"sent" messages and those being edited are both blue. one easily forgets which mode you are in, and delete vaporizes a sent file, which should not be so easy.
The background is blue both for mails in the "sent" folder and for a mail that is being edited (i.e. with "write", or "reply"). The problem: it is really, really easy to forget which mode you are in, to start editing, to delete one character and zzzp! the whole "sent" mail is gone from the folder and cannot be found in Trash or anywhere else, unless I go in with Outlook(webmail) and carefully send it from there back to myself, and even doing that once I lost it fully. Obvious solution: "pay attention to what you are doing". Sure, but I have had this problem so often I realize I am for sure not the only one. My take: CHANGE BLUE background in "sent" folder TO THE SAME AS FOR "Inbox" and ALL OTHER FOLDERS, so that we KNOW (from the color) which mode we are in (read-only or edit) regardless of where our brain is. I see no advantage to the blue in the "sent" folder. All functions are identical to those in other folders. Another solution: Change the impact of a "delete" when in the body of a mail in the "sent"folder. Surely a more complex solution.
Chosen solution
If you see a 3bar menu icon on the Mail toolbar. menu icon > Options > Options it will show you the relevant window.
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I don't understand where the blue comes from. All of mine are white.
Screenshot?
Modified by Zenos
The message area background is "peach"-colored for inbox and other user folders, but blue in the "sent" folder, also in the message area when implementing write or reply. I am using T-bird on a Mac running OS-X .
Modified by winnebp
See previous message at 12:35:05
That blue looks like a background colour you have set for your messages. If the blue is part of a message then it will be there regardless of where the message happens to be.
What do you have set at
Tools|Options|Composition|General|HTML→Background colour?
I think we need to see the peach too.
Here is the ordinary inbox/ local folder background.
Tools does not offer options at all. Preferences (entered by clicking on Thunderbird name) offers composition options, but nothing at all about background. It seems to be uniform under Mac OS X.
The delete action is the same in all folders, sent and others. But I only make the mistake of using it at the wrong moment when I am erroneously thinking I am in a reply/write situation, and therefore I am blaming it on the color.
I can recreate exactly the same.
The Write window needed this setting to make it blue.
Preferences > Options > Composition > General tab
under HTML Background colour pale blue selected.
to change click on the blue square to get a pop up colour box and select white or leave blue, but this will send all your emails with blue background as part of the formatting. click on OK
The peach colour in the Message Pane is set here:
Preferences > Options > Display > Formatting tab
Fonts & Colours: click on 'colour' button background: click on peach coloured square to open box and select white colour.
Note: If you do not select : 'allow content to choose its own colours, instead of my selections above.' then both Message apne and write window will appear the same colour as the one selected in this section.. click on OK
then click on OK to save changes to Options.
Modified by Toad-Hall
Please note that Tools|Options in my previous post is a LINK to a webpage that explains the differences between platforms, namely:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Menu_differences_in_Windows,_Linux,_and_Mac
I think we need to look at the html code in a message to see if it's there as part of the message. Speaking as a Windows and Linux user, I don't know of any obvious way to set the background colours on the text windows themselves. Maybe this is something specific to Macs. In Thunderbird, I think you'd have to tweak userContent.css, which is non-trivial.
I'm still not clear what colours you want where. You seem to be asking for blue everywhere and yet you complain that the colour needs to differentiate between messages where you can edit the text and messages where delete would delete the whole message. Sent and Inbox are both "read only" in nature; so what other colours do you want to see?
For myself, I don't keep sent messages in the Sent folder; I prefer my replies to be filed alongside the other messages that form the conversation, usually in a topic or project specific folder. And Delete normally sends them to the trash folder, so can be easily undeleted.
As I see it, message background colour may be set by the sender, and so may not coincide with your own interpretation of the colours. If peach means "safe to edit text" and blue means "delete will blow the whole message away", then you're in trouble if a message comes in where the sender set it to peach. ;-)
Toad Hall's letter confirms my suspicion that the Mac OS X version has very limited options: I do not have a "Preferences" page anywhere accessible to me in the version that I have been using for two years on my Mac. All I can do is click on the account name, select "settings" , and there is nothing at all about background color. Which means that I am stuck with my vulnerability to this mistake. THis nice long effort of yours may at least help imprint it so that I do not forget it.
Zeno : see next email.
Zenos: Thank you! The link was a big help. I had gotten to the relevant screen before, but did not recognize "Global composing preferences" as the Preferences I needed.
"Sent and Inbox are both "read only" in nature; so what other colours do you want to see? " I want peach for both of those folders. I may not be able to achieve that, but now I at least know that I have SOME control over colors, and I will play around, and as in my rely to Toad Hall, maybe I have primed my perceptions to remember to avoid the pitfall. The really irritating thing is that messages deleted by hitting delete in the body ARE NOT IN THE TRASH FOLDER, as are those I delete from Inbox.
Chosen Solution
If you see a 3bar menu icon on the Mail toolbar. menu icon > Options > Options it will show you the relevant window.