quoting/threading phenomena in mail.app -- due to problems in incoming messages?

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Level 3

505 points

quoting/threading phenomena in mail.app -- due to problems in incoming messages?

Folks:

Mail 5.1 on MacOS 10.7.x

I began using Mail.app when I installed 10.7, shortly after the initial release.

No problems with respect to unformatted email or replying to short, trivial length formatted message. For complex, on-going discussions I feel that consistent and reliable quoting and threading behavior are essential. But that is not happening in some cases. I'd like to figure out why, and what I might do to fix the issue.

(Note: I do not want to get into a discussion here of formatted versus unformatted email. Both have their pros and cons. Nor do I want to spend a lot of time debating this issue with my correspondents. As a matter of courtesy, I set Mail.app to respond using the same message format as the original message.)

When I reply to a formatted email, I notice that mail.app sometimes draws a dark grey box --with rounded corners-- around one or more incoming paragraphs, placing a circled "X" "close icon" at the upper left. I don't get it. To what does this correspond? Why does mail.app mark-off this text and offer a "close icon"? As far as I know I'm not doing anything that implies I might want to delete the text.

(Note: Rummaging around in the corresponding message source, it seems that these boxes correspond to blockquoted text in the received message.)

Editing within one of these boxes is really unpredictable. Sometimes I can select an insertion point and insert a line-break, in preparation of replying to the text just above. Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes I can select text, and cut it. Sometimes nothing happens at all to the selected text.

Mail.app commonly doesn't correctly increase the quoting level in such paragraphs. Using

Format> Quote Level>Increase

to maintain threading history manually is fairly easy since I've defined a function-key shortcut, which works some of the time -- but the effect of this command is unpredictable. Sometimes this command deletes the selected text entirely. (Grrrrrr!) The workaround I've found is to select smaller chunks of text. In such cases, this command generally works correctly.

Meanwhile, messages from exactly one person --who uses gmail exclusively-- are displayed in a completely unique threaded format by mail.app. The entire short history of 5 messages from him are displayed on multiple virtual sheets in one message window, with the latest first. In one view, clicking on the "see more" link at the bottom of his messages unleashes a cool-looking accordion opening effect and displays my part of the thread. (I guess. I don't totally understand this display concept. But it looks very cool and seems to handle quoting and threading pretty well.)

- - -

What's going on?

My best guess is that mail.app is struggling with "inconsistencies" in the incoming messages from different people using various email clients. I seem to recall reading that email tech specs are a hodgepodge of evolving and contradictory standards. Is that correct? Is that the root of my issue?

Many of my correspondents are non-tekkies and/or non-affluent, and they use whatever email client they can afford. Some could be using really old email clients. That doesn't help, right? Are blockquotes a really archaic formatting measure?

- - -

When these problems occur, they can cost me a lot of time and trouble. It's really distracting to have to deal with portions of the incoming message disappear.

I don't think it is practical to persuade my correspondents to upgrade their email clients. Some of them have trouble simply setting the preferences to support quoting. Threading is a difficult concept for a few.

Any suggestions? Any mail.app preference settings I might try adjusting? Any add-ins? Is it possible to tell Mail.app "interpret all incoming blockquotes tags as simple breaks" or strip them entirely? Or ...?

TIA

2.66 GHz Intel Core i5-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on May 13, 2012 1:58 PM

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Answer 1

majenks

Level 1

0 points

May 13, 2012 2:25 PM in response to Hen3ry

Mail 5.2 on MacOS 10.7

I've been using Mail for years on various Apples, old and new, and have experienced similar problems with Lion. The inconsistencies I find are in how the emails thread, with certain ones dividing off into their own thread. Threading behavior is inconsistent. I have not experienced the problem with formatting, and I think you're operating with more complexity than I am, but I still have a similar question.

Are their preferences that can help Apple Mail's threading behavior behave with more consistency?

Thanks,

Melissa

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Answer 2

haavee

Level 1

0 points

Mar 6, 2013 10:51 AM in response to Hen3ry

I had the same problem too.

Very simple fix:

select the block-quoted text (i.e. using Shift+mouse motion over the text), then go to the "Format" menu and click "Make Plain Text".

Now the blockquotes are in plain text and editing can be done at leisure.

HTH,

haavee

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Answer 3

Hen3ry Author

Level 3

505 points

Mar 6, 2013 2:09 PM in response to haavee

Thanks for your response.

Try as I may, I cannot see how your fix differs from commanding Format-->Make Plain Text without selecting anything. Both convert the entire reply to plain text. I would like to avoid that, for reasons I give in my original post.

Am I missing something really obvious?

What is the specific function of shift-select versus ordinary select? When I first read your suggestion, I hoped shift-select meant something like "select the block structure which contains the highlighted text", which would be great! However, I cannot detect any functional difference between shift-select and plain select. And, as yet, I've found no way of removing the block structure for a particular bit (paragraph or group of paragraphs) of formatted reply.

- - -

This tip for copy-and-pasting text style works in mail.app. Using this method, I can effectively remove the style of some reply text in a formatted reply by copying the style from a different, plain text message and then pasting that style. (Obviously, not very convenient!) But this affects the text styling only. I cannot see any effect on the block structure.

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Bonus questions: In the case of emails from some people, while struggling to insert interspered replies, I can transiently see what I believe are the block structures I'm fighting with. Mail.app shows thick black rectangles, with rounded corners, around apparent text blocks. But this happens unpredictably. In the most difficult case I've seen so far --the test case I'm using now-- I can't make this happen. Do thick-rounded-edge rectangles indeed show the block structure (e.g. blockquotes)? What's the trick to make these visible, reliably?

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Answer 4

haavee

Level 1

0 points

Mar 8, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Hen3ry

Hi,

Hmmm, I thought it would only convert the selected part of the message to Plain Text, which it doesn't. I mentioned the shift-select because I thought it would, after hitting "convert" only convert that piece of text. But it didn't :-( Sorry.

The copy-style method seems a nice way to do it.

Personally I have no problem with changing mails to PlainText before I reply, the fact that the thick-lined blockquotes are, most of the time, unworkable to edit your replies into, warrants disposal of them as far as I'm concerned.

I hope there is a cure for your issues - at least I've learned how to deal with these blocks and I'm happy with it!

I just tried playing around with one of the messages having these blocks but it looks like there's sometimes certain locations where you *can* insert text whilst on other places you just can't. I just have no idea, sorry.

cheers & good luck,

h

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Answer 5

Hen3ry Author

Level 3

505 points

Mar 8, 2013 4:19 PM in response to haavee

haavee:

Thanks for your reply on this thread.

And thanks for the confirmation: Yes, often difficult, and completely unworkable in some cases.

To my surprise, I've been able to find very few people reporting similiar observations. Very little about this issue at all on the web.

I looked for command-key variations on Format --> Make Plain Text, hoping for a block action, but none I tried was any different.

Here is my current view of the issue:

• For formatted messages, each email client operates differently. If there is a standard it seems to be no more robust than "use simple HTML for formatted messages".

• The "can't insert" issue, as well as those mysterious rectangle-surrounded blocks, seems very correlated with the presence of html <div> sections in the message. It is awkward to experiment, so I've only done a limited amount. My observations so far:

-- I don't think you can insert text anywhere "inside" a <div>, and mail.app seems to treat <div> as a "sticky" attribute -- e.g/ very difficult/impossible to remove without deleting the text inside. The copy-style method doesn't seem to affect <div> tags.

-- Based on one case, it appears that message bodies composed of back-to-back <div> sections are impervious to inserts anywhere. (The email client used by one particular person with whom I've corresponded seems to build messages out of --you guessed it-- back-to-back <div> sections. Putting on my HTML coders hat -- I cannot see any sense at all in doing this. Smells to me like a kludge/hack, as you prefer.)

• What about an applicable mail.app add-in? I can find mail.app add-ins, but it seems the mail.app tech info (API) isn't public, so those that exist are based on guesswork about how it works. This means that add-ins must be re-tooled possibly for each new version of mail.app. Altogether, not encouraging for add-in developers. And, yes, consistent with that the range of functionality I've seen is rather limited. So, I've given up looking in the add-in category.

• Applescript has commands for controlling mail.app generally, but I didn't see anything approaching the level of function necessary to remove <divs> by global search-and-replace. (I'm far from an Applescript expert, so it is very possible I missed something.) Nor did I see any general command such as Clean up dodgy HTML in message. (I can dream!)

The only bit of progress I've had is finding TextSoap: http://www.unmarked.com/textsoap/ which may have promise. But I have had no time to evaluate it and it may be a month or so before I get a chance to check it out.

- - -

Looking at the upper right of the window in which I'm composing this message, there's a button "HTML" that lets me see --and edit-- the underlying HTML. On first glance, there's not enough functionality to, say, efficiently clean up all insert-resistant blocks in a message, but it looks practical to clean up individual blocks, and maybe that's all it would take. Though I imagine that the user base for these forums is not very different from that of mail.app, I'm guessing adding this function to mail.app isn't even a dim possibity. Oh, well...

- - -

I note you are happy with your solution, so I'll try see if a variation of it might help me.

Thanks,

h.2

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