[GNC] Formatting reply posts (Re: Copy a month's budget)

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Sun Jan 13 15:01:47 EST 2019



> On Jan 12, 2019, at 3:11 PM, aeg via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> It's good to see that the formatting issue is being addressed and my suggestion is as follows...   
>   - Italicise all quoted text from previous contributors.

In addition to the other replies noting that the italics suggestion might involve others having to compose in HTML, note that: how received e-mail is displayed is up to you, the receiver as well.

Most mail clients allow you to specify a font, variant, size, and even color for all text, particularly that which is quoted from previous messages.

I happen to be using an html capable client, but choose to receive all mail as plain text, and everything is in a font and size of my choosing. My client (Mail.app 12.2) then color codes the nested quoted material with indentions and a helpful bar on the left side to tie each reply together. (looks like a series of “|” pipe characters with no breaks for new lines) If I recall, Thunderbird works in a similar fashion and also allows for threaded view which offers a tree-style listing of replies so you can see which message is being replied to, even if it hasn’t been quoted. I think by default most no-frills plain text mail clients will use repeated “>” signs to indicate quoted material. But as I mentioned, all of that is on the receiver, not the sender. I could send in html and italicize all my quoted replies, and you could set the result to plain text and not see the italics.

>   - Delete any previously posted text that is irrelevant or duplicated.

Optimum for sure, but I know I’m guilty of firing off a reply to a long thread too fast and don’t bother. I should be more careful.

>   - Compose all fresh comments with normal text.

I’m pretty sure this is the default for nearly every mail client, and most people don’t change from the default. People who compose in HTML however, might very well intentionally use many variants, weights, sizes, even colors and fonts etc.

>   - Start with an introductory comment at the top (if required).

Really only needed for inline posting. (which is probably the best method for detailed discussions) Bottom posting would make the reply quite disjointed and with top posting, everything is above the reply anyway.

Regards,
Adrien


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