74248 - Capability to _underline_ words

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect)

Description

[Holger Metzger]

Add the possibility to "underline" words.
Example:
_blahblahblah_ would be displayed underlined.

Comment 1

[Garth Wallace]

I thought the text-to-HTML converter did that already.

Comment 2

[Keyser Sose]

Marking NEW. Invalidate it if it already does.

Comment 3

[Håkan Waara]

I'd love to have this too.

Ben, do you know a way to add this (I heard you poked around in that are before)?

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

The functionality is there. The only thing missing is the stylesheet rule.

I refuse to use <u>, because that's deprecated for a good reason. I use <span
class=txt_underscore>, IIRC, and wanted a stylesheet to specify underline for
this class. But the tag is in the content and the converter is not limited to
Mailnews. So, I don't know, to which stylesheet I should add that rule.

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

BTW: * and / works.

Comment 6

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

For yourself, you could add to your userContent.css:

span.txt_underscore { text-decoration: underline }

(IIRC). Of course, this works for you only then.

Comment 7

[basic]

why is this in networking?

Comment 8

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

because that's where the code lives.

Comment 9

[basic]

how does the quote stuff work? I mean that grey bar on the left when there's

> abcdefg
> test test test
> test test test

Comment 10

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

We are using a blockquote with a specific css rule.

Comment 11

[basic]

I thought that was only in HTML mail where the non-standard <blockquote
type="cite"> is used but that is off topic here I guess. As for Ben's
span.txt_underscore { text-decoration: underline } I don't see any reason why we
can't make use of a more obscure attribute and put the rule in html.css as
blockquote[type=cite] is already found there.

otoh I'm not sure why can't we use <u> ? It is depreciated but isn't that what
describes this best ( as in underlined ) ?

Comment 12

[Peter Lairo]

*** Bug 111476 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Peter Lairo]

Should / will this eventually work with all these testcases:

1. _underline_
2. _underline multiple words_
3. _underline even if there are (brakets) here_  <-- special case?

At least 1. and 2. work with *bold*

What if there is a period or questionmark right after it like _this_. or _this_?

Comment 14

[Håkan Waara]

I was talking to glazou the other day, one of the CSS masters (he's working in
the W3C CSS group, actually) and he said it was definitely OK to use <u> as long
as it's internally.  There's nothing wrong with it, and it produces the *exact*
same result as the CSS equivalent.

I have this implemented in my tree -- using <u>, and it works just fine. For
correctness, we can spin off a new bug for the CSS/HTML case... and if anyone
feels really concerned, they can fix it.

Patch + screenshot coming up.

Comment 15

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Patch

Let's spin off a new bug for "correctness" if anyone cares, and make this
feature work, just like the other ones.

Comment 16

[Håkan Waara]

Attachment: Screenshot

PLairo's latest comment viewed using mailnews with this feature incorporated.

Comment 17

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> he said it was definitely OK to use <u> as long as it's internally


But it isn't. This is a general txt->html converter (and html->html enhancer),
it is also used for during sending HTML mails (similar to URL recognition) and
IIRC saving TXT mails as HTML.

Comment 18

[Peter Lairo]

The screenshot look very cool - yeah :)

Here are some more test cases that would be nice if they worked:

1. _multiple underlines_ in _one_ sentence.

2. _sentence with <other symbols> in them_
3. _sentence with [other symbols] in them_
4. _sentence with ~other symbols~ in them_
5. _sentence with "other symbols" in them_
6. _sentence with \other symbols\ in them_
7. _sentence with {other symbols} in them_
8. _sentence with other symbols? ? in them_

9. sentence with _*mixed*_ formatting code in it.
10. sentence with _mixed *formatting* code_ in it.
11. sentence with _mixed *formatting*_ code in it.

12. _sentence with /mixed formatting symbols/ in it_  <-- would be very nice ;)

13. _sentence with numbers 12345 in them_
14. _sentence with decimal numbers 23.45 or 23,45 in them_

15. _sentence with hy-phen in them_

16. Multiline _sentence_ with _multiple underlines_ and _punctuation_. Multiline
_sentence_ with _multiple underlines_ and _punctuation_. Multiline _sentence_
with _multiple underlines_ and _punctuation_.

Comment 19

[basic]

Peter Lairo: file a new bug for those if they do not already work.

Comment 20

[Peter Lairo]

I wanted to test my suggestions, but for some reason on build 2001-11-25, winNT
none of the formattings work anymore (including *bold*). Anyone know what's
going on, or how I can fix this?

Should I file the bug for "advanced underlining" anyways?

Comment 21

[Peter Lairo]

OK, I filed bug 111946 to hopefully implement advanced _underlining_ of special
cases :)

Just getting this bug fixed would be pretty cool, though.

BTW. I sent myself an email with just "*bold*" in it (and my text-only sig
line). It arrived with HTML tags and the text wasn't bolded. I have "autodetect"
selected for outgoing mail. Is that a bug, or something that could be affecting
this bug?

Comment 22

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

basic,
the quote stuff is limited to Mailnews message display and can (and does) thus
live in a stylesheet specific to that. /Underline/ is not limited to Mailnews
and must thus live in a more central place. html.css should work, if the "owner"
of that file allows us to add that rule.

FYI: The css selector is now |span.moz-txt-underscore|.

If you really really want to use <u>, then OK. But I'd much prefer the
stylehseet solution, to not extend the lifetime of the ugly <u> any more.

Comment 23

[basic]

well my opinion is that using span.moz-txt-underscore{ text-decoration:
underline; } in html.css is not a good thing as it will affect html/xhtml files
that uses that class for other purposes. If <u> should not be used I'm not sure
what else can be used. <ins> is another tag that is commonly (at least in Win32
Opera5 and Win32 IE5.0) rendered with underline (though not in NS4), maybe that
would work?

Comment 24

[basic]

Forgot to mentioned that <ins> is the insert tag:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#h-9.4

and mozilla currently underlines it.

Does *this is bold* also mean *this is strong emphasis* ?
And /this is italics/ also mean /this is emphasis/ ?
If so can _this is underlined_ also mean _this is inserted_ ????

Comment 25

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> using span.moz-txt-underscore{ text-decoration:
> underline; } in html.css is not a good thing as it will affect html/xhtml
> files that uses that class for other purposes.

I used the prefix "moz-" to prevent exactly that.

> <ins> is another tag that is commonly (at least in Win32
> Opera5 and Win32 IE5.0) rendered with underline (though not in NS4), maybe
> that would work?

It is semantically wrong.

Comment 26

[basic]

the moz- prefix only helps avoid things if we start telling people that they
should not use moz- prefixed classes in their document. if <u> is depreciated
and <ins> is not acceptable, I guess we have to live with <span
class="moz-text-underscore">. But I don't think putting
span.moz-text-underscore{ text-decoration: underline; } into html.css is a good
idea. Maybe <span class="moz-text-underscore" style="text-decoration: underline;"> ?

Comment 27

[basic]

or maybe the generated html should have a <style type="text/css"> block with all
the style info in there?

Comment 28

[Jonas Jørgensen]

Uhm, shouldn't moz-text-underscore be -moz-text-underscore?

Comment 29

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Nope, said Ian (IIRC, it was him) back then.

Comment 30

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed Patch A

Underline the span, including the underlines

Comment 31

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed Patch B

Underline the span, hiding the underlines

Comment 32

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Neil,
if you add a "span" before the dot, r=BenB.

Neil avoids the problem that we were discussing by just adding the rule to the
stylesheet for the message page of Mailnews. That means, it won't work, if the
converter is used in the browser (not at the moment, because of technicalities,
but hopefully later). However, considering that it is currently working
*nowhere* (by default), the patch is a strict improvement and a nice interim
solution. Smart.

Ben

Comment 33

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Oh, my r= is for patch A only. When writing the converter, I decided not to
remove the plaintext style tags (*/_ etc.) by default, in case the converter
guessed wrong and it is not a plaintext style tag, but some obscure part of the
content (as in "/tmp/_myfile_.txt"). Users are free, however, to add that rule
to their userContent.css, if they prefer not seeing these palintext tags.

Comment 34

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed Patch

Updated Patch A as per Ben's comment.

Comment 35

[Håkan Waara]

Comment on attachment 67091 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed Patch

Nice. r=hwaara

Comment 36

[Håkan Waara]

This is a themes patch - CC hewitt for super-review.

Comment 37

[Jean-Francois Ducarroz]

I presume the first patch (attachment 58876 [details] [diff] [review]) and Patch B should be marked as
obsolete, right?

Comment 38

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

Comment on attachment 67091 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed Patch

sr=hewitt

Comment 39

[Håkan Waara]

->Neil

I'll checkin attachment 67091 [details] [diff] [review] ("Proposed Patch") when the tree opens.

Comment 40

[Håkan Waara]

fix checked in.

Comment 41

[benc]

laurel: I'm cleaning out "Networking" can you verify or move this bug?

Comment 42

[laurel]

.