When replying, starting the cursor at the top of the quoted text has a sensible purpose according to some Usenetiquette guides. Basically, it leaves the user ready to work down the message, trimming it down to the bits actually being replied to and inserting reply text at the appropriate points. But when a reply is started in this way, the blank lines are always put at the top, with the cursor, not at the bottom. I therefore find myself deleting the blank lines when I reply to a newsgroup post, and typing them in even at the end of my reply. OK, so the very last line of a quoted message won't necessarily be one of the specific bits being replied to. But more often than not, after snipping there'll be no quoted text left after the last line of a reply, and so it would make sense to have the blank space there ready for the user to type in. I can see that this ought to be a new quoting option. Otherwise, people who are used to writing top-posted business emails would be a bit annoyed to suddenly have to type the blank lines at the top themselves. But this raises the question: what wording should we use that everyone would correctly understand? This idea +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [x] Automatically Quote the original message when replying | | ______________________________________ | | Then, [ Start the cursor below quoted text |v] | | +--------------------------------------+ | | | Start the cursor above quoted text | | | | Start the cursor below quoted text | | | | Select the quoted text | | | +--------------------------------------+ | | _______________________________________ | | and place blank lines [ below the quoted text (recommended) |v] | | +---------------------------------------+ | | | above the quoted text | | | | below the quoted text (recommended) | | | +---------------------------------------+ | | _______________________________________ | | and place my signature [ below the quoted text (recommended) |v] | | +---------------------------------------+ | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ would perhaps make a bit of sense, but wouldn't clarify why anyone would want the setup I'm talking about, so there's something else to think about. But the basic point is that it would be nice for those of us who like to write good newsgroup replies to have this simple aid to doing so.

Don't care much about the blank line thing, but letting the signature be place before the quoted text is a must for me since this is how every other mail and news client that I have used works.

You're thinking of bug 62429. Let me guess ... there is only one program in "every other mail and news client that I have used", and it was made by Microsoft? :-)

The Preference "Specify where in the message to place your reply", mentioned in the Help has disappeared... Below, is the mention made in the Help: To include the original message each time you reply to any message, and to specify how to place the original message in the reply: 1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences. 2. Under the Mail & Newsgroups category, click Composition. (If no subcategories are visible, double-click Mail & Newsgroups to expand the list.) 3. Select "Automatically quote the original message when replying." 4. Specify where in the message to place your reply. "Start my reply above the quoted text" is the default. 5. Click OK.

If this bug gets resolved will it be fixed for Thunderbird as well? I notice the same behavior in that program (version 0.7.1 (20040626)). CC'ing myself.

(In reply to comment #3) > The Preference "Specify where in the message to place your reply", mentioned in > the Help has disappeared... Actually, it's moved. See bug 141531. > Below, is the mention made in the Help: > > To include the original message each time you reply to any message, and to > specify how to place the original message in the reply: > > 1. Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences. > 2. Under the Mail & Newsgroups category, click Composition. (If no > subcategories are visible, double-click Mail & Newsgroups to expand the list.) > 3. Select "Automatically quote the original message when replying." > 4. Specify where in the message to place your reply. "Start my reply above > the quoted text" is the default. > 5. Click OK. Yes, there are bits of the help that are out of date. There ought to be a bug report for this somewhere. But at the moment, I can't for the life of me find that page of the help.

sorry for the spam. making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs. filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

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