Re: [tlug] [OT] email client tips?

[Travis Cardwell <travis.cardwell@example.com>]

On 2014年04月25日 14:04, Darren Cook wrote:
>> (I am running version 17.0.10.)
> 
> Just checked, I'm using Thunderbird 24, but I was on 17 or 18 until a
> few days ago.

I did not realize that I had been running an older version, as I am using
the http://mozilla.debian.net/ backports repository.  Upon investigation,
I see that Thunderbird jumped from 17.0.x (ESR) to 24.0 last year, without
official releases with the intermediate version numbers. ;|

Thanks for pointing that out!  I just installed the latest release
(24.4.0) into /usr/local and am using it now.  I do not look forward to
updating it separately, but I feel that I should use the latest release in
order to properly evaluate it.

> Looking in about:config, then filtering on html, I noticed I have:
>   mail.default_html_action = 0
> 
> But then:
>   mail.html_compose = true
>   mail.identity.default.compose_html = true
> 
> But then:
>   mail.identity.id2.compose_html = false
>   (ditto for the other identities)

I think that all but the last setting establishes the defaults, while the
last setting is what is configured with:

* Edit | Account Settings...
     * (account) | Composition & Addressing
         * Compose messages in HTML format: No

My settings are the same.

> And then filtering on "text" I have:
>   mailnews.display.prefer_plaintext = true

I just changed this setting and notice no difference.

> I also notice plain_text.wrap_long_lines = false (which is the default).

This setting was not available in the older version.  I have tried
toggling it but notice no difference (perhaps due to my other settings).

While sending test emails, however, I noticed the following:

    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

It caught my eye because I saw it in one of Kalin's links to bug reports:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168420

I had not been aware of "format=flowed"!  I read about it in the bug
report and found more information here:

http://joeclark.org/ffaq.html

This is the cause of my line wrapping issues!  With my configuration, my
lines *are* being wrapped, but, with the above content-type, the lines are
"unwrapped" when viewed.  While I see that such behavior could be desired
by some people, I really dislike it myself.

Filtering for "flow", I found the following settings:

* mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support - Setting this to true
causes Thunderbird to not "unwrap" lines when viewing messages.

* mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed - Setting this to false removes
"format=flowed" from the content-type of send messages, so that other
email clients are not instructed to "unwrap" the lines.

This fixes my first issue!  Thank you very much to Kalin and Darren!!!

>> In Thunderbird, however, there is a special "quote" state, indicated 
>> by text color. ...
> 
> Just do Alt-E, W (Edit|Rewrap) to get pasted quotes to change from black
> to blue. (I see ctrl-R will also do it.)
> 
> (I just tested on this email: I copied the contents to a text editor,
> cancelled the reply in thunderbird, went back and replied to you again,
> delete everything, paste in from the text editor - at this point
> everything is black - then did "Rewrap", and the quoted parts turn blue.)

Thank you for testing that out; it is a good workaround for when there are
not many blocks of quotes to fix.

In the above "format=flowed" bug report, I noticed that there was also
talk of this issue, and it seems that it is caused by the "format=flowed"
implementation!  With "format=flowed" disabled using the settings above, I
just tried again, and I no longer have that problem!

Thanks again!

Cheers,

Travis

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[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Old/2013