Thunderbird - reply templates (Thunderbird 1.0)

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-01 21:50

I can't find an answer in the Thunderbird help files. Maybe someone here has wrestled this one to the ground .....

I have a lovely template for email. (It is created on the fly each morning by my boot sequence, with a "random Windows Tip"). The template works well when I am composing a message.

But when I Reply (or ReplyAll) to a message, the template does not kick in; my readers do not benefit from the text I've lodged in the template.

Is there some switch I can set, or a mysterious INI setting that escapes me?

**jscher2000** · 2005-04-02 00:07

I can't answer that, but I'm not aware that other mail clients override the existing stationery when replying to an HTML-format message. There doesn't seem to be an option for that in Outlook 2003, for example. Did you previous mailer do that?

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-04 17:45

> Did you previous mailer do that?

No, but I was just as stupid. Read on, dear reader, read on.......

I noticed today that I'm the one who is trashing the stationery , but let my original post stand as a caution to others.

I open the input message and then (Thunderbird) choose Reply. Thunderbird is quite correctly using my template/stationery. It's when I use Ctrl-A and Del to remove the quoted reply text (or Ctrl-Shift-End and Del) that I am deleting the template/stationery text! I am so used to Ctrl-A/Del to get rid of stuff that I hadn't realised that I was trashing the lovely text I'd asked Thunderbird to include.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! Maybe next year I'll be smarter.

**PaulB** · 2005-04-05 01:22

This leaves me confused. What is a "Reply Template"? Are you referring to a template held in the Template folder? If so, how do you invoke it through the "Reply" function. I'm using Thunderbird 1.0.2 and if I "Reply" to a message, I get no template. If there is more than one template in the folder how do you specify which one to use?

I like your idea for using a template in a reply, but I can't see how you do it.

Cheers,

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-05 12:35

There is no "reply template", but I do have a "template" (see below). My original post was a complaint that, while the template kicked in when i was composing a new message, it did NOT kick in when I was replying to an existing message. I have since realised that the mistake was mine - the template DID kick in, but I was all too often deleting its work as part of my own editing process.

Create a Template
===============

I started to write instructions then found this:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_mail_templates

For help I usually go to the Thunderbird help site. I get there by (Thunderbird) choosing Help, Mozilla Thunderbird help. That takes me to http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/.
From there I "try searching the Mozillazine Knowledge Base, "
At this point I typed "template", without quotes, in the Search box, and read the first result that came back.

Hope this helps.

**PaulB** · 2005-04-05 13:59

Thanks, Chris. I understand how to create a template and how to save it in the Templates folder.

As the instructions in the link you provided indicate, you can invoke a template as the basis of an email by double clicking on a template in the Templates folder. This will open the Composition window using the template you selected from the one or more templates that are saved in the Templates folder.

What I don't understand is how you invoke a given template as the basis of a reply by using the "Reply" function. Even if "Reply" did invoke a template, which one would be used if more than one template existed in the Templates folder? This is what is not clear to me.

BTW, could you post how you dynamically create a new template at boot up. That's a novel idea!

Cheers,

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-05 14:23

> invoke a given template as the basis of a reply

Paul, your response to my posting is going to force my hand and make me brutally honest with you - this whole thread is developing into an essay of my crass stupidity and lack of attention to detail. I was hoping that no-one would notice my initial error in failing to see that what i thought was my initial problem was a problem of a completely different nature. I will try to set the record straight.

It turns out (as I discovered this morning) that my supposed problem was related to "signature strings", not templates.

I'm used to Eudora where the signature string gets attached as the message is posted, but Thunderbird supplies the signature string greyed out at the foot of the message, at the time of composition (or re-composition in the case of a reply). That greyed-out text, or the absence of it, caused me to think that I was dealing with templates - it is how Eudora worked with what it called Stationery. When I didn't see the greyed-out text, still thinking in Eudora-speak, I figured that it was template text that had gone a-missing. It's not. It's the signature text that I was deleting with my heavy-pawed Ctrl-A/Del.

At the time of writing, it turns out, I'm not using templates (except by default); I'm using Signatures, and my problem all along has been with Signatures.

I hope that this is making sense. I'm half-tempted to delete the original post, not to cover up my idiocy, but to avoid confusion in future readers.

Thanks for your interest in "random sigs"; I'll start a new thread.

**PaulB** · 2005-04-05 15:30

Thanks, Chris... all is now clear. It had occurred to me that you may have been talking about a sig file, but I hoped you may have been onto something I wish were a feature in Thunderbird. Sorry for any embarrassment I may have caused. Anti-blushing pills are on the way.

Cheers,

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-05 15:49

> Anti-blushing pills are on the way.

There's a 100K limit on attachments!

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-05 16:57

> I wish were a feature in Thunderbird

Paul, I took a look at a file "templates" (no extent) in my folders. It appears to be a -plain html file. I had two templates, and could see the source text. I modified the source text in Notepad, and the templates appear to be robust.

I believe I could have as easily applied my "random windows tip" to Thunderbird templates as to Signatures.

Was that the sort of feature for which you were wishing?

**PaulB** · 2005-04-06 02:16

> There's a 100K limit on attachments!

Doesn't matter, Chris... I had no luck scanning them into an email!

**PaulB** · 2005-04-06 02:52

>Was that the sort of feature for which you were wishing?

We're talking two different (but equally desirable) features. You've demonstrated that dynamically changing a template or a sig file is possible. I will probably pursue this, building on your work. The other feature is invoking a template for a "Reply". I still don't have an answer for this, unfortunately.

Cheers,

**chrisgreaves** · 2005-04-06 13:07

> invoking a template for a "Reply"

Hmmmm. The only way I've found, so far, to invoke a temmplate is either
(1) have it as the only template or
(2) double-click to compose.

I can't see how to switch templates at the time the Reply button is used. (Clearly if one were doing a batch of consistent Replies one could roll a Reply template in as the only template).

I think it is time that I got into NewsGroups; Hans indicates that he learns a great deal from them. I've essayed in the past, but not with ThunderBird. I feel a new thread coming on ......

Thread: Thunderbird - reply templates (Thunderbird 1.0)

Thread Tools