Closed Offerel closed 5 years ago
We talked about this in the past and even had a pull request for it at https://github.com/owncloudarchive/mail/pull/1536 But we decided that this is a lot of work (and a lot to maintain) for little gain at the moment.
And for the record, like I said in that pull request – when we should ever go forward with this: Interface-wise this unobtrusive bar which appears when marking text would be great: https://yabwe.github.io/medium-editor/demo.html (Also used by pretty popular blogging platform Medium) Instead of using a permanently-visible big button bar which distracts too much when writing the usual emails with no need of formatting.
Personally, i like more the button bar, but that's not so problematic. Mainly, i write formatted HTML Mails since years and never looked back. Yes I'm a heavy Outlook User but i think, formatting Mails, should be a Optional thing. Some users like it, some need it and some hate it :-)
@Offerel maybe at some point we will do it, but we have lots of other things higher on the priority list (like better performance, moving mails, maybe threading at some point, and fixing bugs). :)
It would be cool if you can help, for example by reviewing pull requests: https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/pulls – it’s very easy, you just check them out and test if stuff works. :)
So, I've yet again spent a few hours finding a suitable WYSIWYG editor. Here are some notes to the future me to know which ones I don't have to look into again:
Most other libs I've found seem to target a specific framework (mostly React, the some Vue and Angular).
This is so disappointing. TinyMCE claims to work with webpack, if I use it it doesn't do anything anything. The code is exactly the one from the documentation. If I initialize it via the tinymce
global it somehow works, though. ☹️
As much as I personally would love to have a decent editor, I'm giving in on this. I didn't expect this to be that hard.
Maybe you can try CKEditor. Personally, i like it more than TinyMCE, since TinyMCE is complicated under some circuumstates. Currently, i use both in my Notes Plugin for Roundcube. The user can switch the editor with a config parameter.
Spent a few minutes on getting CKEditor to run: failed. Basically, it's quite cumbersome to use it with Webpack at the moment: https://github.com/ckeditor/ckeditor5/issues/139#issuecomment-276876222
I use CKEditor4. I don't know, if this is better in terms of Webpack.
Will give it a try another day. There were too many failing attempts today 🙈
Will give it a try another day. There were too many failing attempts today see_no_evil
Today is the day
so far, so good
Ohhh looks like something changes in that topic. I will try it at the weekend.
it's getting better
Very nice! :) I was gonna say there are a few too many formatting options in the bar but you’re handling it. :+1:
Option hidden in menu (they have a lot of other actions/options)
Option hidden in menu
and as far as I understood you can set a default in the account settings.
Has a directly visible dropdown
Has the setting somewhere nobody would ever find it
You have to change the account settings. Nothing found in the composer itself
The have message options similar to those of Outlook and Gmail
Option hidden in menu (they have a lot of other actions/options)
What about the underlined A
formatting options icon next to the "Send" button? Isn’t that there always, and if you use an option then it just switches to rich text automatically?
What about the underlined
A
formatting options icon next to the "Send" button? Isn’t that there always, and if you use an option then it just switches to rich text automatically?
the A
toggles the editor toolbar. and yes, if automatically switches to rich editing once any rich formatting is used
while form a user's perspective this is nice, I'm afraid it's a lot of work to integrate this magic. we should start with a simple on/off switch in some kind. fancier stuff can follow later.
Just using any option for the first time could switch it on for that mail?
Or: when you click on the formatting icon, the first item in the list could be "Rich text" with a checkbox. This setting:
For reference also Apple Mail, which is a bit more relevant than Kopano, Open X-Change, Thunderbird and Evolution. (We only need the widely used ones: Google Mail, Apple Mail and Outlook as review. :) Full description: http://osxdaily.com/2019/03/21/format-emails-mac-mail-format-bar/
I would
Just using any option for the first time could switch it on for that mail?
https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/210#issuecomment-530306859
Seems good. :+1:
And then for the formatting balloon, we should look at the sleek design by Medium: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/215194537-Format-text
And then for the formatting balloon, we should look at the sleek design by Medium:
That will be your part :v:
If you think about the general settings (which is a good idea), you should also add a setting for the default font-family and font-size. For example, you can use a dropdown-box with some pre-defined font-familys which are default on the mainstream system. For Windows 10, this would be Calibri and a size of 11(points). Other systems have other font-settings. Only mainstream systems should be pre-defined like Windows 10, Ubuntu/Mint, not minor ones like mac or something else.
@Offerel yep, but let’s start with the basics and get a minimum viable version working. :) Then we can see what else is needed step by step.
I have to respectfully disagree with the position that features everyone expects and are accustomed to in modern day email messaging is a distraction.
I think the focus is misplaced. Being that Nextcloud is targeting enterprise like features (particularly for monetization) Mail, in my opinion, should be paramount in Nextcloud's app development.
How a permanent bar becomes a distraction which includes all the features everyone expects is beyond me.
I find the need to highlight text to learn that there even be formatting availability is a major distraction. I don't want to have to teach people how to email.
Additionally. I find the colored areas a glaring distraction over anything mentioned here:
Steps to reproduce
Expected behaviour
There should be a Buttonbar, which let me format the Mail with the most needed Formats like bold, italic, font color, font size, font name. Maybe its possible to add something like tinymce.
Actual behaviour
Currently, its a pure Textarea, only normal Text could be entered.
Mail app
Mail app version: 0.60
Mailserver or service: Personal IMAP Server
Server configuration
Operating system: Raspbian (Debian, Jessie)
Web server: Nginx
Database: MariaDB
PHP version: 5.6
Updated from an older version or fresh install: fresh install
Client configuration
Browser: Firefox 50
Operating system: Windows