815732 - Default identity is used when reply/reply all on a "copy" of a previous reply

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Brian Sleeth]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0
Build ID: 20121119183901

Steps to reproduce:

I have the following setup:
* Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
* TB 17.0
* Using an IMAP email account
* One email account with multiple identities
* Under the account settings for "Copies & Folders", I have checked both:
   - "Place a Copy in"
   - "Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to"

When I receive an email, the email is moved to a sub-folder.

I select an email in one of the sub-folders that was sent to me (one that I received).

I click either the Reply or Reply All button

The new compose new email message window opens with the correct identity preselected as the "From:" identity. [the correct identity being the one the email was sent too]

After I click "Send", a copy of my reply is correctly placed in the sub-folder.

Up to this point, everything is working great ...

If I then select the "copy" of my replay and click either the Reply or Reply All button, the default identity for the account is preselected as the "From:" identity.

NOTE: This is very similar to bug # 608465.  The difference being bug # 608465 is replying from the "copy" of the email from the "Sent" folder vs a sub-folder.


Actual results:

The default identity for the account is preselected as the "From:" identity when replying from a "copy" of a previous reply.


Expected results:

When replying from a "copy" of a (previous) reply, the identity that was used to send the reply should be preselected as the "From:" identitiy.

Comment 1

[David Lechner (:dlech)]

Does this help? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/correct-identity/

Comment 2

[Brian Sleeth]

David,

Thanks for pointing me to this add-on.

It looks as-if the developer of the Correct Identity add-on is looking for someone to take over development of the add-on (as-of July 2012, last year).  The current release 1.3.5 has a bug reported on Thunderbird 20 that prevents replying to emails.  I assume user is talking about Thunderbird 22's beta release 20.0b1, released March 2013.  I think other "identity" add-ons are also having problems with the beta release.

Meantime, I tried another identity add-on, Virtual Identity (mentioned by the developer of Correct Identity as an alternative, more feature-rich, add-on.  The Virtual Identity add-on is no longer hosted on addons.mozilla.org and can be found at:

https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id

Using the Smart Reply feature of Virtual Identity works!  That said, it does a LOT more than what I need.  Due to the nature of Virtual Identity (allows you to create identities on-the-fly), the normal droplist used as the "From" in a new email is replaced with what looks like a text box, but is really a type of combobox (you can type a new identity or use the up/down arrow keys to select from existing identities).

As the new version of Thunderbird is not due to be released until September, I will give Correct Identity a try.  I would prefer to use the add-on with the fewest feature to accomplish what I need done.  I will let you know how Correct Identity works.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction (I had completely forgotten to check the add-ons ... Doh!)

Comment 3

[Brian Sleeth]

The Correct Identity add-on does NOT work.  I switched back to Virtual Identity.

CAUTION: When using Virtual Identity, I that the "Signature" of each potential match being was being added to the new "reply" email.  In my case, this was adding three signatures to the new draft email.  Furthermore, each time I used the up/down arrow key, the Signature of the newly selected account was appended to the draft.

So, I removed the signature from all of my accounts.  I then use the Signature Switch add-on.  With this add-on, I setup a signature file for each account (one for new emails and one for replies).  I also set the option to "Switch signature off by default".  This seems to work well with Virtual Identity; however, it does require me to manually select a signature for each email.  That said, I would rather send an email without a signature vs sending an email with the wrong identity!