maemo.org Bugzilla – Bug 3700
Put signatures not on top in replies (thereby not forcing top-post)
Last modified: 2011-01-31 15:44:39 UTC
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
SOFTWARE VERSION: 4.2008.330-2 STEPS TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM: Make modest use a signature. Reply to a message. EXPECTED OUTCOME: Original message on top, followed by signature. ACTUAL OUTCOME: signature on top, followed by original message. REPRODUCIBILITY: always EXTRA SOFTWARE INSTALLED: OTHER COMMENTS: Of course this is the "which posting style is correct" thing; I'm not a militant fighter against top posting, it's just that *I* never do it. Therefore I consider it a bug to start each reply with "select signature/edit/cut/scroll to bottom/edit/paste/scroll up again", and modest is the only client I use that makes me do this. I'm happy with any solution, even only having an option in the settings would do. User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv6l; de-DE; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20080716 Firefox/3.0a1 Tablet browser 0.3.7 RX-34+RX-44+RX-48_DIABLO_4.2008.30-2
SOFTWARE VERSION: 4.2008.30-2 STEPS TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM: 1. Go to Tools > Accounts... > Edit > User info > Signature > Edit 2. Set a signature 3. Reply to a message At least the "-- " signature starting part is missing - good in this case because some mail applications strip any text following that when replying to a message (cf. RFC 3676 Section 4.3 about usenet message sigantures). According to the internal ticket (80646) this is the design decision made, and as you wrote already the topic is an endless debate. I personally share your opinion. Adding an option in the preferences might be OK, but we want to keep the User Interface as simple as possible, so maybe adding a GConf key that can be edited by advanced users could be an option.
(In reply to comment #1) > Adding an option in the preferences might be OK, but we want > to keep the User Interface as simple as possible so maybe adding > a GConf key that can be edited by advanced users could be an option. Dumbing down the UI will dumb down the application - over reliance on gconf will make the devices less accessible to those users who are far from being advanced users but still want the ability to alter basic application functionality. This bug is about a basic configurable option that should be supported in the UI. GConf should only be used for very obscure settings that don't normally need to be changed by *anyone*. This isn't one of those settings.
(In reply to comment #1) > At least the "-- " signature starting part is missing - good in this case > because some mail applications strip any text following that Isn't this a bug in itself? Should I ... ? ;) > Adding an option in the preferences might be OK, but we want to keep the User > Interface as simple as possible, so maybe adding a GConf key that can be edited > by advanced users could be an option. I'm with Neil on this. It's not such an uncommon setting. Besides, let's not forget that officially for the Diablo user there's no other way to edit GConf keys than from the command line. I don't see gconf-editor in the application manager.
(In reply to comment #1) Could we generalise this slightly to an RFE for allowing bottom/interleaved replying? Even without a signature present the current behaviour (reply opens with cursor on a blank line followed by an "----- Original message ------" line followed by the quoted text) encourages top-posting without trimming and/or places unnecessary burden on the user who wants to do the Right Thing(TM). > According to the internal ticket (80646) this is the design decision made, and > as you wrote already the topic is an endless debate. I personally share your > opinion. I think we're all on the same page /here/. Intentional or not, this is still a bug IMHO. Has RFC1855 been mentioned in int-80646? Even some of the worst MUAs allow the user to change the default at least. > Adding an option in the preferences might be OK, but we want to keep the User > Interface as simple as possible That doesn't seem like an issue at the moment - there is currently only a single preference in the Composing settings tab (somewhat defeating the purpose of having a separate tab in the first place).
(In reply to comment #3) > > At least the "-- " signature starting part is missing - good in this case > > because some mail applications strip any text following that > > Isn't this a bug in itself? Should I ... ? ;) Please do. While you're at it, modest itself fails to strip signatures from replies it generates.
Err. Running 5.2008.43-7 this seems to be magically fixed. Signatures are now at the bottom. Anybody who can confirm this? If so, only bug 3941 is still valid (which would otherwise be blocked by this one).
(In reply to comment #6) > Err. Running 5.2008.43-7 this seems to be magically fixed. Signatures are now > at the bottom. Oh man, and this is why we need a decent changelog with each release. This situation only serves to make the current development process look more and more amatuerish/chaotic, which may or may not be the case but that's certainly how it appears. :( Google are putting Maemo to shame with Android (aka "Cupcake"[1]) - they have a public changelog available even before the firmware is released! ;) + :( 1. http://source.android.com/roadmap/cupcake
(In reply to comment #7) > (In reply to comment #6) > Oh man, and this is why we need a decent changelog with each release. I don't think was changed by purpose, looks more like a side effect to me. So it wouldn't be part of the ChangeLog anyway I bet. :-P
Yes, this is fixed in 4.1.3 (5.2008.43-7). Confirmed by developers. Feel free to set to VERIFIED.
... and it's not part of the internal unreadable ChangeLog ( https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2573#c6 ) either, as I had guessed. :-P
(In reply to comment #9) > Yes, this is fixed in 4.1.3 (5.2008.43-7). Confirmed by developers. > Feel free to set to VERIFIED. > Cool! One of the best things in *43-7.
(In reply to comment #9) > Yes, this is fixed in 4.1.3 (5.2008.43-7). Confirmed by developers. But it's back at the top in Fremantle. Re-open, or file a new bug?
Sigh... Reopening. As written, this is FIXED in the latest Diablo. But unfixed in latest Fremantle.
Just dumping my internal ticket here: Note: This refers to *Replying*, not Forwarding. It is an ideological debate whether this is a bug or a feature request. STEPS LEADING TO PROBLEM: 1. Set a signature in the Modest account settings. 2. Reply to an email. ACTUAL OUTCOME: The signature will be put in front of the quoted message, as defined in the Spec and int-89331. Quoting from the Spec: "In the case of a reply or forward, the signature shall appear immediately above the "Reply" or "Forward" separator" "This will allow the user to edit or delete the signature prior to transmission if required." EXPECTED OUTCOME: Diablo 5.2008.43-7 used to place the signature at the bottom. There are two parties in this world: 1. Top-posting. Current Modest Fremantle implementation, and Wikipedia says "Top-posting seems to be the most common style in business e-mail correspondence." in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style Probably Default in Outlook. 2. Bottom-posting. A: No. Q: > Shall I answer above my question because I start > reading at the bottom? Default in Thunderbird, Evolution and KMail. Thunderbird, Evolution and KMail trim the signature of the message you reply to (everything after "-- "). This means that you will lose anything you have quoted in Modest when replying to that message sent with Modest by using one of these mailers. This can be a potential source of frustration, maybe a bigger one than that you forgot to remove the signature (cf. the reasoning in the Spec). Current Modest implementation means that you expect most users quote the complete email they respond to, plus that they never ever trim it or comment anything in there. These users exist, while other users prefer to follow RFC 1855. PROPOSAL: Trying to not get this too controversial and ideologic, I propose to provide an option in the signature settings. At least KMail and Evolution provide such an "Insert signature above quoted text" option and Thunderbird provides a "where to put the cursor" option. I don't have access to Outlook here.
> 2. Bottom-posting. > Default in Thunderbird, Evolution and KMail. and Gmail according to Jaffa.
So this has been closed as WONTFIX internally as Nokia won't add another option in the preferences.
Sigh... If the only issue is that six settings are one too many, at least restore the current Diablo behaviour (signature at the bottom, not configurable). I can't think of a valid reason why even a top-poster would want their signature in the middle of the message.
As always - feel free to vote for this... :-/
Created an attachment (id=1803) [details] Patch modest_text_utils_quote_plain_text The attached patch inserts the signature after the quoted text when using plain text - to me it sounds like a reasonable compromise to assume that HTML-users are top-quoters and plain text-users interleave, rather than adding an explicit setting. It is also available in my clone of the modest repository on gitorious.org: * http://gitorious.org/~asjo/modest/asjo-modest/commit/9d9c0e393bc257eee2cc107402cbe9630cd21d2e
sergio, any chance to integrate this to N900 version?
As in bug 2563 I'd like to have some more objective reasons to change it than "I personally prefer that". I hope you understand it, it's not about "you're wrong" but I'd like to have a setting most people feel comfortable with. Adding more settings is not the right way to go at least in Fremantle. We have to keep modest as much simple as possible. It's one of the basic principles of the Modest UI. Take a look at how you setup an account, it's pretty easy. So we cannot have a complex settings dialog with tons of options. Let's try to know how most of the email clients do this and then we'll evaluate if it is worth it to change it.
It's not necessarily about preferences here. It's also about losing data as standard mailers correctly remove what's after the "-- ". Top-posting. Current Modest Fremantle implementation, and Wikipedia says "Top-posting seems to be the most common style in business e-mail correspondence." in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style Probably Default in Outlook. Bottom-posting. A: No. Q: > Shall I answer above my question because I start > reading at the bottom? Default in Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail, Diablo 5.2008.43-7. Thunderbird, Evolution and KMail trim the signature of the message you reply to (everything after "-- "). This means that you will lose anything you have quoted in Modest when replying to that message sent with Modest by using one of these mailers. This can be a potential source of frustration, maybe a bigger one than that you forgot to remove the signature (cf. the reasoning in the Spec). Current Modest implementation means that you expect most users quote the complete email they respond to, plus that they never ever trim it or comment anything in there. These users exist, while other users prefer to follow RFC 1855. KMail and Evolution provide an "Insert signature above quoted text" option and Thunderbird provides a "where to put the cursor" option. I don't have access to Outlook here.
(In reply to comment #21) > As in bug 2563 I'd like to have some more objective reasons to change it than > "I personally prefer that". I hope you understand it, it's not about "you're > wrong" but I'd like to have a setting most people feel comfortable with. I have tried to provide information about what other programs do with attribution and signatures in bug 2563#6. There is no obvious answer, most programs differ slightly and/or let you configure the behaviour. > Adding more settings is not the right way to go at least in Fremantle. We have > to keep modest as much simple as possible. It's one of the basic principles of > the Modest UI. Take a look at how you setup an account, it's pretty easy. So we > cannot have a complex settings dialog with tons of options. I agree with this philosphy of keeping things simple and simply working. That is why I created a patch to put the signature at the bottom for plain text, where most people who prefer plain text emails prefer the signature, and - if need be - to put it at the top on HTML-emails, instead of creating a patch for a new configuration option. Another option is to go as Gmail does. Obviously Google has put some thought into email and email-interfaces.
@Sergio: I consider this one of the basic settings that all email clients should support. It's up there with SMTP server address and spell checking.
(In reply to comment #21) > but I'd like to have a setting most people feel comfortable with. One obvious test for that would be the number of complaints against the Diablo 5.2008.43-7 behaviour. Is there an internal bug report about this (there are no public ones as far as I can tell) or other reason that caused the revert to signature at the top? I'm thinking it could be something as simple as the Fremantle fork happening before the Diablo fix.
(In reply to comment #25) > or other reason that caused the revert to signature at the top? Based on experience with weird decisions, my guess is Manager expectations.
(In reply to comment #26) > (In reply to comment #25) > > or other reason that caused the revert to signature at the top? > > Based on experience with weird decisions, my guess is Manager expectations. > Andre is right. There are a lot of managers and all of them have different expectations. BTW guys I don't forget you. I asked UI designer and I'm waiting for reply to apply the patch.
(In reply to comment #27) > BTW guys I don't forget you. I asked UI designer and I'm waiting for reply to > apply the patch. Sounds great. Will said UI designer share the thoughts and considerations of the evaluation here, or?
Created an attachment (id=1971) [details] Updated patch for 3.1.18+0m5
Just another vote for this (antiquated though the bug appears to be). Does someone have a side repo somewhere with a patched Modest? Sergio Villar Senin: I don't understand what you would consider an 'objective reason' and why 'I am a user of your software and I really desire this capability' is somehow not a valid reason for you. But let's give it a shot. I work in F/OSS software development (just like you!) and it's practically impossible to take part politely in discussions on F/OSS software development mailing lists by top posting. They simply aren't set up for it. The expected behaviour is that everyone posts replies either interleaved or at the bottom, and this is also where the replier's signature lives. I believe it's easy to demonstrate conclusively that this a better way to have a detailed conversation over email. Interleaving responses is a much better way to keep track of what exactly any given bit of text is a response to; by the time you get three or four layers deep it's just about the *only* way. Sure, 'in business', top posting has come to be the convention. But 'business' is *not* the only context an email client is used in. I know Nokia sees N900 users as mostly free beta testing, but on a practical level, the N900 is your only major source of users at the moment, and most of *those* are software geeks who work in circles where bottom-posting replies is not just the convention, but top-posting is heavily frowned upon. Since I got my N900, I know I have simply chosen not to use it for anything but vital and very short emails, because it would be rude for me to write emails in the way the N900 forces me to on most of the mailing lists I participate in. It's really just a massive 'screw you' to most of your existing user base to not at least allow a configuration setting for this *somewhere*.
(In reply to comment #30) > Does someone have a side repo somewhere with a patched Modest? When PR1.2 was released I was unable to upgrade my installation of the SDK and installing the SDK anew failed for me as well, so I haven't been able to created a patched modest package. These days I ssh to my desktop-machine and access email remotely that way.
the patches here (and for attribution line) are included in the Fremantle Community SSU, which is currently undergoing testing of its install process.
Thanks, Andrew! Hadn't heard of the community SSU before but it sounds great. Have you considered also patching https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3409 ? That's probably the other big modest wishlist item (at least it's the other big item on mine).
Awesome! I just grabbed the Modest from that SSU repo and installed it with dpkg and it's great - attribution line, quoted text and signature at the bottom, just the way it should be. thanks.
Internal bug is closed as WONTFIX for Maemo5 - reflecting state here. MeeGo Handset is where the unstable development is taking place and its bugtracker is located at https://bugs.meego.com. Note that MeeGo for the Nokia N900 is unstable and by no means ready for end-users yet.
(In reply to comment #35) > Internal bug is closed as WONTFIX for Maemo5 - reflecting state here. However it is included in the Community SSU (http://gitorious.org/community-ssu), however Mohammad hasn't merged in the updated Modest into that project yet. At what point do we change this to RESOLVED FIXED? * Now? * When the CSSU "officially" includes Modest in its project? * When the CSSU launches for widespread testing? * When the CSSU launches for end-users? * Never?
Merged into community-ssu at http://gitorious.org/community-ssu/modest/commit/4141e740f9a5731f40246fb60ce656a3af28c2e4 A future public update released to the community-ssu-testing repository will include the fix. Please verify that this new version fixes the bug by marking this bug report as VERIFIED after the public update has been released and if you have some time. Once the community has QAed the release, it will be promoted to the community-ssu repository. At that point, this issue will be marked as RELEASED. ---- Attempting to define a message as discussed at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=923088#post923088
(In reply to comment #36) > > At what point do we change this to RESOLVED FIXED? Discussed at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=923088#post923088. Sorry for the noise.