Mail Tweak (for Thunderbird)

[Bozz]

no have 2 - that's wot ACR n NTT r 4

...ooops... another extension to install.

[tanstaafl_bh]

wtf? speak english, man!

[Bozz]

wtf? speak english, man!

heh...you must be from Texas?

[Lee_Dailey]

@ Lee: thank you for pointing me to ACR and NTT and for your hints with the FF XTs!

@ Lee and mad.engineer: UserChrome.js/Mail#Word_count only counts (as per label .. ) WORDS - for the SMS via email feature I need CHARACTER count, remember? I would be capable of recoding that JavaScript to count characters but really do not feel like js coding right now. MailTweak character counts works for now.

howdy LeeBinder,

you are welcome!

word count != char count. gak! [*blush*] you may still want to contact one of those addon authors since MTweak is going to get more an more problematic over time.

take care,
lee

[rphair]

Dear Lee:

Thanks, I'd gotten the feeling that MailTweak was abandoned. I'd originally found it, and used it up until recently, for only one purpose: at some point in the evolution of Thunderbird 3.1, or maybe when I migrated from Windows to Linux, Tbird began overriding my preference to "Send in both Plain Text and HTML" by sending a text-only message whenever it didn't contain formatting, as described in this article:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_content_types#Sending_messages
That's how I found out about MailTweak:

If you compose a message as HTML, then you can send it as plain text, HTML, or both. However, Thunderbird normally makes the choice of type for you automatically, depending on the recipients of the message or their domains. This corresponds to the default menu choice (in the Compose window) Options – Format – Auto-Detect. The Mail Tweak extension has a Force HTML tweak that can change the default.

Now that I'm corralled by package updates in Linux to upgrade to Thunderbird 5, I am back where I started. The documentation from Mozilla here is alarming since it unapologetically says there's no way to change the default behaviour, and recommends these workarounds:

1. a hack, like a "italic space character," in your email signature (which can be easily accidentally erased)
2. an obsolescent program like MailTweak (incompatible with Tbird 5).

Thunderbird 5, as far as I can tell, doesn't rectify the problem, or even offer a setting in about:config to override "Auto-Detect format." Lee, I was attracted by the promise in your last posting of other workarounds. What options do you know of in this case? Any ideas from anyone else?

There is a huge community of business clients I have helped migrate to Thunderbird and we collectively, desperately need an answer to this question. For my part, when people read my mail it looks like my messages are being sent from two different people, since most clients show text very differently than HTML (including Thunderbird itself).

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy rphair,

there is another addon - actively maintained for some time now - that can deal with that. lookee ...
QuoteAndComposeMan

the item you want is in the "compose window" tab of the addon and named "never convert in plain text when compose is in HTML format".

that entire website is wonderfully useful. try reading thru it sometime! [*grin*]

take care,
lee

[rphair]

howdy Lee: that is just what I was looking for. I agree it's an interesting and helpful web site... in fact I thought it looked familiar, and realised I'd already been bailed out by ImportExportTools. Thanks very much for you for pinpointing an add-on & option that I might never have found on my own.

best regards, Robert Phair @COSD

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy Robert,

you are very welcome! glad to help a tad ... [*grin*]

take care,
lee

[John_Ha]

I too am very sorry that Mail Tweak appears to be dead and specifically, doesn't work with TB 5 .

My major use is to prefill the Alternate text field when Insert > Image into an email. Without Mail Tweak I always have to type something into the field - with Mail Tweak I prefill it with text and it's done for me.

Does anyone know another way of doing it? There appear to be 4 lines in Tools > Options > General > Config Editor which refer to mailtweak so it looks like it isn't just a simple change of a TB parameter

[Lee_Dailey]

howdy John_Ha,

actually, MT is not _totally_ incompatible with tb5. it does have a serious, program-stopping problems with _some_ of it's options. they either bork tb5 or they don't work. you can force MT to install with this addon ...
Add-on Compatibility Reporter

then install MT. when 1st run, DISABLE everything in MT other than the one thing you really need. restart tb5 and see if things still work and if the one thing from MT that you enabled works.

as for a replacement, there isn't one. you can try contacting the author of this addon ...
QuoteAndComposeMan

... and asking him to add the option. he is VERY active and will generally respond politely to polite requests. [*grin*] plus, there is a 'donate' button on the lower left of his front page ...
http://nic-nac-project.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html

another option is to live with it until it gets fixed. there is a bug in bugzilla about it. lookee ...
- request way to set default to no alternate text for inserting images
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353205

IMPORTANT!
if a bug fits your situation, you might want to vote for it ... and perhaps add yourself to the CC list. please, do NOT comment unless you have new info. bugspamming - "me too" comments and various rants [*grin*] - is a good way to get the bug ignored.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

take care,
lee

[Klint]

Hi relied on this add-on very much; I am willing to make a donation to get it working on 5.0. I mainly personalized email. If anyone knows how to still get the same functionality with 5.0, I would be much obliged. Thank you.

Hi, not sure what was personalized email exactly in MT, but you may have to look to the Mail Merge add-on. Maybe it does something similar

[John_Ha]

Lee

you can force MT to install with this addon ...

Thank you - I will have a look at that.

I am not a programmer, but I looked at the source of Mail Tweak and it appears that each function is programmed as a separate subroutine, and the source is open. I am hoping that if the bit I want works in R5, I may be able to do a hack where I find the Main part of the Mail Tweak program, reset whatever part tells Thunderbird which releases it works with, and delete all the unwanted functions leaving just the Image text I want. That way I can continue to check if my Add-ons are compatible with new releases.

[John_Ha]

Lee

- request way to set default to no alternate text for inserting images
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353205

I have posted to the bug report the fact that Mail Tweak no longer works with TB v5 and I hope it will re-open the discussion and lead to a fix.

[Lee_Dailey]

Lee

you can force MT to install with this addon ...

Thank you - I will have a look at that.

I am not a programmer, but I looked at the source of Mail Tweak and it appears that each function is programmed as a separate subroutine, and the source is open. I am hoping that if the bit I want works in R5, I may be able to do a hack where I find the Main part of the Mail Tweak program, reset whatever part tells Thunderbird which releases it works with, and delete all the unwanted functions leaving just the Image text I want. That way I can continue to check if my Add-ons are compatible with new releases.

howdy John_Ha,

kool! [*grin*] if you have any luck at it, please post back here. i'mcertainly interested ...

take care,
lee

[Lee_Dailey]

Lee

- request way to set default to no alternate text for inserting images
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=353205

I have posted to the bug report the fact that Mail Tweak no longer works with TB v5 and I hope it will re-open the discussion and lead to a fix.

howdy John_Ha,

yes, it is rather tiresome to have to enter that required but normally useless text. your default alt-text value would seem to be an easy fix. here's hoping ... [*grin*]

take care,
lee