831141 - Text doesn't get smaller on-screen than a certain minimum; Backspace & Delete cause erratic font size changes

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 812638

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Composition, defect)

Description

[Kirby]

Attachment: Screenshot Sequence of font size not decreasing & also changing on its own

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0 SeaMonkey/2.15
Build ID: 20130105222038

Steps to reproduce:

There are similarities to this Seamonkey bug as what I submitted in Thunderbird bug #830250, and there are also unique differences in Seamonkey alone.  I am submitting these two Seamonkey problems together in this one bug submission because I believe they are related closely enough because one follows the other (as happens in the screenshots with this bug submission).  I believe they are related in that if/when the size doesn't change on the screen, then it's impossible to know if, or how, size changes are happening that the e-mail recipient will see that never happen while the e-mail is being written.

At the end of describing these screenshots, I write about a workaround I've tested in both Seamonkey and Thunderbird.  The good results and the bad, but mostly good, are the same in both programs.

My text size in "Preferences," and then "Mail & Newsgroups," and then "Composition," is set to "small."  I did Ctrl-M for writing a new e-mail.  And so now let's get started...
---------------------------

Screenshots #1-a & #1-b are to show the affect of Ctrl-Z

** Screenshot #1-a
   Initial typing of text.  Backspace or Delete or Return key not used.  Size is the same when viewing the message in Drafts folder.  This is the baseline screenshot for starting with.

** Screenshot #1-b
   Ctrl-Z.  Then re-type.  Still no use of Backspace or Delete or Return.

** Screenshot #2-a
   Starting over and being just like #1-a.  Then did Ctrl-S and the size is the same when viewing the message in the Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #2-b
   I copied the Seamonkey file "Drafts" to Thunderbird's folder, and I am using the "Local Folders" account for this series of screenshots.  I started Thunderbird and went to the Drafts folder to view the message, and this screenshot is what it looks like.
   ** Special Note: Each time before I copy the Seamonkey Drafts folder to Thunderbird, I delete the MSF file from Thunderbird so it starts over with a new MSF file each time.

** Screenshot #3-a
   Did Ctrl-A.  Then did Ctrl-"Less-Than" 3 times.

** Screenshot #3-b
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #3-c
   Did Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-"Greater-Than" 3 times.

** Screenshot #3-d
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #3-e
   Did Ctrl-A & then Ctrl-"Less-Than" several times.  This is for the purpose of showing an ongoing comparison that when the font size is decreased beyond a certain smallness then Seamonkey shows no differences even though the size is still being decreased "under the hood."

** Screenshot #3-f
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #3-g
   Did Ctrl-A, then kept pressing Ctrl-"Greater-Than" until Seamonkey showed the first increase.  It took 7 times for the first change to display.

** Screenshot #3-h
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #4-a
   Started back over in Seamonkey at the original size of "Small" as set in the settings.
1) Put the cursor before "even comparisons" and pressed Return.
2) Put the cursor after the word "and" at the end of the 1st paragraph, and backspaced over "differences and" and typed "inconsistencies and differences and."
3) Selected the text "a couple or few things are going to be done" and pressed Ctrl-"Less-Than" twice

** Screenshot #4-b
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #4-c
   Did Ctrl-A, and then Ctrl-"Greater-Than" once.

** Screenshot #4-d
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #4-e
   Put the cursor at the beginning of "Backsapce of Delete."  Used the Delete key to delete "Backsapce of Delete" and then typed "Delete or Backspace."

** Screenshot #4-f
   Copied the Seamonkey "Drafts" folder to Thunderbird and viewed the message in Thunderbird.
====================================================
====================================================

And now the workaround that I mentioned at the beginning.  This workaround is mostly successful, and both the good results and the bad are the same in both Seamonkey and Thunderbird.

1) Open a window for a new mail message.

2) Create a table of 1 row & 1 column and 400 pixels or 500 or however many is comfortable for a person's screen width or line length & also for what the recipient would see on their end.  Doing a percentage centers the text instead of putting it on the left side of the window and using 100% or other high number can make lines that are too long for some people.  So that's why I think of pixels since the lines can be shorter and the text stays to the left.

3) While still in the Table Properties dialog, click on "Advanced Edit" and go to the tab "Inline Style".

4) Type in the property name of "font-size" and give it a value of "10pt" or whatever number you want but the "pt" must be there (or I guess you could use "px" too for "pixels," but then the actual height will change based on the screen resolution).  It is the specific font size that makes this workaround work.

5) If you want, type in some reminder text in the table/box for why you created it since this is a pretty unusual reason for having to type inside a box.  Save that message as a template and use it every time you write an e-mail.  You type your e-mail inside the table, or "box" actually since it's just 1 by 1, and that keeps the text enclosed inside the specific font size.

6) Then, if any part of the e-mail needs to be a different font size, select the text that needs to be changed and then go to the "Insert" menu and select "HTML" and manually type in the tags <font size=??pt> and </font> in the correct places.  It's the specific size which makes this work, at least so far my testing hasn't come across any backfiring.

However, in my testing with both Seamonkey and Thunderbird, that's where the success ends although perfectly good enough for most people.  I found that where this workaround fails is on any subsequent change to any part of that same text that was already changed once.  Any subsequent change will not display in the Composition Window, and nor will it display correctly by saving the message and then closing the Composition Window and then going to the Drafts folder to edit it from there.  The new change is visible in the HTML tag by again selecting the text and then going to the "Insert" Menu and then "HTML," but the text will continue to display in the size of the first change no matter what you change the number to of the "font-size" tag or how many times you change it.


Actual results:

** Screenshot #1-b
   My specified font choice of Verdana has been replaced with Variable Width all by itself, and now the text got bigger all by itself.  Size is the same when viewing the message in Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #2-b
   It displays "small" as the font size is set to be in Seamonkey.

** Screenshot #3-a
   No change in size in the Seamonkey Composition window or viewing the message in the Drafts folder.  The size is also the same when dbl-clicking the message in the Drafts folder to edit the draft in a new Composition Window.

** Screenshot #3-b
   The size is now displaying as it should be after being decreased 3 times.

** Screenshot #3-c
   The size is again not changed, and the size is the same when viewing the message in the Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #3-d
   The size is displaying larger although I'm uncertain if this is a factor of 3 compared to the previous screenshot.

** Screenshot #3-e
   The font size didn't change beyond the minimum that Seamonkey consistently doesn't get smaller than.

** Screenshot #3-f
   Even though Seamonkey is not showing any size difference, Thunderbird is correctly displaying its true size.  The two very very small lines are the greatly reduced size.

** Screenshot #3-g
   The size is displaying as larger, although I question if this size is equal to 7 increases.  If Seamonkey is keeping track "under the hood" just how small it really got to be, then it's most likely this is correct.  When looking at the message in the Drafts folder, the size displays the same as in this Composition Window.

** Screenshot #4-a
   1) No size differences just as with my bug #830250 in Thunderbird.
   2) Still no size differences as what happened in Thunderbird that I describe in bug #830250.
   3) The size did not decrease, and it shows this same way when viewing the message in the Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #4-b
   Creating the new paragraph didn't cause a size change, and neither did using the backspace key and re-typing -- both of these are in my bug #830250 for Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #4-c
   And now the problems that happen commonly in Thunderbird start to show up.  The text that was added after backspacing the end of the 1st paragraph is now increased beyond the size of the rest of the paragraph, and that newly-added text has 2 levels of increase instead of only one.  The text that was selected in #4-a is still being correct with its size being increased by only one level.
These sizes all display the same when looking at the message in the Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #4-d
   The overall size is smaller than how Seamonkey displays it but I believe the size displays true in Thunderbird since Seamonkey won't go smaller than a certain minimum.  The size differences that display in Seamonkey all display the same here in Thunderbird.

** Screenshot #4-e
   The size of the re-typed text has reverted to the size setting of "Small" that the Composition Window started with, and it displays this same way when looking at the message in the Drafts folder.

** Screenshot #4-f
   Here in Thunderbird, the size of the newly-typed text displays correct as being the same size as the text before and after it.  No changes to any other text.


Expected results:

** Screenshot #1-b
   My font choice of Verdana shouldn't have been replaced and the size should have stayed the same.

** Screenshot #2-b
   Either the text should be smaller in Seamonkey since my setting is "Small" or it should display here in Thunderbird as the same size as in Seamonkey

** Screenshot #3-a
   The size should have been decreased 3 times/levels

** Screenshot #3-b
   Exactly what it did, at least with relation to Thunderbird showing its true size.  But Seamonkey and Thunderbird should be displaying the same thing.

** Screenshot #3-c
   With relation to doing the exact opposite of what I did in Screenshot #3-b, what is displayed here is what it should look like.  But Seamonkey and Thunderbird should be displaying the same thing.

** Screenshot #3-d
   I would think the size would be larger here, but it might actually be true if this is 3 size increases compared to Screenshot #3-b.

** Screenshot #3-e
   It should have decreased each time I pressed Ctrl-"Less-Than"

** Screenshot #3-f
   Exactly what did happen, at least with relation to viewing this message in Thunderbird.  But Seamonkey should also be displaying this greatly reduced size.

** Screenshot #3-g
   With each press of Ctrl-"Greater-Than", the size should change on the screen, but it makes sense that it didn't each time since the size didn't change on the screen when Ctrl-"Less-Than" was being pressed.

** Screenshot #3-h
  I don't know what size baseline to compare this to because it's obviously not 7 size increases larger and isn't even the same size as when displayed in Seamonkey.

** Screenshot #4-a
   1 & 2 -- exactly what did happen
   3 -- the size should have decreased

** Screenshot #4-b
   The text that was selected in Seamonkey and decreased in size is showing true and correct here in Thunderbird, but it doesn't in Seamonkey because the size of the text in Seamonkey is already at this minimum that Seamonkey won't go smaller than.

** Screenshot #4-c
   All the text should have been increased by one level

** Screenshot #4-d
   All of the text should be increased by one level, but instead only certain portions are

** Screenshot #4-e
   The newly-added text should be the same size as the text before it & after it.

** Screenshot #4-f
   Seamonkey should display the newly-added text in the same way -- as being the same size as the text before it & after it (as well as its true size of all the text overall being much smaller than it is actually being displayed).