New UI: Spacing not working

redc · 12 Nov 2012, 11:10 AM

In the new UI when I reply to a message, the space between words is not working. In the Classic, this is Ok.
Anyone else having same problems?

n5bb · 12 Nov 2012, 11:54 AM

Welcome to the EMD Forums, redc!

I don't know what you mean by "the space between words is not working" when you reply. You might mean one or more of:

The space bar does nothing when you try to space between words. Or you get more than one space when using the spacebar.
The spaces in the quoted text (original message you are replying to) disappears. So instead of "the quick brown fox" you see "thequickbrownfox".
You are seeing some issue with fixed or proportional fonts. This involves the shape and spacing of individual characters, and in general not the word spacing you mentioned.

There are two main types of text content in the body of email messages:

Plain text: The text is sent as ASCII encoded characters with no formatting. So you can't have bold, italics, underlined text, colors, or other special effects. The characters are sent with no spacing information, so the display at the receiving end depends on the email client (or webmail system) used by the reader of the message. In particular, the characters might be shown in a fixed or proportional spaced character set, and the sender has no control over this.
Rich or HTML text: The text is created with formatting similar to what is available for websites. This means that the sender may be able to specify a certain font (fixed or proportionally spaced) and other formatting features. But again the email client or webmail system can choose to display this content in different manners. So the sender may specify some font which the receiving system doesn't support, so another font is used for display.

I believe that in general Fastmail now uses a proportionally spaced display font with plain text message content. This means that the two character strings below won't line up vertically:
iiiiiiiiii
OOOOOOOOOO
Columns of numbers may not line up correctly either unless the receiving email system uses a fixed font for plain text messages.

As you can see, this can get a bit complex and these display issues are not unique to Fastmail. So please tell us more about what you mean about "space between words is not working".

Bill

redc · 12 Nov 2012, 12:43 PM

* The spaces in the quoted text (original message you are replying to) disappears. So instead of "the quick brown fox" you see "thequickbrownfox".*

The above quote is correct in the problem I am having. In the New UI, when I hit the spacebar, no space is created, all the words are joined. This does not happen in the Classic mode.
I am using a Macbook Pro. Also, worth mentioning, I do not have this problem with my iPad.

Just checking again, the problem seems to have resolved itself.

Thanks for your repsonse.

gardenweed · 12 Nov 2012, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redc

In the new UI when I reply to a message, the space between words is not working. In the Classic, this is Ok.
Anyone else having same problems?

OK. This just started to happen for me today too.

It seems like hitting space is trying to do a "page down" action.

It only happens, so far, when replying to an email, but not in compose.

-------------------
Edit:
So I rebooted and now things are back to normal.
W7, Chrome.

johanborg · 13 Nov 2012, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gardenweed

OK. This just started to happen for me today too.

It seems like hitting space is trying to do a "page down" action.

It only happens, so far, when replying to an email, but not in compose.

This should be fixed now. Thanks for the clear report.

toolio · 13 Nov 2012, 10:13 PM

I posted this in a separate thread yesterday. It seems to be related, and has not been fixed. So I am now posting here.

Cutandpastelookslikethis

This may be minor to most, but is major to me. Since the new upgrade, no matter which interface I use much of the time text pasted into fastmail from a language other than Englishlooks the like the title above: Cutandpastelookslikethis

This is extremely irritating to me, since I write emails in English and Portuguese and am often cutting and pasting. Not only does a paste combine huge numbers of words in Portuguese, it turns out that existing emails are subject to this strange behaviour in quoted replies. Something that had normal word spacing in Portuguese in the original email then becomes a jumble when quoted in replies.

This was never a problem before the lastest changes. And I cannot seem to find a way around it. Sometimes pasting something into Word first, then copying it from Word to fastmail works with fewer combined words. But it is a giant pain.

Can somebody take a look at this and see if something can be done?

Thanks.

janusz · 13 Nov 2012, 10:37 PM

I tried cut+paste with Polish and Russian texts into a new msg in the new interface. No funny effects here, spaces well preserved, both in the copy saved on FM and at the destination.

Win7 + FF 16.0.2

toolio · 13 Nov 2012, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

I tried cut+paste with Polish and Russian texts into a new msg in the new interface. No funny effects here, spaces well preserved, both in the copy saved on FM and at the destination.

Win7 + FF 16.0.2

Odd. Can somebody do me a favor and translate something into portuguese using the google translate web interface, then paste it into a Fastmail message? This is one of the many cuts and pastes that causes problems for me.

Thanks.

janusz · 13 Nov 2012, 11:02 PM

I did just that, Instead of using google translate I copied a few sentences from Portuguese wikpedia and pasted them into a new message in the new interface.
Not a single space has been lost in this operation

toolio · 13 Nov 2012, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

I did just that, Instead of using google translate I copied a few sentences from Portuguese wikpedia and pasted them into a new message in the new interface.
Not a single space has been lost in this operation

Thanks. Okay, I am now officially puzzled. Not only does cut and paste cause problems, many of my quoted replies are having spaces removed in the new interface. In other words--original email fine, but when it ends up being quoted automatically by fastmail spaces get removed.

I will play with different fonts to see what happens then. I am using Arial.

Very strange.

janusz · 13 Nov 2012, 11:08 PM

BTW, I use plain text for new messages. I infer from your last posting you may be composing in HTML.

toolio · 13 Nov 2012, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

BTW, I use plain text for new messages. I infer from your last posting you may be composing in HTML.

Yes, HTML. I have no intention of going back to plain text. It isn't suitable for my purposes.

Strangely, there was never any problem pasting into HTML from google translate or anywhere until the recent changes. I have been doing this for years with fastmail, successfully. I should note that I am not having the problem only with pasting from google translate, but from pasting material from some web sites in Portuguese.

Oddly, cut and paste seems to be fine in English but terrible in Portuguese. I will try Spanish and Italian later as an experiment.

Having said that, I just now experimented with the classic interface concise style sheet. It doesn't seem to be create the portuguese cut and paste problem in HTML (at least not five minutes ago). Not sure what that tells me. But if it continues to work I guess that might be the solution for me. However, it is clearly is not a solution to the larger problem.

marianh · 19 Nov 2012, 01:11 PM

Hi all, sorry for the delayed response.
If you are still having issues with spaces disappearing in the rich text editor, can you please reply with the following:
1. The browser and Operating System you are using (for example, Chrome on Windows 7)
2. A sample of the text that is causing this
We haven't been able to reproduce this one at Fastmail yet, but we hope to be able to with your help.

toolio · 29 Nov 2012, 02:36 AM

Still happening to me when I use the new interface and HTML. Not happening when I switch to the old interface.

You can try this.

1) Translate something into portuguese in the google translate web page.

2) Copy and paste into a fastmail HTML email using the new interface. If your experience is like mine many spaces between words will be missing.

3) Switch to the classic interface concise style sheet and try the same. If your experience is like mine, all will be good--no missing spaces.

My data:

Happening on several different computers, using Windows Vista and Windows 7. Using Firefox, latest update. I am using Arial as the default font in Fastmail.

Hope this helps. This is one of the reasons I refuse to use the new interface. I just tried it five minutes ago by switching back to the new interface and the problem continues.

marianh · 29 Nov 2012, 07:21 AM

Thanks toolio, I can reproduce that on Windows. This appears to be a windows and Firefox only issue, as far as I can tell.
I'll see to it that one of our developers takes a look.

Thanks for taking the time to help!

12 Nov 2012, 11:10 AM	#1
redc Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 2	New UI: Spacing not working In the new UI when I reply to a message, the space between words is not working. In the Classic, this is Ok. Anyone else having same problems?

12 Nov 2012, 11:54 AM	#2
n5bb Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Irving, Texas Posts: 8,930	Welcome to the EMD Forums, redc! I don't know what you mean by "the space between words is not working" when you reply. You might mean one or more of: The space bar does nothing when you try to space between words. Or you get more than one space when using the spacebar. The spaces in the quoted text (original message you are replying to) disappears. So instead of "the quick brown fox" you see "thequickbrownfox". You are seeing some issue with fixed or proportional fonts. This involves the shape and spacing of individual characters, and in general not the word spacing you mentioned. There are two main types of text content in the body of email messages: Plain text: The text is sent as ASCII encoded characters with no formatting. So you can't have bold, italics, underlined text, colors, or other special effects. The characters are sent with no spacing information, so the display at the receiving end depends on the email client (or webmail system) used by the reader of the message. In particular, the characters might be shown in a fixed or proportional spaced character set, and the sender has no control over this. Rich or HTML text: The text is created with formatting similar to what is available for websites. This means that the sender may be able to specify a certain font (fixed or proportionally spaced) and other formatting features. But again the email client or webmail system can choose to display this content in different manners. So the sender may specify some font which the receiving system doesn't support, so another font is used for display. I believe that in general Fastmail now uses a proportionally spaced display font with plain text message content. This means that the two character strings below won't line up vertically: iiiiiiiiii OOOOOOOOOO Columns of numbers may not line up correctly either unless the receiving email system uses a fixed font for plain text messages. As you can see, this can get a bit complex and these display issues are not unique to Fastmail. So please tell us more about what you mean about "space between words is not working". Bill

29 Nov 2012, 07:21 AM	#15
marianh Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 78 Representative of: Fastmail.fm	Thanks toolio, I can reproduce that on Windows. This appears to be a windows and Firefox only issue, as far as I can tell. I'll see to it that one of our developers takes a look. Thanks for taking the time to help! Last edited by marianh : 29 Nov 2012 at 07:29 AM.

12 Nov 2012, 12:43 PM	#3
redc Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 2	* The spaces in the quoted text (original message you are replying to) disappears. So instead of "the quick brown fox" you see "thequickbrownfox".* The above quote is correct in the problem I am having. In the New UI, when I hit the spacebar, no space is created, all the words are joined. This does not happen in the Classic mode. I am using a Macbook Pro. Also, worth mentioning, I do not have this problem with my iPad. Just checking again, the problem seems to have resolved itself. Thanks for your repsonse.

13 Nov 2012, 10:13 PM	#6
toolio Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 41	I posted this in a separate thread yesterday. It seems to be related, and has not been fixed. So I am now posting here. Cutandpastelookslikethis This may be minor to most, but is major to me. Since the new upgrade, no matter which interface I use much of the time text pasted into fastmail from a language other than Englishlooks the like the title above: Cutandpastelookslikethis This is extremely irritating to me, since I write emails in English and Portuguese and am often cutting and pasting. Not only does a paste combine huge numbers of words in Portuguese, it turns out that existing emails are subject to this strange behaviour in quoted replies. Something that had normal word spacing in Portuguese in the original email then becomes a jumble when quoted in replies. This was never a problem before the lastest changes. And I cannot seem to find a way around it. Sometimes pasting something into Word first, then copying it from Word to fastmail works with fewer combined words. But it is a giant pain. Can somebody take a look at this and see if something can be done? Thanks.

13 Nov 2012, 10:37 PM	#7
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,945	I tried cut+paste with Polish and Russian texts into a new msg in the new interface. No funny effects here, spaces well preserved, both in the copy saved on FM and at the destination. Win7 + FF 16.0.2

13 Nov 2012, 11:02 PM	#9
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,945	I did just that, Instead of using google translate I copied a few sentences from Portuguese wikpedia and pasted them into a new message in the new interface. Not a single space has been lost in this operation

13 Nov 2012, 11:08 PM	#11
janusz The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: EU Posts: 4,945	BTW, I use plain text for new messages. I infer from your last posting you may be composing in HTML.

19 Nov 2012, 01:11 PM	#13
marianh Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 78 Representative of: Fastmail.fm	Hi all, sorry for the delayed response. If you are still having issues with spaces disappearing in the rich text editor, can you please reply with the following: 1. The browser and Operating System you are using (for example, Chrome on Windows 7) 2. A sample of the text that is causing this We haven't been able to reproduce this one at Fastmail yet, but we hope to be able to with your help.

29 Nov 2012, 02:36 AM	#14
toolio Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 41	Still happening to me when I use the new interface and HTML. Not happening when I switch to the old interface. You can try this. 1) Translate something into portuguese in the google translate web page. 2) Copy and paste into a fastmail HTML email using the new interface. If your experience is like mine many spaces between words will be missing. 3) Switch to the classic interface concise style sheet and try the same. If your experience is like mine, all will be good--no missing spaces. My data: Happening on several different computers, using Windows Vista and Windows 7. Using Firefox, latest update. I am using Arial as the default font in Fastmail. Hope this helps. This is one of the reasons I refuse to use the new interface. I just tried it five minutes ago by switching back to the new interface and the problem continues.