Re: [Evolution] Top-posting in Evolution

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Thu, 2008-05-29 at 00:08 -0400, Matthew Barnes wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 18:09 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > Given that top-posting is frowned on by many list users, is it not
> > ironic that Evolution encourages it? I can't believe this hasn't been
> > raised before, but I can't find any previous discussion of it, just
> > plenty of complaints about top-posters.
>
> On the contrary, we've gone round and round about this in one bug after
> the other.  I personally think it's rather silly, but users seem quite
> passionate about where the cursor should go.

I don't know what your personal preference is, but if like me you find
yourself first deleting the extra line Evo introduces at the top, and
then scrolling to the bottom for *every single reply you type* all I can
say is that it quickly becomes very irritating indeed.

> Current consensus is that since many bottom posters still like to place
> a greeting at the top, we leave the cursor at the top.  Also, placing
> the cursor at the top encourages bottom posters to use selective quoting
> rather than quoting the sender's entire email (or mailing list digest,
> as the case may be).

Very unconvincing I'm afraid. In my experience bottom posters are
already more likely to quote selectively. What about encouraging the
top-posters to do it as well, given that so few of them seem to do it?

> The initial cursor position is not going to change people's habits.  Top
> posters will continue to top post and bottom posters will continue to
> grumble no matter what we do.

On the contrary. IMHO placing the cursor at the bottom is quite likely
to change at least some people's habits. However this is beside the
point. I'm not trying to make everyone to do it my way, which is why I'm
proposing to make it an option. It would seem on the surface to be an
extremely trivial feature to add.

poc