Documentation: hints for sending patches inline with Thunderbird

The standard reference for this information is the article
"Plain text e-mail - Thunderbird#Completely_plain_email" at
kb.mozillazine.org, but the hints hidden away in git's
SubmittingPatches file are more complete.  Move them to the
"git format-patch" manual so they can be installed with git and
read by a wide audience.

While at it, make some tweaks:

 - update "Approach #1" so it might work with Thunderbird 3;
 - remove ancient version numbers from the descriptions of both
   approaches so current readers might have more reason to
   complain if they don't work.

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
This commit is contained in:
Jonathan Nieder 2011-04-14 21:28:06 -05:00 committed by Junio C Hamano
parent 57756161ee
commit dc53151f02
2 changed files with 84 additions and 80 deletions

View file

@ -416,86 +416,7 @@ it.
Thunderbird
-----------
(A Large Angry SCM)
By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as
being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the resulting email unusable
by git.
Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
Thunderbird.
There are two different approaches. One approach is to configure
Thunderbird to not mangle patches. The second approach is to use
an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
Approach #1 (configuration):
This recipe is current as of Thunderbird 2.0.0.19. Three steps:
1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text
Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing,
uncheck 'Compose Messages in HTML'.
2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap
Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0
3. Disable the use of format=flowed
Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for:
mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed
toggle it to make sure it is set to 'false'.
After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
otherwise would (cut + paste, git-format-patch | git-imap-send, etc),
and the patches should not be mangled.
Approach #2 (external editor):
This recipe appears to work with the current [*1*] Thunderbird from Suse.
The following Thunderbird extensions are needed:
AboutConfig 0.5
http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/
External Editor 0.7.2
http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
1) Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
2) Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to
uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
"Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to send the
patch. [*2*]
3) In the main Thunderbird window, _before_ you open the compose window
for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the following to the
indicated values:
mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false
mailnews.wraplength => 0
4) Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
5) In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit the
editor normally.
6) Back in the compose window: Add whatever other text you wish to the
message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send.
7) Optionally, undo the about:config/account settings changes made in
steps 2 & 3.
[Footnotes]
*1* Version 1.0 (20041207) from the MozillaThunderbird-1.0-5 rpm of Suse
9.3 professional updates.
*2* It may be possible to do this with about:config and the following
settings but I haven't tried, yet.
mail.html_compose => false
mail.identity.default.compose_html => false
mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false
(Lukas Sandström)
There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help
you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the
steps above and then use the script as the external editor.
See the MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS section of git-format-patch(1).
Gnus
----

View file

@ -332,6 +332,89 @@ If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons.
patch e-mail should come after the three-dash line that signals
the end of the commit message.
MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS
------------------
Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
various mailers.
Thunderbird
~~~~~~~~~~~
By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag
them as being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the
resulting email unusable by git.
There are two different approaches. One approach is to configure
Thunderbird to not mangle patches. The second approach is to use
an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
Approach #1 (configuration)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Three steps:
1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text:
Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing,
uncheck "Compose Messages in HTML".
2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap.
+
In Thunderbird 2:
Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0
+
In Thunderbird 3:
Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
"mail.wrap_long_lines".
Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`.
3. Disable the use of format=flowed:
Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
"mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed".
Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`.
After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
otherwise would (cut + paste, 'git format-patch' | 'git imap-send', etc),
and the patches will not be mangled.
Approach #2 (external editor)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The following Thunderbird extensions are needed:
AboutConfig from http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and
External Editor from http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to
uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
"Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to
send the patch.
3. In the main Thunderbird window, 'before' you open the compose
window for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the
following to the indicated values:
+
----------
mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false
mailnews.wraplength => 0
----------
4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit
the editor normally.
Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with
about:config and the following settings but no one's tried yet.
----------
mail.html_compose => false
mail.identity.default.compose_html => false
mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false
----------
There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help
you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the
steps above and then use the script as the external editor.
EXAMPLES
--------