Reply in Blue?

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morkus
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Reply in Blue?

Post by morkus »

Can I customize Thunderbird so ALL replies are in blue (so they stand out better)?

-- M
Jim D
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Joined: December 29th, 2004, 10:56 am

Post by Jim D »

Umm... This is sort of an ambiguous question.

You can change the way messages are *displayed* in TB, by modifying the userContent.css. E.g., quoted material can be displayed in a different color, or whatever. this is useful for displaying threaded dialogs.

If you want to put color in the replies that you send, you need to use something like HTML to compose your message. That's not a particularly good idea, and it's not something that I am familiar with.

-Jim
alanharrison
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Post by alanharrison »

I think what morkus is after is a feature that allows text in an email reply to be automatically set to a different colour (ie: blue) than that of the original quoted message. Outlook has such a feature and it can be useful.
morkus
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Post by morkus »

Exactly! This is exactly what I meant.

Is there a way to set, as an option in TB, that when you type a message the color will be what you want?

I find it really nice to see a different color in the reply to help me separate the original message from the reply.

This option would be in the reply to mail options in some future version, hopefully, if I can't yet do it...

-- M
jonno2k
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Post by jonno2k »

Tools -> Options -> Composition -> HTML Options
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DanRaisch
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Post by DanRaisch »

Jim D
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Post by Jim D »

No. The extension above (Quote Colors 0.2.5) enables the user to set the colors in which different parts of the message are *displayed*. That's what I referred to above. This is typically done in userContent.css, although I haven't looked at this particular extension.

I think the O.P. wants to specify the colors when a message is *sent*. In that case, the message can't be sent as text, but needs to be in HTML or something like it. I don't know if that's doable in TB, and I don't happen to like it in any case. HTML mail is unfriendly in a variety of ways.

-Jim
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Post by Guest »

I have the same problem. When I reply to someone who send me an email in black font, it changes to the color/font I specified in the HTML options. I mean the whole email changes. So if I have my default set to red for comp. it automatically turns the whole email red when I reply.

Any way to change that?

Thanks,
Cindy
Jim D
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Post by Jim D »

Again, this concerns use of HTML in composing messages, which is an area that I know nothing about. Maybe someone else does. I'd suggest playing around with the HTML options in TB.

-Jim
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DanRaisch
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Post by DanRaisch »

Jim D. the Quote Color extension changes the color of each message SEGMENT, that is, the initial message, then your reply, then the response to your reply, and then your reply to the response, etc. The result is that each level of the message exchange is visible as a separate segment of text in a different color. That sounds to me like what Morkus was looking for and perhaps a bit more. The user defines the color for each of several levels so that you can either alternate two colors or have distinct color for each available level.
Jim D
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Post by Jim D »

I understand Quote Color, and I do the same thing directly with userContent.css. Maybe that's what Morkus wanted, but I interpreted it differently. I assumed he was trying to set the color in messages that he sent, via html settings.

Anyway, if Quote Color does the job for him, that's fine.

-Jim
morkus
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Post by morkus »

What I want to do is to have, as an option in TB, that just lets me specify what the color is when I reply to a message and start typing.

In Outlook, this color is Blue and I like that choice.

I'm just trying to set it up so my replies are sent in a different color so they stand out. That's all. I have no idea about the distinction in HTML vs. Non-HTML messages.

Does this clarify things?

-- M
ToniQuim
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Location: São Paulo - Brazil

Post by ToniQuim »

morkus,

I suggest you have a look on following site. They implement a ´texturizer´, and allows my TB to display messages, various levels of replies using diferent ´colors´:

http://texturizer.net/thunderbird/tips.html

Just a few words more I copied from above address:

"
Tips & Tricks
This page contains various tips and tricks for Thunderbird. Most of these tips involve editing of text files on your hard drive and is not recommended if you're not familiar with basic file and folder usage.

Contents
Program Appearance
Use different Quote Level Colors
Make newsgroup names appear expanded, not abbreviated
Change Group by Sort Background Color
.................. and much more.....................
ToniQuim
A Thunderbird user since Nov 10, 2K4
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Post by Guest »

morkus :
Short answer first: I believe you are only interested in the clarity of how the reply looks during composition to you. But I dont know the exact css to tinker that -- though the Quote-Color would be a good starting point for that.


Long answer (based on my current understanding).....
There are 2 aspects to this - one is how the mail looks when you are composing on your machine and another is how it appears to the recipient. (Note that whatever you send it as, the reciept can change the way he wants to see it still using his personal css-es if his/her mail client supports that). This is where the confusions above start......

To configure how you see it while composition is to use the userChrome.css. That reflects in the QuoteColor extension and is the path to your solution (if any is possible at all).

If you want the recipient to recieve your text in a particular color (and of course you see the same while composing as well!) - first thing is that you *have-to* compose in HTML. This is controlled via Tools>Accounts>(your-account)>Composition&Addressing. Then the color of any portion of the text can be changed through the compose window or through the defaults in Options>Composition.

Doesnt help I know -- but hopefully clarifies some of the mixup to the best of my understanding.....
dtobias
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Post by dtobias »

It's best to send well-formatted messages, in plain text form, and hopefully the recipient has a good mail program that displays them in a sensible way (which might include showing quoted material in a different color).

More info:
http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/
http://mailformat.dan.info/body/html.html
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
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