Compose plain text e-mail using a variable-width font?
Ron Stewart
way to get TB to allow me to use a variable width font to compose my
plain text e-mail messages, but have found nothing that really works.
I can go to Preferences > Display > Formatting > Fonts > Advanced and
specify a variable-width font like Lucida Grande for the "Monospace:"
selection, but that also controls how mail is displayed, which is a
side effect that I really don't want. When someone /sends/ me mail
that uses a monospaced font, I really do want it to show using a
monospaced face. As this is in the "Display" section rather than the
"Composition" section of the preferences, it seems like it shouldn't
really apply to composition.
I've looked through everything I can think of in the "Config Editor"
and tried several things, including tweaking the font identified in
msgcompose.font_face (empty, by default), but have found nothing that
seems to control the font used to compose plain text messages other
than that setting under "Display". I've tried "variable", "sans-
serif", and the name of a couple different specific fonts (Lucida
Grande, Arial) and none of them seem to override what is set on the
Display/Monospace setting. (I also tweaked the msgcompose.text_color
to #0000CC, and that also seemed to do nothing, which makes me think
the msgcompose.* settings don't even apply to what I'm looking for.)
None of the other settings under the Config Editor seem relevant to
composing plain text.
Any guidance here would be most gratefully received.
--
/ron
Mike Easter
> I've pulled every thread I can find in Thunderbird trying to find a
> way to get TB to allow me to use a variable width font to compose my
> plain text e-mail messages, but have found nothing that really works.
> Any guidance here would be most gratefully received.
It doesn't 'work' for Tbird to have to 'think' in terms of variable
width for its composition for a plaintext message -
- because there is too much 'calculating' going on about how to handle
the length of a line which doesn't work if there is variability in
spaces and letters and dots and other punctuation.
There are other things that Tbird doesn't know how to deal with in this
regard, such as how to handle format=flowed properly in Tbirds 3.0x and
3.1x.
I mention the f=f issue because you /could/ solve your problem with
variable composition in the same way that Tbird3 users solve their
problem (if they care) with Tbird3's noncompliance with its stated f=f
status. That is...
- compose your messages in html. Then flip into plaintext for the Send.
--
Mike Easter
Arivald
> Ron Stewart wrote:
>> I've pulled every thread I can find in Thunderbird trying to find a
>> way to get TB to allow me to use a variable width font to compose my
>> plain text e-mail messages, but have found nothing that really works.
>
>> Any guidance here would be most gratefully received.
>
> It doesn't 'work' for Tbird to have to 'think' in terms of variable
> width for its composition for a plaintext message -
>
> - because there is too much 'calculating' going on about how to handle
> the length of a line which doesn't work if there is variability in
> spaces and letters and dots and other punctuation.
>
> There are other things that Tbird doesn't know how to deal with in this
> regard, such as how to handle format=flowed properly in Tbirds 3.0x and
> 3.1x.
>
This is most stupid answer I read in a mony or two...
Any font family (fixed or variable width) is handel can be handled
without any problems...
"Format flowed", or wrapping to specific column are done on character
level, regardless of font face.
--
Arivald
Mike Easter
> Mike Easter pisze:
> This is most stupid answer I read in a mony or two...
> Any font family (fixed or variable width) is handel can be handled
> without any problems...
> "Format flowed", or wrapping to specific column are done on character
> level, regardless of font face.
>
You may find one sentence in my answer 'stupid', but the fact remains
that in order to compose in plaintext, you have to/ one has to/ do the
same thing you have to/ one has to/ do in order to post reply properly
in f=f in Tb3x which is to 'do it' - the composition - in html, and then
send in plaintext.
What is more stupid (than my sentence) is for any of us to try to guess
at why the Tbird developers have failed to perform what we might see as
their appointed task to allow us to compose in variable width and for
tbird to be able to reply in f=f compliantly.
--
Mike Easter
Gordon Weast
Ron,
Plain text is just that. No formatting information is present in the
message. The recipient's setting for font in their news reader or
mail reader is what's used to display the text.
If you really want to have your choice of font used to display the
message you need to compose and send in html. That contains lots of
formatting information. You get to choose the font and fixed or
proportional spacing. You can switch fonts for different parts of
the message. Of course, that takes a lot more bytes to send.
Gordon
Ron Stewart
Gordon, my question has to do solely with the font used to compose the
message. I don't care what font the reader uses to display it in on
their systems. Perhaps the primary point of my question got lost
somewhere in my description of stuff I had looked at within TB as I
tried to find a way to make it work.
I want to compose and send in plain text -- and I want to compose in a
variable width font for legibility as I write.
Part of my choice of sending in plain text is because I really don't
care (nor want to impose) what fonts, etc., the reader reads the
messages in; I am willing to assume they have selected an
appropriately readable face and size that meets their individual needs
within the context of the device on which they are reading the
messages. Particularly on Blackberries and other small-screen devices,
I'm finding this to be more and more important.
--
/ron
Mike Easter
> I want to compose and send in plain text -- and I want to compose in a
> variable width font for legibility as I write.
Compose in html and send in plaintext.
Tbird 'thinks' plaintext composition should be fixed width.
You can have the result you want, you just configure and sequence
differently than you have been doing.
If I were going to change to Tbird 3 instead of Tbird 2, I would compose
my plaintext news messages in html and send in plaintext because I am an
'advocate' of f=f and Tb3 doesn't reply to or with f=f properly unless I
sequence using html to plaintext as described.
I *should* be able to configure to be in plaintext all the way, but I can't.
--
Mike Easter
Gord McFee
I've been doing this forever, so let me know if this is of any help.
Tools -> Options -> Display -> Fonts -> Advanced
Proportional should be set to Sans Serif
Sans serif should be a variable font such as Tahoma
Monospace should also be a variable font (I have both set to Tahoma)
That should give you what you want.
--
Best regards
Gord McFee
Ron Stewart
I touched on this very approach in the second paragraph of my original
post: "I can go to Preferences > Display > Formatting > Fonts >
Advanced and specify a variable-width font like Lucida Grande for the
"Monospace:" selection, but that also controls how mail is displayed,
which is a side effect that I really don't want. When someone /sends/
me mail that uses a monospaced font, I really do want it to show using
a monospaced face. As this is in the "Display" section rather than the
"Composition" section of the preferences, it seems like it shouldn't
really apply to composition."
For the most part, if someone has forced a message to contain
monospaced content in something they've sent me, they've done so to
force alignment (e.g., rows of figures or some other form of data. In
those cases, my preference is to have that monospaced content shown
using a monospace face. Sort of the same idea in situations when
someone has composed HTML mail and a message has a table: usually
they've done so intentionally to force alignment of content and to
render that in some other manner risks removing structure that may be
important.
I recognize that this approach works, but as I noted it comes with a
side-effect I don't like. It seems like it would be preferable for TB
to better differentiate between preferences used for how I compose
messages I send and those used for how messages are displayed. My hope
would be that composing in plain text would not require composing in a
monospaced face.