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why does digest mail messages stay "grey" after a previous message with a signature.

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by christ1

davekbv
davekbv
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Hi.

I use and love TB, and have done for some time, but one little "feature" is beginning to annoy me, and I can't find a way to fix it.

THis is in TB 52.2.1 on Linux Mint, 17.x and 18.x

In group list email's, specifically "daily digests". If someone has a signature at the end of their message, that typically seems to start with '--' on a line, then one or more lines of "signature text". Those two hyphens and the signature are "grayed out". Not a problem in itself.

But following messages in the digest are often also grayed out, until TB renders a quote with the blue bar in the first column of a line. This makes it somewhat difficult to read on some screens, as the contrast is greatly reduced.

I've tried to include a screen scrape to illustrate the issue (some privacy related data has been obscured) but it seems to be taking an age to attach a 28k png file.

Best Regards, and many thanks for TB and FF of course.

Davekbv

Hi. I use and love TB, and have done for some time, but one little "feature" is beginning to annoy me, and I can't find a way to fix it. THis is in TB 52.2.1 on Linux Mint, 17.x and 18.x In group list email's, specifically "daily digests". If someone has a signature at the end of their message, that typically seems to start with '--' on a line, then one or more lines of "signature text". Those two hyphens and the signature are "grayed out". Not a problem in itself. But following messages in the digest are often also grayed out, until TB renders a quote with the blue bar in the first column of a line. This makes it somewhat difficult to read on some screens, as the contrast is greatly reduced. I've tried to include a screen scrape to illustrate the issue (some privacy related data has been obscured) but it seems to be taking an age to attach a 28k png file. Best Regards, and many thanks for TB and FF of course. Davekbv

All Replies (3)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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If someone has a signature at the end of their message, that typically seems to start with '--' on a line,

That's called a sig delimiter, and it's two dashes followed by a white-space character. https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-the-standard-email-signature-delimiter-1171204

Thunderbird is respecting the sig delimiter, and you do see the behavior you described. In an ideal world, people would use plain text for composing email messages, and add their reply at the bottom of the received message. Then you wouldn't have the problem.

davekbv
davekbv Question owner
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christ1

Hi.

Thanks for your reply, but it doesn't explain TB's behavior.

I understand the standard, and format of the signature, but why does TB not realize that at the start of a new message in a digest, that the next message is not part of the previous messages signature.

Surely, there is a way for it to recognize the start of a new message, by the presence of the human readable header section of the next message.

I think I have attached a sanitized screenshot, illustrating the issue.

This is only a problem with group messages in a plain text daily digest format.

Best Regards.

Davekbv

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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It's the way it is. Everything past the sig delimiter is interpreted as signature.