GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 558131
plain-text email includes formatting "stuff" - should be pure plain text
Last modified: 2017-02-09 13:34:28 UTC
If a user sets their preferences to use/prefer plain-text email, then all new emails and all replies should be pure plain-text - no formatting boxes, no formatting choices, etc. Plain text is plain text. Instead, when I reply to certain emails, there are formatting boxes present in the reply - those boxes with "dotted line edges". These contain the quoted reply. They shouldn't be there!!! And they make it extremely difficult edit a reply properly. As an experienced user, I find it a chore - I can only imagine the frustration a newbie would have, having selected plain text then being unable to get the message editor to do reasonable things (since, e.g., when selecting a line of text with the keyboard, the entire quoted message is selected, and since, e.g., it is impossible to insert non-quoted into the quoted block). With plain text selected, there should be the "X wrote Y on D" header, the quoted reply (>... with an intelligent line length limit, e.g., 72), and any auto-inserted signature. And they should all be plain text lines. In other words, I should be able to insert new lines and new text anywhere I want: After the header, in the middle of the quoted test, before the signature, etc. But I cannot, because evolution appears to be trying to be helpful and is missing the mark. This makes it somewhere between aggravatingly inconvenient and impossible to format replies as I want, in other words, to achieve proper emphasis, to rearrange text conveniently for readability, etc. Other information: When a user makes a data format input/display choice, a choice supported by the software, they are making an accessibility choice. If the software gets it wrong, the software requires correction. If I choose plain-text, I should get text as plain as in this form, as in vi, as on a piece of paper. No bells-and-whistles, no attempts to be helpful, no attempts to second-guess what I *really* meant. Either of the latter is simply paternalistic and contrary to be best principles of usability and accessibility. On a possibly related note, I used to be able to use ctrl-L to go reflow quoted text and it would do the right thing - that has disappeared. Are these related directions? This is not a wishlist item, this is a usability and accessibility issue: If a user chooses and prefers plain text, give them plain text. Originally filed as https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+bug/288185
JOOC, is gtkhtml used for all message editing? Including plain text? If so, then I can understand why the product was changed, though I admit to being quite perplexed that plain text messages are handled by an html rendering/editing engine. Perhaps that's the problem? A screwdriver being used to hammer nails? Not intended as flame, just seems odd. If not, then this has been changed to the wrong product.
All email editing and rendering is handled by GtkHtml. That's why you're able to switch between HTML and plain text modes on the fly.
The current state of plain-text editing is awful from a user experience perspective. Formatting boxes that seem to appear randomly when composing a message severely interfere with regular writing. Deleting past the edge of this box does not work. Backspacing removes the whole object. What are these for? For whom is the one that appears when starting a new message? Surely they're not meant for people.
GtkHtml is not under active development anymore. Evolution (its main consumer) switched to a WebKit backend a while ago. It is currently unlikely that there will be any further GtkHtml development. Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping (bug 778387) to reflect reality. Please feel free to reopen this bug report in the future if anyone takes the responsibility for active development again.