Scrolling long subject line

[beaky]

I recently received an email with a very long subject line (more than will fit on the right side of the screen when using a landscape oriented tablet). This was to submit a warranty claim, and i had to reply (leaving the subject line unchanged), and attach photos of the faulty part. This i did.

I observe the following:
1 the received email subject line is truncated to fit. It does not scroll. This is no surprise. Most email clients do this.
2 the sent reply with attachments and the same subject line apart from addition of Re: at the front, has a horizontally scrolling subject line "marquee style", but is still truncated at the same point, rather than showing the hidden part as it scrolls.

I cannot find a similar pair of messages or very many with long lines, so cannot work out if the behaviour is by design, or there is a bug. For example, why should the subject line scroll if it remains truncated? Why does it scroll only when there is an attachment (or possibly because it is a sent message, or both?)

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Well, first, the compose screen puts the subject into an editable field - which never scrolls, but can go to multiple lines if necessary.

Second, when viewing a message, not composing (incoming or sent) - I ask Android to do a marquee in "short" (collapsed) header mode, and allow it to go to multiple lines in "long" (expanded) header mode. The modes can be toggled by tapping the message header.

I am not getting a marquee on my Nexus 7 if the subject completely fits. If you're seeing different, it could be some ROM-specific thing (even official ROMs / firmwares sometimes do some things differently vs. stock Android).

[beaky]

I have sent you an example at kmansoft. As i left the subject line unchanged, you may decide it is spam.
I only get a marquee when the subject does not fit. I tried creating artificially long subject lines, but could not trigger it. Only the one i sent you does this.
I wondered if android is miscounting the characters because the last character before the split is "[", and being treated as special in one place, and just a character in another.
It is a minor puzzle, not a deal breaker.

[beaky]

After more experiments, it appears that scrolling happens if the last character before the break IS "[".
Not otherwise, at least for AZaz09.
I haven't tested others, but quite possibly the [ character is bamboozling the character count, because of its role as a preamble to a formatting code, eg bold in some apps.
Dave

[Kostya Vasilyev]

The [..] stanza in message subjects typically indicates a mailing list.

Yes, the app has some code to shorten it -- for message list and for message view, but only in "short header" mode. In "full header mode" when viewing a message, there is no shortening.

Maybe I need to improve the logic to only do this when the [...] is near the beginning of a subject, not near the end... But this is complicated but the possibility of (lots of ) "Re:" and "Fwd:" at the beginning...

[beaky]

It really isnt a big problem, just a bit odd. BTW the test i did had only [[[[ characters towards the end. Not [...something....]. I only mentioned it because it is unusual.

[PeterS]

I'm using Aqua Mail on two stock Samsung phones: for a longer time a free version on 4.1.2 system, recently a Pro version on a 4.4.2 system. The older one always scrolls overlong message titles, if their header is collapsed, while the newer one terminates its visible part with ellipsis and that was it.

Is it just because of the OS difference? I'm unable to find any appropriate settings, to convince the newer installation to scroll long titles as well

Sent from a touch display, which took care of perfectly scrambling my thoughts.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Yes, there is a bug in 4.4 where trying to combine "ellipsized" + "scrolling" -- instead truncates the text at some random place. I mean, in Android system code.