Getting rid of colored quote bars...

[Dartman]

1) If you're going to post your email address, make sure you don't attach the word NOW to the address making it invalid.

2) Besides that, I removed your email address because we do not provide email support. The purpose of a forum is so everyone can help at one universal place. More importantly, spammers like to harvest email addresses from public forums. It's also against forum rules to post your email address in public view.

3) We (this forum) are not Mozilla. We are user to user volunteer community. Do not demand things!

Who we are: http://www.mozillazine.org/about/

[JohnSelden]

Has anyone gotten this to work in Thunderbird 3 on the Mac? I've tried everything suggested in this thread and can't get rid of the blue bars.

[jcassidento]

I am using TB 2.0.0.21 on XP, and I have installed the "Change quote and reply format" add-on 0.6.2.0.1. All I am trying to do is get Thunderbird to reply to emails like every other email client on the planet : quoted text below with no indents or graphical nonsense at all, and with a standard header that lists From:, To:, Sent:, and Subject.

The "Change quote and reply format" add-on will do the header fine (though in a different font than the rest of the email - I'll deal with that separately), but I simply cannot get rid of the block quote graphics.

I originally tried the Quote Colors add-on 0.2.8, and selected disabling graphical quotes as recommended on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Quote_bars, but that didn't work. The thought was that I would then be able to get rid of the >, but the graphical quotes were never disabled, so I ended up uninstalling it.

I then installed the ChromeEditPlus add-on 2.7.4 figuring that would be an easy way to edit the usercontent.css and user.js as recommended on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Quote_bars, but it simply would not save the usercontent.css, and it created a user.js in some directory other than <user>/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles. I have a ldmg7dgi.default directory under /Profiles, but this was not described anywhere, so I deleted the user.js in there and uninstalled ChromeEditPlus.

I then tried the following :
- manually create user.txt in <user>/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles using Notepad
- manually create usercontent.txt in <user>/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/chrome using Notepad
- manually change the file names with ren in a DOS window
- edit those files as described on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Quote_bars using Notepad++

But, the quote bars are still there when replying to html emails, and > are still there when replying to plain text emails. I have been looking through posts web pages for over an hour trying to figure this out, and I have to say that this really should not be this hard. TB is supposed to be better than this, and it is such a simple thing. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[dtobias]

That's not what "every other mail client on the planet" does; maybe it's what a few crappy M$ programs do, but there's a long history of programs using traditional quote-marking.

[Freee!!]

a few crappy M$ programs

Are there any others?

[smsmith]

Has anyone gotten this to work in Thunderbird 3 on the Mac? I've tried everything suggested in this thread and can't get rid of the blue bars.

Code: Select all

blockquote, blockquote[type=cite] {
   padding-bottom: 0 !important;
   padding-top: 0 !important;
   padding-left: 0 !important;
   margin-left: 0 !important;
   border-left: 0px !important;
   border-right: 0px !important;
} 

I use that code in my userContent.css file coupled with the three preferences referenced here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Quote_bars

I think the addition of just "blockquote" is what makes it work. At least for me.

Adding the margin-left: 0 means that you won't be able to use an indented blockquote _at_all_ when you are composing a message.

[smsmith]

That's not what "every other mail client on the planet" does; maybe it's what a few crappy M$ programs do, but there's a long history of programs using traditional quote-marking.

Regardless of what you think of Outlook, it is THE standard corporate email application. Therefore, Outlook's conventions are what most people are going to think are the "correct" ones.

[Freee!!]

That's not what "every other mail client on the planet" does; maybe it's what a few crappy M$ programs do, but there's a long history of programs using traditional quote-marking.

Regardless of what you think of Outlook, it is THE standard corporate email application. Therefore, Outlook's conventions are what most people are going to think are the "correct" ones.

I wouldn't call it THE standard corporate email application, but it is the one most widely used, followed closely by Lotus Notes (which has a couple of idiosyncrasies that make Outlook look good in comparison).

[smsmith]

I wouldn't call it THE standard corporate email application, but it is the one most widely used, followed closely by Lotus Notes (which has a couple of idiosyncrasies that make Outlook look good in comparison).

If it's the most widely used, wouldn't that make it the standard? Maybe I'm just being overly simplistic.

Every program will do something just a little different than another, thereby causing you to like A because of this, and B because of that. Myself, I prefer the extensibility of Thunderbird, but the look of Outlook (by which I mean the three column layout view that shows subject under sender in the message list and the way that replies are handled).

[Freee!!]

If it's the most widely used, wouldn't that make it the standard? Maybe I'm just being overly simplistic.

It might be a de facto standard if it were used by a clear majority. However, although it is widely used, it isn't anywhere near a majority thanks to competition of Lotus Notes and some other email clients.

[rsx11m]

wouldn't that make it the standard?

No, it doesn't. Standards are defined by the IETF, those are the RFC numbers you see frequently cited (and, in fact, both Outlook and Lotus Notes violate quite a few of those). Then there are long-established conventions like those defined by Usenet, again frequently ignored by some vendors. There is no standard on whether or not quotes have to be colored or accompanied by a quote bar, but the '>' is indeed mentioned in RFC3676 as the quote indicator for plain-text messages.

[smsmith]

I mean "industry (industry in this example means large organization email) wide standard", you know, what "most" people are using. Not "standard as in a set of specifications that govern how everyone is supposed to do something".

I'm glad for Lotus Notes. Keeps Outlook improving in its own way. But I hate Notes' reply function. The text is formatted differently than if you create a new message. And the From, Subject, Sent, To lines usually end up looking like garbage.

[Freee!!]

I mean "industry (industry in this example means large organization email) wide standard", you know, what "most" people are using. Not "standard as in a set of specifications that govern how everyone is supposed to do something".

As I already wrote, "most" people are using something different than Outlook, but the Outlook users are the largest minority.

I'm glad for Lotus Notes. Keeps Outlook improving in its own way. But I hate Notes' reply function. The text is formatted differently than if you create a new message. And the From, Subject, Sent, To lines usually end up looking like garbage.

Tell me about it, I have to use it at the office every day

[jcassidento]

OK, I admit that I currently use Outlook at work, and yes both Outlook and Notes do suck and "industry" is stupid for using them, but I think the point of this discussion is supposed to be about how to get rid of the block quotes in TB.

I have tried modifying the userContent.css in my Profiles/Chrome directory to read as indicated above by smsmith, but still no luck. The blue quote bars are there for _all_ replies, even replies to plain text emails. I seriously just don't get it, so I would appreciate someone looking over the following from my original post and let me know if maybe I am doing something obviously wrong (like filename or directory related). Note that I have disabled the "Change quote and reply format" add-on in order to have a vanilla installation with no add-ons.

- manually create user.txt in <user>/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles using Notepad
- manually create usercontent.txt in <user>/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/chrome using Notepad
- manually change the file names with ren in a DOS window
- edit those files as described on http://kb.mozillazine.org/Quote_bars using Notepad++
- further edit userContent.css as indicated by smsmith (8 posts previous)

Thanks.

[smsmith]

Did you also change the preferences in about:config? I believe that's required to. It's described using a user.js file, which you can create using the same method as you userContent.css file. Also note that the C is a capitalized C in userContent.css. That's important, too.

Your user.js file would go in your profile folder.

Reading your file paths, it's not clear you got the files in the right place, either. Should be:

Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/12345678.profilename/chrome/userContent.css
Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/12345678.profilename/user.js

where 12345678.profilename is the actual profile folder. For instance, my profile folder is called vcdghcab.default.