Re: [Evolution] Reply "Outlook Style"

[Andrew Montalenti <ajm pixelmonkey org>]

Hi,

On Fri, 2007-06-01 at 14:58 +0200, Thomas Novin wrote:
> Is it possible to reply "Outlook Style"? When you have a mail
> conversation with people using Outlook, it would be nice to be able to
> reply the same way as they do, not breaking the style of the mail.

This is a funny request.

My first day of work at a software job after years of using Evolution
(and Pan, for newsgroups) and Linux, and I had to use Outlook and
Windows.  I reply to an e-mail thread and try inlining my reply, and
realize, "there's no way to distinguish my text from another user's!"

So I walk over to my new boss, and sheepishly ask him how they deal with
this problem, since I've never really used Outlook before.  He looks at
me as if I'm crazy: I'm a software developer, and I've never used
Outlook?  He says, "What do you mean, inlining?"  And then when I
finally explain it to him, he says, "Oh, duh, you just use Outlook's
color formatting to make your replies a different color than the
user's."

Duh, alright!

And so, to this day, I have to begin my e-mails like this:

"""
Hello,

My replies are in FUCHSIA [which is written in FUCHSIA, of course]...

<user's text in default Outlook blue>

<my text in fuchsia>

[... etc ...]
"""

I also wasn't a fan of HTML mail, so I switched to plain text, but then
had to switch back since others in my company pressured me.  They said
that because my plain text messages were "unreadable" (hah!).  Only
later did I discover it's because no one thinks to customize Outlook's
horrible defaults for plain text formatting (which uses Courier New).
Also, my setting choice was "oppressive" -- Outlook defaults to
switching the composer to plain text mode if the message replied-to is
in plain text.

I've asked Microsoft for a "proper e-mail composer" feature, but they
said it's not high on their todo list; after all, most Outlook users
only interact with Outlook users!  "In the land of the blind..."

Andrew