988794 - Reply to sender only is not honoured when mail contains Reply-To header

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 77304

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

The "Reply to sender only" does not use "From" address when Reply-To header is specified. It use Reply-To address instead.

Downstream bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1067871

Comment 1

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

Attachment: reply to sender fix patch v1

Please have a look.
I also see a bit inconsistency between message pop up menu where's 'Reply to Sender Only' item and there's no such item in main menubar/Messages or anywhere else (if I checked it correctly). Popup menu also miss a 'Reply' item.

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Normally Reply-To should be honored - the downstream bug is just about reply-to munging which is generally bad practice. (We should take the patch for bug 77304 though.)

Comment 3

[Jan Horak [:jhorak]]

The patch honours Reply-To header if you reply with Ctrl-R or Reply button or main menu/Messages/Reply. Only when using 'Reply to Sender Only' context menu the 'From' address is used. I think that makes sense. 

There's a valid use case for it:
- You have a mailing list with Reply-To pointing all replies back to mailing list and you get a message claiming "Contact me off list for details" (quite common in corporate mailing lists). You can use context menu to do so by clicking on 'Reply to Sender Only'. Without the patch you have to actually copy and paste sender address.

For being more clear I would add 'Reply' to context menu and 'Reply to Sender Only' to main menu/Messages. That can be done in other bug though.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 8397825 [details] [diff] [review]
reply to sender fix patch v1

Jan, Bienvenu is no longer active in bugzilla or reviews. Perhaps Magnus can suggest an alternative is the patch is to go foward.

Comment 5

[Clément]

This would be nice to fix. IT seems like a rather simple patch, too; and it is very frustrating to click reply to sender only and realize later that an email was sent to an entire mailing list any way.

Maybe the context menu should be rephrased to offer both "Reply" and "Reply to original author"? "Reply to sender only" doesn't actually reply to the original sender.

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

The downstream bug is fixed by bug 77304. I think for non-list-mails, it's not something we want to make too easy, and it's not a big problem.

Comment 8

[:Dossy Shiobara]

(In reply to clement.pit from comment #5)
> This would be nice to fix. IT seems like a rather simple patch, too; and it
> is very frustrating to click reply to sender only and realize later that an
> email was sent to an entire mailing list any way.
> 
> Maybe the context menu should be rephrased to offer both "Reply" and "Reply
> to original author"? "Reply to sender only" doesn't actually reply to the
> original sender.

I made a similar suggestion in bug 992617 (my comment from 2015-12-27 15:34:22 PST), to correct the "Reply to Sender" functionality, and to add a "Reply to Author" enhancement that always uses the "From" header address.

I don't agree that this is a dupe of bug 77304.

Comment 9

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Dossy: I think your analysis is incorrect. Thunderbird doesn't reply to the Sender-header, it replies to the From-header. At any rate, this bug is not about that. After bug 77304 Reply will go to the real From, and if you want to reply to the list you use Reply-List.

If there's really something else to fix I suggest you open a new clean bug about that with clear steps to reproduce and a test case, and cc me.