A question about evolution: i often select text in emails when reading them, as a reading tool. When replying to emails, Evolution then automatically only pasts the selected text below my reply-email, instead of the whole email (chain). I’d like to turn this option off, so that even when I select text, the reply email contains the entire email chain at the bottom.
Is this possible somewhere in the settings?
Quoting the selected text in a reply is seen by many as a positive
benefit, while including the entire text below the reply is a
misfeature invented originally by Microsoft Outlook and then followed
by many other MUAs. It’s highly inappropriate in many contexts,
especially on mailing lists which already archive everything, as it
leads to an exponential growth in the size of successive replies, but
you can do it if you want by simply not selecting text before replying.
You can of course file a Request For Enhancement (RFE) is you think
it’s important.
poc
1 Like
Hi,
there is no option for it at the moment and I won’t add it. You can
just click in the middle of the text to unselect anything you’ve
selected, before pressing “Reply”.
Bye,
Milan
If this is going to be a feature request, it could be a request to add an option to have a reading indicator with the cursor. Maybe this can take the form of an “Accessibility” feature with code for use in apps?
Do you have documentation of that? Outlook was born as part of Microsoft Office 97, and I seem to remember earlier e-mail clients that would, if so configured, quote a whole message when drafting a reply.
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Hi,
do you mean anything like View->Caret Mode (F7)? It sounds like that.
Bye,
Milan
No I don’t, but I do clearly remember when Outlook appeared. The issue is not whether a reply quotes all or part of the previous message, but where it places the cursor. No MUA I had used before placed the cursor before the quoted material. It was always at the end, so that comments flowed from top to bottom in a logical manner, a practice probably inherited from Usenet newsgroups, where it was absolutely standard. It would be difficult to demonstrate that the brain-dead Outlook practice did not exist in earlier MUAs, but I don’t think there’s any question that MS made it “standard” in the Not Invented Here manner usual for them at the time. Recall that for many business people Outlook was the first email system they had ever used.
No. Sorry for the confusion. I mean having words or phrases highlighted when moving the mouse cursor. There is also such a request in Evince, but with a guidance line: Add guidance line help for enhancing the reading experience (#118) · Issues · GNOME / evince · GitLab.
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