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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 7/17/2012 7:22 AM, Axel Grude wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:50054AE6.7050203@gmail.com" type="cite">
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<div id="smartTemplate4-template"><i>Following up: </i>What's the
status of papercuts?<br>
<i><br>
</i></div>
<br>
<div id="smartTemplate4-template">Since replacing the complete
composer is probably to big a task for the scope of papercuts I
would like to discuss a number of enhancements to enhance the
current (html) composer functionality:<br>
<br>
<h3>Color Selection</h3>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=453853"><b>Bug 453853</b></a>
-<span id="summary_alias_container"> <span
id="short_desc_nonedit_display">Unable to set hex value for
background color in the color picker</span> </span><br>
<br>
I would like to rename this to (upgrade color picker to allow
more color selections). Unfortunately I do not have Thunderbird
bugzilla admin rights, and maybe there is another bug on this
elsewhere [I searched for Tb/Compose + {color picker} and for
Tb/Compose + {colors} ]?<br>
<br>
A quick way would probably be if we could include rainbowpicker
into the core code (obviously after asking its author)?<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
Well, you can edit the hex after you pick a basic color, but a
better direct selection would be nice.
<blockquote cite="mid:50054AE6.7050203@gmail.com" type="cite">
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<h3>Format Painter</h3>
"A copy format" function is badly needed. One problem currently
is that a lot of the built in formatting tools actually insert
tags (such as <big> <b> <i>) rather than
styles, so a more fundamental problem must be addressed first:<br>
<br>
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A little background here;<br>
Back when the editor was modified for CSS (Daniel Glazman) it was
decided that CSS should not be used in mail<br>
due to interoperability problems with Yahoo,Gmail and others.<br>
In fact, I think there is just an editor flag that keeps html
instead of css
<blockquote cite="mid:50054AE6.7050203@gmail.com" type="cite">
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<h3> CSS Property Editor</h3>
Image > Advanced property editor Enhancements<br>
<br>
I wonder if this could be generalized to apply CSS properties to
all sorts of tags (not just img). Ideally I would like the
possiblity to select a paragraph (which we should be able to
turn from a <br>....section...<br> into a
<p>..</p> pair, and then select something like a
"layout" option.<br>
<br>
As a starting point we could use the "Inline Style" tab of the
"Advanced Property Editor" and add a dropdown to the Attribute
field. The tricky bit is to select the correct tag (probably the
nearest enclosing tag) and to visually represent this in the
Editor window.<br>
<br>
<img src="cid:part2.03010200.07040408@gmail.com" alt=""><br>
For this particular purpose (increasing style expressiveness in
the WYSIWIG editor, via inline styles) I would chose to remove
the tabs "HTML attributes" and "Javascript Events" and focus on
css styles alone. ONe thing that Thunderbird does very badly at
the moment is to expose the current expressive power it has via
CSS3 to the ordinary user. Most other rich editors have some
sort of a "x-ray" mode where special (meta-)characters such as
tabs, line feeds, section breaks etc. are displayed; what I
would like to have is something generic that shows enclosing tag
pairs (or an outline around html constructs) so that they can
easily be spotted and manipulated. This is actually the hard
part of this enhancement, but I think discussion of this would
be fruitful.<br>
<br>
Rationale:<br>
<br>
Currently, the only way to create an email with "clean markup"
is by using extensions that expose HTML source, which works for
me, but not most ordinary users. As <i>first step</i> we could
make it easier to add inline styling via the method above; this
will make it easier for users to discover layout features of
Composer. As a <i>second</i> <i>step</i> we might then later
encapsulate the interface so it can be used by users who do not
know CSS.<br>
<br>
I would love to be involved in such composer improvements, but I
would also like to assess as to what other ideas or maybe code
fragments are already out there. Therefore I am currently
holding off on filing new (or re-appropriating existing) bugs on
this and adding them to the papercuts list, until I have a feel
for what the opinions on the list on this are.<br>
<br>
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I have been looking for better css composition for years.<br>
I think the dropdown idea is great. (auto-complete would be even
better)<br>
BTW, I think the advanced editor still drops
margin-left/margin-right, if you make any other changes there.
<blockquote cite="mid:50054AE6.7050203@gmail.com" type="cite">
<div id="smartTemplate4-template"> I would also hope that we can
spend some time during MozCamp to discuss the composer piece in
order to devise a short term strategy for pulling this thing
back into the 21st century.<br>
<br>
regards<br>
Axel<br>
<br>
<div id="mySignature" style="width: 65%; padding: 0.8em 1.2em;
font:x-small verdana; color: #444; box-shadow: 4px 4px 9px
-2px rgba(0,0,0,0.65); border-radius: 1em; padding: 0.4em 2em;
border: 1px dashed #444; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,
rgba(230,240,163,1) 0%, rgba(210,230,56,1) 50%,
rgba(195,216,37,1) 51%, rgba(219,240,67,1) 100%);"> <b
class="myName" style="text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px
#DDD;cursor:pointer;-moz-transition-property:font-size;
-moz-transition-duration: 0.5s;">Axel Grude</b> <br>
Software Developer <br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer <span style="color:#666666;
font-size:xx-small">(QuickFolders, quickFilters,
QuickPasswords, Zombie Keys, SmartTemplate4)</span> <br>
AMO Editor </div>
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</blockquote>
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