Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 81057
Cannot reply to plaintext messages: <pre> and <tt> are invisible
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:38:04 EDT
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 Galeon/1.2.5 (X11; Linux i686; U;) Gecko/20020809 Description of problem: The gtkhtml bundled with RH8 cannot properly render some of the fixed-width fonts also bundled with RH8. If gtkhtml's fixed-width font is set to Courier 16, then, when I reply to a plaintext message in Evolution, the quoted text is invisible; to see it, I have to select it and change from Preformat to Normal. This is a serious pain. The same occurs when I try to compose a message with <pre> or <tt> text: that text is invisible. And, of course, composing a plaintext message effectively puts the whole thing in <pre>, so the whole message is invisible. Switching to Courier 14 makes plaintext that I'm composing from scratch visible, but quoted text in replies is still invisible. I reported this to Ximian (the URL given is to the bug in their bugzilla), but they declined to address it; they say it's fixed in Evolution 1.2. But upgrading Evolution has historically been a massive pain; even if they've got RPMs compatible with RH8, I don't want to touch them unless I know they'll work. So, it's a packaging problem, and that makes it potentially your department. Please provide either 1.2 packaged for RH8 or a patched version of 1.0.8. (The latter might be as simple as packaging the latest version of gtkhtml, if it turns out to be compatible with 1.0.8.) Note that, if RH8 is trying to get traction on the desktop, and Evolution is the default mailer, then a bug that prevents people from being able to communicate with users who send plaintext (many, especially on mailing lists) is a big deal. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Select a text/plain message. 2. Press Reply. 3. Scream in frustration. Actual Results: Quoted text is invisible. Expected Results: Quoted text should be visible. Additional info: I'm using 100dpi fonts.
BTW, this is a duplicate of 77624; but that one was closed by the reporter because he'd upgraded to Evolution 1.2. I don't consider that a fix; it's more of a last resort.
Evolution seems to be working fine for most people, I assume they are using a smaller or different font? In any case, based on the overall errata queue, I can say with certainty that we are not able to release an errata for this in the next couple months, and after that a new version of Red Hat will be available. Not a great answer I know, but those are the current constraints.