. 
3.
Actual Results:  
not applicable

Expected Results:  
not applicable

can one have a form for submitting suggestions for improvement!!? I feel I am going the wrong way to make these suggestions, but could not find any other.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.12)
> Gecko/20101026 Firefox/3.6.12 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
> Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12)
> Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6
> 
> 1. (less important!) if one uses 'save as' to a text file the file type should
> be .txt rather than .eml (it makes it a lot easier to read with an editor
> afterwards which would be the usual reason for saving as .txt)

I get to choose the file type when I save.


> 2. (picking up from my ancient steam driven Compuserve email client) it would
> be very useful to have an appending form of the 'save as' command. This could
> either be an extra tick box or a separate 'append to' commend. I have a lot of
> correspondence on some subjects and it would be nice to be able to produce a
> series of text files each with a common thread rather than having a
> significantly larger email store. This would seem a small, but powerful, change

Can you explain this a bit moe ?

> can one have a form for submitting suggestions for improvement!!? I feel I am
> going the wrong way to make these suggestions, but could not find any other.

http://www.getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging is another way to do it.

Comment 2

[Chris Leslie]

In answer to point 1 to clarify --you can save the email as a text file but it is given a type of .eml. As a text file it should have type .txt to enable editors and other programs working with text files to pick it up correctly. .eml should be restricted to thunderbird files!

To clarify point 2, what I would like to see is the equivalent affect of the Linux 'cat' command. in other words if I do this sequence:
save as email1 to filex
append email2 to filex
append email3 to filex

filex will now contain email1|email2|email3.
the save command simply overwrites the file.

This, in my view, could be achieved in a number of ways:
a. a new 'append' command alongside 'save as'
b. a tick box on the 'save as' window indicating append rather than overwrite
c. an option on the 'file already exists...' warning window allowing append, I suspect that this is, however, a standard windows response that you cannot get at!

such a command structure would be very valuable and enhance Thunderbird even further above its rivals.

I hope that this helps you

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

1. I would expect item 1 to be WONTFIX.  In part because this has been the default for so long, and in part because for most people that's probably what the need.

2. because bugzilla tackles one issue per bug, I'm morphing this bug to item 2