Comment 68 for bug 10883

(In reply to Scott MacGregor from comment #0)
> I'd like to add a button to the mail compose window. Clicking on this button
> would toggle editor between plain text and HTML. This may not even be
> possible.
> Just something that came up in the forums that I thought was a good idea.
>
> You would also need a dialog to come up and warn the user when converting
> from
> HTML to plain text about loss of formatting data.

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Normal protocol would have this newer bug closed as a dup of the older bug.

But the reason I responded to this was about the above comment -- Thunderbird
does a pretty good job of converting HTML structured email to plain text "on the fly"
as it gets sent out (either sent with both text & html or a last minute change to text only).

One fairly simple fix would be to never disable HTML mode -- but put the user in
a default fixed font that wraps ~ around 80 chars. I did 'similar' with a style sheet. Thunderbird handles multiple-level paragraph indent as well as converting
emphasized text to *text* or *TEXT*.. or similar.

So... one could always compose -- even save the dual format locally but on a user desire for text only -- only send the text version.

Important is switching into a mono-font and setting your paragraph wrap width
to your average char width. The CSS method isn't perfect, but it's easy -- and with any hints from the editor about what column you are in so wrapping would
always be right, this doesn't seem like it should be a huge problem.

Isn't there another bug/enhancement about wanting to be able to change style
sheets midway through a compose? This and that might dovetail into something that
solves both...?