Author Topic: Mail-preview without the long broken lines  (Read 7645 times)

Sahara_blu

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Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« on: May 15, 2016, 04:06:53 pm »
Hi, how can I get a mailpreview like in my android-standard-mailclient, without these long broken line and the whole fb-url? (See attachment)

Thanks a lot :)

Kostya Vasilyev

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2016, 04:44:48 pm »
The preview comes from the text/plain portion of the email message.

In this case it's exactly what was put there by Facebook (or in general, by the sending app).

Creating debug logs for diagnostics: https://www.aqua-mail.com/troubleshooting/

The official FAQ: https://www.aqua-mail.com/faq/

Лог-файлы для диагностики: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/troubleshooting/

Вопросы и ответы: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/faq/

Sahara_blu

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2016, 06:19:52 pm »
Yes, I understand, but my other mailapp showes the preview in a different (better) way, so obviously its possible... ?

StR

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2016, 07:17:06 pm »
Yes, I understand, but my other mailapp showes the preview in a different (better) way, so obviously its possible... ?
Not everything that's possible is worth doing.  ;)

"Better" is relative.
I don't know how your message actually looks inside, and what exactly happens in the other app. I am guessing that your other mail app is probably programmed to skip URLs. While it might be good for this message, it would be bad for some other messages.
E.g. sometimes my friends send me just a URL for the resource they want to share. It's helpful to me to see that URL without opening the message. Your "better" mail app probably wouldn't show that URL.  :(
Or, maybe it can read your (or sender's?) mind and show the URL in that case?


Sahara_blu

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2016, 03:38:14 am »
No need to become sarcastic. I payed for this App, so please don't treat me as a strayer.

Its not a question of not showing URLs! Its a question of where the app begins showing the preview. If I put an URL in the textarea, of course it will be shown in any case!

And what is the long broken line?

But it seems, that this problem only occures on facebookmails. Maybe there are only small adjustments needed in Aquamail...
« Last Edit: May 16, 2016, 04:18:47 am by Sahara_blu »

StR

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2016, 05:42:00 am »
No need to become sarcastic. I payed for this App, so please don't treat me as a strayer.

I also payed for this app, and I gave an example where things may be different for different users. Please, excuse my humor.

Its not a question of not showing URLs! Its a question of where the app begins showing the preview. If I put an URL in the textarea, of course it will be shown in any case!

Based on Kostya's explanation of how Aquamail works (quoted below), that's exactly what happened here: Facebook put that URL in the text area. How do you expect Aquamail to decide it was not the intent here, but it is an intent in case of my friends?
Hence my response above.

The preview comes from the text/plain portion of the email message.

In this case it's exactly what was put there by Facebook (or in general, by the sending app).




And what is the long broken line?
I'd suspect those are "equal" symbols that for whatever reason were placed in that message by Facebook. I am guessing they may have wanted to use that either to attract attention to that line or as a separator... You may want to ask FB what they meant.


Quote
But it seems, that this problem only occures on facebookmails. Maybe there are only small adjustments needed in Aquamail...

That decision is totally up to the developer.
He might decide to make FB-specific changes in the app's behavior.
To me, that sounds like a slippery slope for a general-purpose e-mail app. (Then someone would ask to tweak it for Yahoo News, another person - for Amazon notifications, ...
And what if FB would change the format of their messages next month?)

I am just expressing my point of view as Aquamail user, while also trying to help others with my favorite app.

mikeone

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2016, 01:04:37 pm »
No need to become sarcastic. I payed for this App, so please don't treat me as a strayer.
I can't find any sarcasm in StR's post. Furthermore I'm not able to find any sign that he would have threated you as a strayer.
However, this could be due to my subjective view how I'm reading/interpreting other people's posts.

Kostya Vasilyev

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2016, 11:17:10 pm »
Re: I'd suspect those are "equal" symbols that for whatever reason were placed in that message by Facebook. I am guessing they may have wanted to use that either to attract attention to that line or as a separator...

I did recently make a change to "collapse" long lines made of (equal signs, dashes, stars, plus signs) into "no more than three in a row" since it's a fairly frequent occurrence. Not released yet.

Broader issue:

HTML emails usually also have a plain text part.

I've chosen to use this plain text content for previews, to avoid having to parse the HTML just to extract some text.

Those two text parts (the HTML and the plain part) are supposed to be more or less "in sync". But some messages have HTML markup in this plain text, some have unnecessary "pseudo-markup" (like those lines), some still have the "if you can't read this message, click here to view it on our web site".
Creating debug logs for diagnostics: https://www.aqua-mail.com/troubleshooting/

The official FAQ: https://www.aqua-mail.com/faq/

Лог-файлы для диагностики: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/troubleshooting/

Вопросы и ответы: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/faq/

StR

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2016, 01:00:29 am »
Kostya, you probably know this, but just in case: As far as I remember, some spam or phishing messages are purposely designed to have benign text in the text part (analyzed by spam filters, albeit not exclusively), while having the "payload" in the HTML (which is what is visible to most end users). From what I understand, this way such messages have higher chances of not being flagged as SPAM.

BTW, what does Aquamail do for the preview in case of an HTML-only message?

Kostya Vasilyev

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Re: Mail-preview without the long broken lines
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2016, 01:40:21 am »
Re: BTW, what does Aquamail do for the preview in case of an HTML-only message

It clenches its teeth and parses the HTML.
Creating debug logs for diagnostics: https://www.aqua-mail.com/troubleshooting/

The official FAQ: https://www.aqua-mail.com/faq/

Лог-файлы для диагностики: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/troubleshooting/

Вопросы и ответы: https://www.aqua-mail.com/ru/faq/