overwrites? I am not getting you. Just select the text with your mouse and delete it with the delete key. This is not a typewriter.

Or are you talking editors markup?

Thank you, Matt, for the response in which you enquired:

> overwrites?

        Perhaps I should have said 'insert'.  But insert is what I am doing within your reply.

> ...Just select the text with your mouse and delete it with the delete key.

       That is certainly an option.  But, presumably because it's unnecessarily onerous today's typewriter keyboards have an ins(ert) key.  This worked with my old and increasingly missed e-mailer, Eudora 7.1; but not with Thunderbird.

> Or are you talking editors markup?

       No, I'm not even sure what that is.

       Having seen your dialogue with another user about the challenges of using colour with Mozilla's e-mailer, I know you are a veteran.  So any pointers will be much appreciated.

       Perhaps you can help with another issue too.   Like that user e-mail is essential for my work.  And like him I want to give Thunderbird a fair trial.  But writing and replying in this quirky programme can be so exasperating that I am driven to prepare text first in Notepad or Eudora.  Is this the right place to raise other issues or is there another more active forum?

       Again, my thanks.

       Antonio

I'm having trouble understanding what it is you find so odd about Thunderbird. To me, it behaves just like many other editing tools. You place the cursor where you want to type and start typing.

Some editing environments do have a toggle to switch between inserting and overwriting. Thunderbird doesn't. Nor does Firefox, which I'm using to write to this forum. I hadn't noticed this until you mentioned the insert key. (Perhaps the location where I most use insert vs overwrite is in a command line prompt, and I expect to be in a very small minority of computer users who still use the command line environment.)

In the rare case where I might want to overwrite text in a regular text editing environment, then, as Matt outlined, I'd select the offending text and then start typing. Like most editors, Thunderbird and Firefox both support "typing replaces selection".

There is a variety of keystrokes and mouse click modifiers to ease the task of selecting text. Double-click selects the word being pointed at. Triple-click selects the paragraph. Place the cursor at one place in the text to start a selection, and click. Place it somewhere else, hold down shift and click again; all text between the initial cursor position and the final cursor position is selected. Hold down control and double-clicks will select multiple separate words. You can of course just drag the cursor over the text with your mouse.

You can also navigate using the cursor keys on the keyboard (left, right, up, down, home, end, page up, page down) and in conjunction with shift and control these will select text as the cursor moves.

In short, the ability to select text makes the insert key somewhat obsolete; selecting is more flexible and powerful. (I just changed "rather" to "somewhat" by double clicking "rather" and typing "somewhat". Had I used an Insert/Overwrite toggle, "rather obsolete;" would have turned into "somewhatbsolete;".) I know that Word has this insert/overwrite feature but I can't remember when I last used it.

But I wonder if your issues are really about insert vs overwrite. Is there something else in Thunderbird that bothers you?

please I am having trouble understanding. But here goes what I think your asking.

When you reply in an interleaved fashion as you did with my email, you need to break the previous message by pressing enter to get your own text area to type in. I saw a discussion on one of the develop0er list the other day where they were suggesting that some of the font information is bleeding back and forth in these situation and brainstorming what to actually do about it. That is just a discussion as yet. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-planning/ZYusepcRj-k

One of the best option in my opinion is to use the quote and compose managerhttps://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/quoteandcomposemanager-en.html as it preserves the vertical lines Thunderbird shows while editing in the outgoing message to make it clear where the interleaved information is located. It also has a stabilize font option that has helped many. (The author is Italian, so Italian locales of his add-ons are always available)

Instruction on installing add-ons here http://chrisramsden.vfast.co.uk/3_How_to_install_Add-ons_in_Thunderbird.html

Zenos,

       Thank you very much for the detailed comments which began:

> I'm having trouble understanding what it is you find so odd about Thunderbird. To me, it behaves just like many other editing tools. You place the cursor where you want to type and start typing.

       By that very basic criterion the software may be fine.  But most of my typing is not on a blank page and as soon as new text must be added to old or cutting & pasting is needed unpredictable things, as outlined later, can occur.

> Some editing environments do have a toggle to switch between inserting and overwriting. Thunderbird doesn't.

       To me eliminating that key merely as an option is a disappointing and curious omission.  But I am grateful for your clarification.

> Nor does Firefox, which I'm using to write to this forum. I hadn't noticed this until you mentioned the insert key. (Perhaps the location where I most use insert vs overwrite is in a command line prompt, and I expect to be in a very small minority of computer users who still use the command line environment.)

       Fair enough.  But this is also a surprise since I use the key quite often but never for that purpose.

> In the rare case where I might want to overwrite text in a regular text editing environment, then, as Matt outlined, I'd select the offending text and then start typing. Like most editors, Thunderbird and Firefox both support "typing replaces selection".

       That's fine.

> There is a variety of keystrokes and mouse click modifiers to ease the task of selecting text. Double-click selects the word being pointed at. Triple-click selects the paragraph.

       Wow, thanks for the tips which I should start using.  They will at least mitigate Mozilla's indifference to the Insert key.  At least the Caps Lock key hasn't been disabled.

> Place the cursor at one place in the text to start a selection, and click. Place it somewhere else, hold down shift and click again; all text between the initial cursor position and the final cursor position is selected.

       That's right, thank you Zenos.

> Hold down control and double-clicks will select multiple separate words.

       This only worked in Thunderbird with a single word, not subsequent ones.  But never mind.

> You can of course just drag the cursor over the text with your mouse.

       True.

> You can also navigate using the cursor keys on the keyboard (left, right, up, down, home, end, page up, page down) and in conjunction with shift and control these will select text as the cursor moves.

       Thanks for this too.

> In short, the ability to select text makes the insert key somewhat obsolete; selecting is more flexible and powerful. (I just changed "rather" to "somewhat" by double clicking "rather" and typing "somewhat". Had I used an Insert/Overwrite toggle, "rather obsolete;" would have turned into "somewhatbsolete;".) I know that Word has this insert/overwrite feature but I can't remember when I last used it.

       OK,  I understand.

> But I wonder if your issues are really about insert vs overwrite. Is there something else in Thunderbird that bothers you?

       You are right, they go well beyond that one issue so your question is appreciated.

Formatting. As with the fellow Matt tried to help concerning colour in Thunderbird, I find typefaces or fonts useful differentiators. Yet this e-mailer can be frustratingly whimsical with formatting. Although a single font and size have been specified, even cc's of my own e-mail can return in another style and often differ from preview to editing panes.

       A few times the result is far worse.  The following excerpt appeared normal - single text size, no split words or code insertions - before transmission:

       I have been busy and was disappoin ted with the lack of response to < small>a previous message.  But this is the sor t of issue I'd be happy to help with..

       And the example below couldn't even be copied faithfully from the SAME PANE within which this text is being drafted.  The omission of spaces and letters renders a once-coherent sentence unintelligible:

A mo< f ont face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">re onerous method is a tractor-mounted back-hoe or a hydraulic excavator for stump removal. - In order to elimina& amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; amp; lt; /font>te compe tition from other surrounding vege tat ion, i t is also common practice

       No less curiously, and irritatingly, if I want to copy a short word such as etc. or a few commonly used letters such as te these are pasted on the line BELOW the cursor especially but not necessarily if it is empty.  Sometimes, repeating Ctl-v will generate not tetete but a maddening sequence of increasing size such as tetete !

[Disappointingly, the original strikeouts and array of font sizes are NOT displayed here.]

Other idiosyncrasies.

Text from some programmes and even from websites must sometimes be copied to Notepad or Wordpad first and then recopied before it can be used in Thunderbird. Such text can usually be copied directly to any header line, however.

Backspacing does not always backspace. On some alarming occasions, however, backspacing can delete whole blocks of unhighlighted text.

Italics may or may not be relayed, sometimes within the same message. In the example below, slashes replaced the first italics altogether but simply supplemented them in the second case: [Again, that formatting has been expurgated.]

...Indians from Venezuela planted /Cecropia /as climbing trees next to spiny peach Palms (/Bactris gasipaes/)...

That said, I correspond in several languages and much appreciate the ease with which this softetetware can review spelling in all of them. To its credit, also, Mozilla's e-mailer does a decent job with nonASCII characters. But it's not perfect - my São can return as São, etc.

Copying centred text, whether from the preview panel or the editing one often loses its centred formatting.

The cursor can at times disappear altogether obliging me to complete editing in NotePad or the still wonderfully clear, capable and predictable Eudora 7.1. I almost overlooked that additional aggravation but, for once helpfully, it surfaced just before concluding these lines.

Suggestions.

Windows' conventional Alt-F4 Ctl-F4 hierarchy is not followed.

Sending correspondence with Return Receipt or Delivery Status Notification not only appears to leave no record of such instructions in the Sent Folder but also seems to make no such request to the recipient.

Eudora's Search function was so much easier to use.

       Once more, MANY thanks.

Most of the idiosyncratic issues can be controlled by learning to paste as unformatted text. (Ctrl+Shift+V) Lots of the things pasted in, especially from web pages, but spreadsheets as well include a table with the information pasted. Pressing backspace can remove the table and it's contents. This appears to you as a block of text being removed. Not so to the program. Alternatively the information may have been pasted as an image. What comes from the clipboard when you paste is something of a lottery. The program that puts the data there (copy) may well put it there in one or half a dozen formats. The program that reads the data then makes a guess as to the most appropriate format to use from those presented. Usually this decision is based on retaining as much information as possible, that is what we want in a what you see is what you get world. Retaining information (formatting spacing columns etc) however is the principal cause of formatting issues. Try it a while and just see how it goes. and please report your results.

Windows' conventional Alt-F4 Ctl-F4 hierarchy is not followed.

Good idea. Perhaps file an enhancement bug? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/

On top of everything Matt mentions, you need to understand that in an environment such as this forum, you are also faced with its own local foibles and tools. Here you can use HTML, to a limited extent, and it has its own markup using multiple single quotes for italic and bold, and a notation using square brackets for links. So it is definitely not wysiwyg and pasting examples of markup to explain them requires jumping through various hoops to defeat the site's engine in its attempts to render them. This all makes copy-and-paste somewhat unpredictable.

Your reply demonstrates yet another special case. Indented text is regarded as being code or similar, where spacing may be important. In regular HTML, white space is disregarded and text reflows to fit the space. So it's perfect if I want to demonstrate code:

for(int n=0 ; n<10 ; n++){
  printf("hello world! \n") ;
} 

but an impediment if I wanted to indent paragraphs of text.

    You need to use special characters (I'm trying a non-breaking space here) to indent text. But this would be extremely clumsy to do in Thunderbird.

Paste unformatted is indeed the way to go. And it helps if you lower your expectations of what can be done when using the diabolical combination of email email and HTML markup. It is not a word processor!  ;-)

Thanks, Matt, for the additional 18.3 explanation:

> >...When you reply in an interleaved fashion as you did with my email, you need to break the previous message by pressing enter to get your own text area to type in.

       True, but I Enter twice because some recipients prefer the greater line separation (which Eudora affords) and differentiation.  Similarly, I also double-tab my interleaf - I was unfamiliar with this usage and it's fine - and, in case the margin 'bars' are not relayed, also precede received text with one or more >s.

> > I saw a discussion on one of the develop0er list the other day where they were suggesting that some of the font information is bleeding back and forth in these situation and brainstorming what to actually do about it. That is just a discussion as yet. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-planning/ZYusepcRj-k

       This link is particularly appreciated because its remarks about "the infamous Mozilla core editor" such as "the editor has a few idiosyncrasies that users get confronted with on a daily basis" and Jörg's list of "pet-hates" make clear that I am not alone in my misgivings.  Reading only part of the discussion, which is quite long, left me wondering why Mozilla undertook the creation of a new editor when Qualcomm's abandoned (and therefore free?) Eudora has one with far fewer quirks.

> > One of the best option in my opinion is to use the quote and compose managerhttps://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/quoteandcomposemanager-en.html as it preserves the vertical lines Thunderbird shows while editing in the outgoing message to make it clear where the interleaved information is located. It also has a stabilize font option that has helped many. (The author is Italian, so Italian locales of his add-ons are always available)

       Gosh, this sounds very promising, thank you.  I see version 0.4.0.2 can be retrieved from that same page.  Can you please tell me if its installation is straightforward and allows easy removal if one changes one's mind?  The next link you have helpfully added should be useful.

> > Instruction on installing add-ons here http://chrisramsden.vfast.co.uk/3_How_to_install_Add-ons_in_Thunderbird.html

       Yes, although your recommendation is not on Thunderbird's 'official' add-on page, I read "If...you're using Firefox [as I am]...Your browser will see that it is an xpi file and will assume it is intended to be installed in your browser."  But shouldn't Quoteandcompose be installed in my e-mailer, Thunderbird, NOT my browser?  Or does Thunderbird work through or in collaboration with Firefox?

       Antonio

AntonioLambe said

But shouldn't Quoteandcompose be installed in my e-mailer, Thunderbird, NOT my browser? Or does Thunderbird work through or in collaboration with Firefox?

Thunderbird also uses .xpi files for it's add-ons. Here are some instructions:

1. Go to <the site for your add-on> and select 'Download'
2. Chose 'Save to file'
3. In Thunderbird, open Add-ons from the Tools menu (or from the 3-bar menu button).
4. To the left of the 'Search all add-ons' field, click on the icon with crossed wrench and screwdriver.
5. Select "Install Add-on From File..." and locate the downloaded file (with extension of .xpi).
6. Highlight the file name and click Open.

Matt and Zenos, this was a very enlightening discussion. I'm glad to get the additional info. No email program is perfect, but TB is a lot better than many others I have tried. Thanks

Thanks again, Zenos, and especially Matt, for your time, comments and suggestions. I had hoped by now to have heard whether the QuoteandCompose Add-on could be removed easily. In desperation and the absence of a response it has been installed.

The results are inauspicious. Indeed, this user was left wondering if the add-on had actually been incorporated in TB at all. It is nowhere to be found in the e-mailer's main Thunderbird panel - and, counter intuitively, certainly not via Add-ons under the Tools menu. This is simply a link to a webpage with plenty of add-ons; no QuoteandCompose there either, though.

Eventually it was located beneath Tools in the Write panel. But 8 of the 9 choices displayed in the QuoteandCompose drop-down menu appear wholly unrelated to the issues raised here. The remaining Options-> Compose selection is equally unpromising.

The result has been hours battling the same old problems and encountering some new ones. You have made amply clear the complications raised when moving and manipulating material in different formats. Yet I am e-mailing, or attempting to e-mail, with a contemporary programme no differently than I have for years with an e-mailer that is decades old which never presented a fraction of these frustrations. I will be grateful if you can still muster some further suggestions before I resign myself to looking elsewhere; or, as presently, to creating in Eudora and restricting TB to mere postman. But you are probably tiring of the subject, as am I.