On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 12:49:07PM +0200, Alexander Sack - Debian Bugmail wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 04:57:32AM +0100, Peter J Ross wrote:
> > Package: mozilla-thunderbird
> > Version: 1.0.6-3
> > Severity: wishlist
> >
> > Hello.
> >
> > I notice that the default option in Thunderbird for each new account
> > is to turn "Compose messages in HTML format" on. Would it be possible
> > to change this setting to reflect normal email practice among Linux
> > users and protect unwary new users from the consequences of sending
> > html email where it's unwelcome?
> >
> > It seems that the setting is in
> > /usr/lib/mozilla-thunderbird/defaults/pref/mailnews.js
> > (unless another file overrides it).
> >
> > pref("mail.identity.default.compose_html", true);
> >
>
> The question is whether this really means that messages are send as
> html by default. If you compose as html and send plain text you get
> the behaviour that bold text is automatically surrounded by *, italic
> by / and underline by _. Further thunderbird converts unnumbered and
> numbered lists IIRC. So in this case composing as html is indeed a
> good option that anybody wants, right?
>
> You see that thunderbird really sends mail as html too by default?
> Maybe this is another setting?
Experiment shows that the behaviour is as you describe. Smiley icons
are also converted to text equivalents. Even the option in the compose
window to send as HTML is ignored unless the recipient is specified in
preferences as willing to receive HTML.
It's a very nice feature, but it isn't documented in the official FAQ
or Tips, and didn't seem to be mentioned in bugzilla or mozillazine
when I checked Google before reporting. In these circumstances, I
don't think it's unreasonable for a user looking at account settings
to assume that a message composed with HTML will be sent as HTML, and
thus never know about the feature. However, that's an upstream
documentation/usability issue, and the fault I thought I'd found
doesn't exist.
Thanks for the information.
--
PJR :-)
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