Closed Bug 677046 Opened 13 years ago Closed 13 years ago

Thunderbird Changes Font Size While Typing

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

x86
Windows Vista
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 588347

People

(Reporter: s.c.wilson, Unassigned)

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0
Build ID: 20110615151330

Steps to reproduce:

If while typing I back up to make a correction, subsequent text is frequently the next smaller font size (and can't be changed to match starting size).  (I'm using T'bird 5.0 in Vista Home with the font option set to Calibri 13pt, but this problem is not new to 5.0).

I found that someone in the Thunderbird forum had reported this in October 2010  and he said he had seen it reported a year earlier than that.

It's intermittent, so the problem may be that testers had been unable to  replicate the bug. But recently I trapped an instance and made the fault happen repeatedly. I use below exactly what I was typing; please try it:


Actual results:

1. Hit 'Reply' to any e-mail. The bug doesn't occur in a fresh e-mail.
2. Type the following (no indent):
	Actually, it came from Doug
3. Using the mouse, place the cursor before the 'c' of 'came' and start typing 'was' (omit apostrophes)
4. Press the DEL key repeatedly to erase 'came from'
5. Use the mouse to place the cursor at the end of 'Doug' and type:
	's discovery.
(to make it "...was Doug's discovery")

You should find that the word 'discovery' is in a reduced font. Select all text and hit the font enlargement icon [A] a couple of times to make the disparity more visible.



Expected results:

I hope this is helpful and enables someone to track this down. To avoid I find I have to compose in Notepad and copy/paste into Thunderbird.
This is definitely a dup (bug # evades me at the moment)
The key is here:
>5. Use the mouse to place the cursor at the end of 'Doug' and type:
>	's discovery.
>(to make it "...was Doug's discovery")

When you place the cursor at the end of "Doug" the placement is actually outside of the font tag.
To avoid this, always place the cursor before the last character and re-type, then continue.
Joe,

Yes, I do that too as a workaround, but, as you say, it's still definitely a bug. It shouldn't change from our default font setting to something else.
bug 588347 is filed against the core code causing this selection problem.
I thinks it's best to dup against that bug.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 13 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
This problem continues in Thunderbird 17.0.6 and has never stopped in previous iterations. I can be typing a new email, press space to start the next word, and the font becomes one size smaller. I can back up and place the cursor before the last character of the correct size, and continue typing in the correct size (as noted as a workaround, above), but this requires excessive steps and frequent replacement of the cursor just to achieve a font with a consistent size. I have not been able to stop this problem by changing Option settings for message Display, although I have tried many different font settings. If you need more information, please email me at admin@iwsmoney.com and I'll try to be more specific. This problem has persisted from my earliest use of Thunderbird (at least as early as version 2 or 3) to the present.
Has this problem been addressed yet? It is very, very annoying! Fonts seem to change at will. If there is a default font set in options, then TB should stay in that font.
It seems to be resolved in versions 24+. Download from Beta channel, the betas work fine, no probs here with using them. Otherwise you can try using QuoteandComposeManager addon from https://nic-nac-project.org/~kaosmos/index-en.html. It's not a bad workaround, but I would use TB 24 or 25
Version 24.2.0 on win7 64bit, the problem persists...
The problem still consists with 24.2.0 win7 36 bit. What's more even if one does change the size to match previous typing, that's not what the recipient sees!
These problems persist with 24.4.0 on Linux Mint 16 (Cinnamon).
Just upgraded to T'bird v31.0 on Win7 64bit. It still has this problem. Ran into it twice today. 
Of course, now that I'm trying to reproduce it, I can't. But this has definitely been an ongoing issue. Have used T'bird for several years, and I'm always running into this problem. I'll post again the next time it happens.
-k-
T too have just upgraded to v31.0 on Win7 32 bit. Yes I too have this problem. I hope for a result each time I upgrade, but alas not yet. To misquote King Henry II of England "who will free us from this turbulent bug?".
The only way I have found to get around this font problem reliably is as follows. (This is for HTML messages only). 

Configure font settings in Thunderbird Options in the following manner. You may be able to use other fonts and sizes than the ones shown here; however, the trick is to make the settings for Font and Size consistent across all the options (Display, Displayed Advanced, Composition, Format of individual messages, etc.) Hopefully I haven't inadvertently left any of the settings out. Once you set them up consistently, the font shouldn't change while you're typing a message.

FONT SETTINGS

1) Options > Display > Formatting tab > Fonts & Colors tab > Default font: Arial; Size: 15

2) Options > Display > Formatting tab > Fonts & Colors tab > Advanced button > (Fonts & Encodings dialog box) > Proportional dropdown: Sans Serif; Size dropdown: 15

Sans Serif dropdown: Arial

Minimum font size dropdown: 15

(For Monospace dropdown, I use Font: Consolas; Size: 15. But I don't know if this matters. Better keep the same size as above just to be on the safe side. You can play around with this. Also, I have Fonts for; Western character set at the top of Display Advanced (Fonts and Encodings dialog))

3) Options > Composition tab > HTML > Font: Variable Width; Size: medium

4) When composing an HTML message, make sure you don't change Font or Size under Format menu; they should be kept the same as in #3, above (i.e., consistent, regardless of your preferred Font or Size). And don't change them using the Formatting toolbar buttons. This may vitiate the effect of the above attempts at providing consistency across all Display and Composition settings.)

Obviously, you can experiment with your choice of fonts and sizes. I just recommend you keep them consistent throughout all the options as shown above (i.e., same Font and Size in Display Default font and Advanced settings; same Font and Size in Composition tab and in Format menu/toolbar buttons for individual messages).

I cannot attest to how your emails will be displayed in AOL, Gmail or any other email provider when displayed in a web browser window. This depends on how the providers and browsers choose to handle your Fonts and Sizes.

Your mileage may vary. However, this at least prevents the font from changing while I'm typing, which is the most frustrating and persistent symptom/effect of this bug. 

I have spent many hours over 3 years, analyzing how the disparate Options/settings (i.e., Display, Display Advanced, Composition and individual message Format settings) interact with each other. I believe the problem lies in the interplay of these different settings. Also, you may have noticed I did not cover Plain Text settings above. We can only hope and assume that the Plain Text settings have no effect on the HTML settings, because, obviously, they shouldn't. 

I am not a developer and claim no programming knowledge or technical understanding of Thunderbird code. Nor do I offer this as a resolution of the bug that obviously still persists. I have refrained from posting this workaround for many months to make sure I tested it, confirmed it works, and have the stones to post it without fear of getting flamed for being an ignorant user. However, this is a workaround that has been working fine for me for more than 6 months, once I got it all straight. Good luck playing around with these settings to make them work for you as you want them to.

And God help the developers trying to resolve this morass of conflicting options and the underlying code. The above information may provide some clues as to how it can be resolved.
Thanks David ... this bug has been a pain for some time now. I'll try your suggestions to see how things go.

The work around to place the cursor before the last character of the last correctly sized word and then re-typing or pasting in the larger font is annoying indeed. 

The use of bullet points mid message is also an issue as it then decides to flip over to a larger font.
For what it's worth, I just found this page because this issue has recently been driving me insane. I've used Thunderbird for quite a while and never had this problem until recently. I checked what version I was using in the "About" and it was 24.6. It then immediately began downloading an update, and I find I am now at version 31.2. I'm set to automatically install updates, so WHY I was so far behind I don't know (BUT... that isn't the issue here!). I'll see if the update cures the font resizing issue, otherwise I'll give David's workaround a try. 

While, for whatever reason I have never experienced this until recently (and apparently it is NOT an issue that affects ALL users), if this issue has been recurring since 2011, it seems time to get it finally resolved, doesn't it?
Still having the same issue with version 31.3. Using David's instructions DOES prevent the font size from changing, but it also prevents you from changing the font size when you want to, so while it is a valuable workaround, it is hardly ideal. How about fixing this issue?
I too keep getting this error. For some time I simply changed my settings to use plain text and that problem disappears completely. But some emails require HTML and as you can't just swap mode when starting an email I have again reverted to HTML as the default. I also use a larger and different font from the default. Every now and then you backspace or do something that results in the font changing to, usually, a smaller font. I end up going back to the last but one valid character, continue typing and then delete the garbage. I have Windows 7 64-bit and Thunderbird 31.5.0.
I can understand the comment about the text jumping outside of the HTML tag but this is an unacceptable bug given that I just want to use the one set font for 99.99% of all my emails
I just got started in tb (45.2.0) and ran into this problem first thing.  How insane that it hasn't been addressed!  I will try the (complicated) work-around suggested above, but this seems like a pretty basic detail.  Thanks to you all for your suggestions!
This bug was filed in 2011 and no one is even assigned to it? This is a serious bug, makes Thunderbird unusable in some situations. Here's what happens with me and it's reproduceable every time. 
1. I click the button to forward an email I sent to a customer. 
2. I want to send the same email to another customer so I click forward. I then proceed to remove the greeting (first line of text).
3. I type in the new greeting, something like "Hi John," but now that line is printed in a larger font size. I can't tell what font size it is nor can I tell what font size I was originally using because Thunderbird doesn't even SHOW the font size number!

I use Linux on all of my machines except for my work machine where I use Windows 7 for one reason and one reason only: Outlook. I pray for the day someone makes an email client that can compete.
I'd Like to echo the others that this is madness that it hasn't been addressed.  
If it's any help here is a video showing a variation of the problem.  Font is set to Calibri by default. I type in 
a
b
c
d
e
and I then select the letters b and c, cut and paste it back.  Lo and behold we're gained a new line which on a variable font rather than Calibri

https://screencast.com/t/ffObW4Jc
'I'd Like to echo the others that this is madness that it hasn't been addressed.' Yes. Do the developers wish to drive their users crazy?
Clearly this is not a priority, when it absolutely should be a top priority (they fix minor picayune bugs with every beta release, whereas this is a major problem). The development team doesn't give a **** and doesn't listen or respond to its user base. It's truly outrageous and reflects very poorly on the Thunderbird developers. I've been experiencing and reporting this problem for nearly 5 years. I'm disgusted with their terrible neglect and failure to take responsibility for their product.
@David, and others

Re David's comment: so, what can we do?

- Can we attract the attention of - more and/or more active and/or more able - Thunderbird developers?

- I know of a Thunderbird extension that tried to solve these problems. Should we should try to get its developer(s) to contact the Thunderbird team?

- Should we try to enlist some other second party to write and offer fixes?

- Should we make a fuss about the problem on various websites? Perhaps a petition?
Let's all submit new bugs reporting the issue?
Good questions and suggestions. If we submit new bugs, it will probably be put into the "duplicate" pile and swept under the rug again. On the other hand, maybe that would get someone to take notice.

I remember the extension that najoll mentioned, but I think it was deprecated and rendered ineffective long ago. Although welcome, I tried it for several months and found it failed to fix the problem or provide a satisfactory workaround. If someone can locate it, people can try to contact the developer for ideas. Please provide a link if you find it.

Perhaps there is a way to escalate the issue here. I'll go into "Edit this Bug" and see if I can make any improvements. Glad to hear there are people who still care enough to take the time to report this and offer suggestions.
David, Stephen and others

The extension that I mentioned is 'QuoteAndComposeManager'. It's presence on the web is towards the bottom of the following page: https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html. That page says the Thunderbird extensions that it lists are still supported, and the developer posts an e-mail address. I could email this person, and mention this thread. The page reveals also, though, that the developer is in a funk with Mozilla over the latter's handling of Firefox extensions.
Bug 1347847 was raised for the issue documented in comment #19 here. Clearly a Core::Editor problem, since it can be reproduced in Firefox, no Thunderbird needed at all.

Mozilla don't actively maintain Core::Editor, so there's not a big chance to get this fixed.
@jorg K:

You are saying, I think, that the problem owes to code that Thunderbird shares with Firefox. Or is it code that Thunderbird *did* share with Firefox? Please clarify. Also, whatever the technicalities, surely the problem is fixable and should be fixed.
Thunderbird uses code that is *owned* and *maintained* by Mozilla Core which is also the basis for Firefox, in this case Core::Editor. Sadly Mozilla Core fix very few problems in Core::Editor these days, since this module is not the main focus of their development.

"surely the problem is fixable". What exactly is the problem? This bug is a duplicate of bug 588347 which is a duplicate of bug 250539. If you read bug 250539 comment #303(!!) there is a reference to bug 756984 which I fixed personally.

There is absolutely no point discussing here in a closed bug. If you have a *reproducible* problem, file a new bug, like was done in bug 1347847. "Changes font size while typing" is much too vague and is also not a bug at all. If you just type, the font size/face is maintained. So there are other actions necessary to cause problems, like for example cut/pasts as documented in bug 1347847.
Jorg: thank you for your reply. However, you seem to be encouraging me to report a bug - I would say: re-report a very long-standing bug, or perhaps collection of bugs - whilst also telling me that such a report is likely pointless.
Look: I started on the Thunderbird team two years ago and have since fixed various editor bugs which annoyed my personally, starting with bug 756984. I use TB daily and I write a ton of e-mail, mostly in the fixed width font so I notice when that gets lost and switches to variable width. From my own experience, losing the font is not a big issue any more, I'm not affected by it really. I looked at bug 1347847, yes, it's reproducible, but not a huge problem.

So if you are suffering from a long-standing problem, you should report it. No promised made that it will be fixed, but if you don't report it is guaranteed not to be fixed. The problem described here in comment #0, clicking behind "Doug" *is* bug 756984 and that bug *is* fixed. We really need one bug per problem, a loose collection of "boy, lost the fond" doesn't help any developer.

Of course you need to keep in mind how the font size/face setting and the font indicator work. If you set a font size/face and start typing, that choice will be respected. If you the click somewhere else in the composition, the font that is used there will be picked up, so that, for example, you click into a red text, you keep writing in red and not black as before.

If you click into empty space, you will most likely lose the font, since in empty space there is no font and the selection reverts back to variable.

I've closed a few bugs as invalid where people had unreasonable expectations, see bug 1270803 and its duplicates.

So, if you can describe exact steps to reproduce your long-standing problem, go ahead in a new bug. Note that I will close any bug similar bug 1270803 and its friends.

Finally, install the add-on ThunderHTMLedit to be able to understand how fonts are done in HTML and see why you might lose the font under certain circumstances.
Jorg: thank you. My problem is intermittent and/or I do not know under what exact conditions it occurs. If it reoccurs I will post a new bug report. Perhaps it will not reoccur, for perhaps my problem owes to the aforementioned AddOn QuoteAndCompose manager, which I have now disabled. (I had installed that AddOn to try to fix problems that I occured previously; but perhaps those problems have been solved subsequently, and the AddOn itself is causing the problems.)

David, Stephen: it seems that you, as well as I, should file new bug reports, if you can reproduce your respective problems.
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QuoteAndComposeManager has been causing various problems since TB 45 (bug 1247516, bug 1247831). The add-on is not hosted on AMO where it would have received a review, but rather at:
https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/quoteandcomposemanager-en
I've inspected version 0.4.1 and it was last updated in April 2016 for TB 45. Reading the description, the add-on "injects" itself into TB composition, so it might cause problems.

"Intermittent" problems are impossible to fix. Mostly what appears to be intermittent can be reproduced if the exact steps are known, and it can be very hard to work these out. For example, I was chasing an "intermittent" problem once for several months, in the end I ran a specially compiled debug version for weeks and I finally found the cause. After that, I could cause the problem in 10 seconds at will. So what I'm saying is that for "intermittent" problems, someone has to sit down and make them reproducible.

If you take comment #0 here: We're told to "place the cursor at the end of 'Doug' and type". That way you describe an intermittent problem since it depends on how you "place the cursor at the end of 'Doug'". If you clicked on the 'g', with some luck you didn't actually lose the font. To make the problem reproducible you had to click well to the right of 'Doug' as was finally detailed in bug 756984, and it took me a while to work that out. Note that bug 756984 was fixed in TB 38 about two years ago, so we can just ignore comments that refer to TB 31 or earlier.

Looking at comment #18, I think Scott has got some unreasonable expectations: He edits some forwarded message, then clicks somewhere and then the predefined fonts isn't used. That's exactly what I described in comment #30, 3rd paragraph downwards. In a forwarded e-mail the predefined font will be used if you start typing at the beginning of the forwarded message. As soon as you start editing the message, you will lose the "type-in state" that will be used when you start writing. Besides, to replicate an e-mail one should use "Edit As New Message" and not Forward.

So anyone who can demonstrate a real problem should give exact steps to reproduce it in a new bug.
Jorg:

*First*: I have located a minor infelicity that may be related to some larger problem(s) and can be exhibited as follows (at least on my system, which is Thunderbird 46.8.0 on Windows 8.1 x64). Use the reply button to reply to a message (possibly not just any message; I see the behaviour in question with, at least, an e-mail sending me a comment from this webpage). Look at the caret. Press a key. Upon pressing the key the caret becomes a little larger - at least when the composition font size is set to 'large'. Inference: the composition font size is applied only *after* a key is pressed.

*Next*: a word or two also about the issue of comment #30 - the issue, that is, about the composition font changing when one edits a replied-to message. Should the font not change *back* when one repositions the caret at the start of the message? (Apologies if this question has been answered already somewhere.) Now, on my system, that does not always happen. That is, the font only sometimes reverts. Moreover, when the font does *not* revert, I know of no way to make it do so.

Thank you for your time.
First: Known problem. Caret handling in Mozilla Core is less than perfect. You can see it when you set the font colour to red, the caret stays black, but when you type it goes red.

Second: As I said before, when you reply to a message, the predefined font *will* be used if you just start typing. It won't get lost as long as you continue to type.

Now apparently you have the setting to reply above the quote. If instead of typing to click elsewhere to edit the reply, you sadly lost the initial state. So although it would be nice to get back into the initial start by clicking at the start of the message, this is not the case. Instead by clicking at the start, you pick up the font used there. But since you didn't type anything, nothing gets picked up and you revert to variable width, standard height/face/colour, etc. So to avoid that, I suggest to type something and then edit the message. If you then return to what you initially typed, the font setting will be picked up.
Jorg

Thank you for the rapid response.

On the known problem: can't this be fixed?

On the lack of font reversion (i.e. what we've been numbering as '2'): doesn't this count as a bug? Certainly it is counter-intuitive and something that has to be worked around.

More: would it not fix both problems - and thereby, I hazard, reduce the number of angry posters on such threads as these - were Thunderbird to apply the composition font as soon as a window for a reply appeared on the screen? If so, why not do that?
As I said, there are many caret problems in Mozilla Core. Just search for "Caret" (without the quotes) and you'll currently find 352 of them.

The second problem is a limitation of the Mozilla Core editor used by TB. When you click, the editor picks up the font at the click position, and that's desired. If you click where there is nothing, nothing can be picked up, thus you revert to variable width, etc.

I think you still haven't accepted the fact that TB doesn't have its own editor. I uses the Mozilla Core editor. It does apply the predefined font as soon as the reply window appears on the screen. Proof: You start typing, you get the predefined settings. But if you move away and then return, you've lost the initial setting.

Please try the add-on ThunderHTMLedit. It will show you the HTML and it will show you that if you don't start typing straight away, there is nothing to pick the settings up from when you return.

If you use the new default (new since TB 45) to use "Paragraph" instead of "Body Text", the counter-intuitive behaviour might be more pronounced, since every empty "section" is a paragraph and empty paragraphs don't carry font information. With "Body Text" there is more of a chance that the font setting are present at where you click. Once again, inspecting the HTML will give you lots of clues.
Dear Jorg

Thank you for your reply. You have been informative and courteous. Yet, I am increasingly frustrated - for I think that there is something that you yourself have not accepted. To wit: problem 1 and especially problem 2 are problems that a Mozilla or Thunderbird developer needs to actually, you know, *fix*. In effect, you are assigning the tag 'Won't fix' to these problems. (Nor am I - a non-developer - interested in the HTML minutiae of these problems.)

You do propose something of a workaround - namely, switching (or rather reverting . .) from having 'Paragraph' as the default style to using the 'Body Text' style as the default. However, you do not tell us how one can implement this workaround.
Problem 1, the cursor size and colour is bug 1307471. The cursor adjusts itself to the text already present, so before you type it doesn't have the future colour or size.

You seem to misunderstand the nature of open source software. Nobody needs to fix nothing. The software is provided free of charge and there is no contractual obligation. If something gets on your nerves (like bug 756984 did for me), you are free to join the team, as I did, or hire someone to fix the problem for you. Note the BMO Etiquette, point 2 "No obligation", https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

I said many times: Editor or selection problems (caret problem) are focus of Mozilla core development, since Firefox is a web browser and not a primarily a HTML editor.

I have also explained many times how the internals work: When you click, the editor picks up the font from the click location, if you click in an empty paragraph, nothing gets picked up, or in other words, the previous setting is lost. To capture this issue, I have filed bug 1348750. I also encouraged you to learn more of the internals to get a better understanding. 

Finally, if you want to switch off the paragraph mode default, here's how:

Tools > Options, Composition, General. Last item.
"When using paragraph format, the enter key creates a new paragraph"
Sorry about the confusing wording, we've changed that to
"Use Paragraph format instead of Body Text by default"

I'm closing the bug for further comments, since all has been said and reiterating the same text over and over takes away from the time I have for development.
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