[imp] Reply-quoted paragraphs from HTML-only messages have spurious indentation

[Tim Bannister]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 09:06:35AM +0000, imp-request at lists.horde.org wrote:
> 
> Zitat von Michael <michael_2007 at bugmenot.com>:
> 
> > In which email clients is this layout common?  I cannot recall ever
> > seeing this elsewhere, at least not as a default.  It also runs
> > contrary to traditional Usenet quoting style.
> >
> > In my view this behaviour goes against established convention and
> > misrepresents the original text.  Not only could this cause wrapping
> > issues, but it can also impair clarity if preceded by a line with one
> > additional level of indentation: the extra spaces cause the first line
> > to line up with a different writer's text.
> >
> > Why does IMP operate in this inconsistent manner?  Is unalterable
> > insertion of foreign whitespace into quoted text in a subset of cases
> > truly desirable behaviour?
> 
> Maybe I didn't make this clear in the bug tracker (thus I asked you to  
> move this discussion to the mailing list), but this has nothing to do  
> with quoting. The indention is added by the html-to-text converter. To  
> talk about working against established conventions, while we talk  
> about a message that had been html-only initially, is moot.

The clients I use (mutt, Apple Mail) can also quote HTML messages into a
plain text reply and don't make the quote appear indented. I too could
be confused if I saw the indentation Michael mentioned in a plain text
followup. It is inconsistent but not a huge problem for me.

RFC 2646 does have this to say about leading spaces in plain text
bodies:
"…the aesthetic consequences of unreversed space-stuffing are minimal …
this is not expected to be a significant problem."

-- 
Tim Bannister
IT Services

e: Tim.Bannister at manchester.ac.uk
w: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/itservices