This has just been introduced in an attempt to keep in line with how eg: research documents are produced and how type is displayed in web pages.

I know...it isn't how people write letters, where Enter means go to next line and Paragraph meant next line plus indent.

So, the developers decided to make it a default to alter the setup and change users preferences.

Currently, 'Paragraph' is now set as default and when you press 'Enter' it means 'double space' new line with no indentation.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/new-thunderbird-45#w_mail-composition

quote from the link : The Thunderbird composition window now functions more like a word processor in that pressing the "Enter" key inserts a new paragraph, pressing "Shift+Enter" inserts a new line. This new behavior can be switched off in the Tools > Options > Composition > General tab.

To change this to auto select 'Body Text' and 'Enter' means a go to next line: Either Via 'Menu Bar' 'Tools' > 'Options' > 'Composition' > 'General' tab

OR via 'Mail Toolbar' 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Options' > 'Composition' > 'General' tab

uncheck 'when using paragraph format, the enter key creates a new paragraph.' click on OK

Toad-Hall said

This has just been introduced in an attempt to keep in line with how eg: research documents are produced and how type is displayed in web pages. I know...it isn't how people write letters, where Enter means go to next line and Paragraph meant next line plus indent. So, the developers decided to make it a default to alter the setup and change users preferences. Currently, 'Paragraph' is now set as default and when you press 'Enter' it means 'double space' new line with no indentation.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/new-thunderbird-45#w_mail-composition

quote from the link : The Thunderbird composition window now functions more like a word processor in that pressing the "Enter" key inserts a new paragraph, pressing "Shift+Enter" inserts a new line. This new behavior can be switched off in the Tools > Options > Composition > General tab. To change this to auto select 'Body Text' and 'Enter' means a go to next line: Either Via 'Menu Bar' 'Tools' > 'Options' > 'Composition' > 'General' tab OR via 'Mail Toolbar' 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Options' > 'Composition' > 'General' tab uncheck 'when using paragraph format, the enter key creates a new paragraph.' click on OK

I think you will find that for the vast majority of users, were quite happy the way it was. Saving a few researchers writing research documents on email (what!) the effort of pressing return twice when they need to, has caused hassle for the rest of us. Really Mozilla!

This has nothing to do with Mozilla, as Thunderbird development is not done by Mozilla and it has been that way for quite a while. There are various bugs relating to 'paragraph' settings that they are trying to remedy and there has also been requests to make a paragraph fall in line with eg: MS Word word processors . So the people doing the bug fixing and development of requests have acted upon those requests. In addition, they have also provided a means for those who want to use 'Body Text' as default.

My personal gripe is that paragraph has never been correct, as a paragraph should start with first line indented. I posted a bug request if you were interested. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1270802

Thank you, this helps my understanding.