Re: Ident patch

[hitched97 <hitched97 myrealbox com>]

>  As a matter of fact, Balsa could actually insert some, maybe invisible,
>  special character when auto-appending a signature. Then the start of the
>  signature would be clear, as long as the character inserted is one that
>  cannot be entered from the keyboard.
>  I don't know if it's possible to code it so that the character cannot be
>  erased by the user, but that would help, too.
>  Then, on sending the message, that special character gets stripped and 
>all's
>  well...

How would you handle it if the user types the character you're using to mark 
the signature?  Also, it is necessary to know where the end of the signature 
is as well, because one of balsa's options is to insert the signature before 
the included message to which you are replying.

I had thought about using a text pane similar to what is used in the preview 
pane on the main window - one section with the headers, one with the message 
body - except use 3 panes; first pane is to compose your message, second is 
the signature, third is the message to which you are replying if you have 
the "prepend signature" check-box selected.  When changing identities, you 
simply replace the contents of the signature pane with the new signature.

The leaves unanswered what to do if the user edits the signature before 
changing identities - perhaps a pop-up asking if the want to keep the edited 
signature, or to replace it with the new signature.

You could even take this a step further, and send the message as 
"multipart/mixed" with "Content-Disposition: inline", with each pane being 
one of the parts.  This would also preserve the separations for saving and 
continuing a message.

BTW, I am currently using balsa 1.2.0 with the ident patch in, and it's a lot
nicer just selecting a new ident and having the signature updated 
automatically.

-- 
Steve Wall