Trojita doesn't allow the user to send an email until the subject is non-empty. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Compose a message with filled senders address, and a non-empty body 2. Click Send button Actual Results: Trojita alerts the user : "Failed to Send Mail" "You haven't entered any subject. Cannot send such a mail, sorry." On clicking the OK button, [the only button available], user is returned to compose window. Expected Results: Trojita should only alert the user of the missing subject, instead of blocking the user from sending a mail. Another option saying maybe "Proceed Anyway" should allow the user to send the mail with an empty subject.
Author: Jan Kundrát <jkt@flaska.net> Date: Tue May 21 21:39:04 2013 +0200 GUI: disable sending of e-mails without any subject Nope, I don't want to add a button which would make it possible to send a mail with an empty subject. ----------- There's a dialog (but i don't know whether that commit is in 3.96)
Sorry, should have read bug closer - altering state according to commit message. And I agree on this - sending w/o subject is only good for spam.
I agree to complying with etiquettes, but according to RFC5322 [1] section 3.6.5, subject field is 'optional'. While a warning is of utmost importance, a mail client shouldn't *prohibit* the user from sending the e-mail for having an empty field which is deemed optional by the standards. The expected behaviour should be: 1. Warn the user of the missing subject 2. Allow the user to "Go Back" or "Proceed Anyway". There are use-cases that require e-mails to be sent without subjects as mentioned in [2] and [3]. A previous argument [4] also requested modification of such a "prohibition". It would be good to emphasise the need for a subject in the message. But the current message, IMHO, isnt appropriate: "Failed to Send Mail. You haven't entered any subject. Cannot send such a mail, sorry." [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.5 [2] http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/outlook-send-message-without-subject/#comment-172862 [3] https://together.jolla.com/question/19551/feature-send-email-with-empty-subject-and-body/ [4] http://www.sogo.nu/bugs/view.php?id=1797#c3885
(In reply to comment #3) > I agree to complying with etiquettes, but according to RFC5322 [1] section > 3.6.5, subject field is 'optional'. So are the "To", "Cc" and "Bcc", yet Trojita will not allow you to send such a mail. The RFC you mentioned describes mandatory, technical requirements which each and every e-mail message must conform to. There are other considerations, like not using dates from the future, or not using User-Agent: Trojita if you actually aren't Trojita, which are not actively forbidden by that RFC, yet a MUA should not take the liberty to actively encourage such behavior. > There are use-cases that require e-mails to be sent without subjects as > mentioned in [2] and [3]. I don't see any use case in [3]. What I see in there is a user complaining that sending pictures from his cell phone to his own e-mail address requires adding a subject to the mail, even though he personally has no need for subjects. That's a personal preference, not a use case. I see a single use case in [2] -- a gentleman wants to send SMS messages to his wife via e-mail, and complains that subjects waste precious space in the SMSes. My cell phone operator (T-Mobile CZ) includes the "SUBJ: " placeholder in the SMSes I receive even when they do not contain the Subject header at all, so I am not convinced. In fact, I'm inclined to take a guess that her carrier behaves exactly like that, but he just finds subjects wasteful in the environment of SMS. I am willing to believe that there could be at least one operator out there which actually skips the placeholder altogether when there's no Subject. That said, we have to weigh the collateral damage done by sending e-mails with empty subjects on one hand, and the inconvenience of being forced to enter a meaningless subject at time it is truly not needed -- a marginal event, IMHO. I have made my decision, and based on the facts I had at the time I made it, sending e-mails without subjects is not allowed in Trojita. None of the facts which I have heard now are enough to change my mind. > It would be good to emphasise the need for a subject in the message. But the > current message, IMHO, isnt appropriate: "Failed to Send Mail. You haven't > entered any subject. Cannot send such a mail, sorry." I find this totally appropriate -- with Trojita, there is no way of sending such messages, so the error message is factually correct. About the most which I can see myself *very* grumpily agreeing to let it sneak into the source is the following: a) Being able to send such subjectless e-mails to one's own e-mail address when there are no other recipients. I.e. the union of To/Cc/Bcc is a set containing exactly one address, and that address is selected as the From one. b) Adding a custom field to the addressbook which would let you send e-mails with empty subjects to these recipients marked as "they don't care about subjectless mails being thrown at them". Personally, I find a) useless, but easy enough to not actively oppose its inclusion. The second option is, IMHO, totally undiscoverable, not future-proof towards other address book backends (think LDAP), and nobody would use it anyway, so you would have to persuade me *very* convincingly to even look at patches implementing exactly that. tl;dr: this is a personal preference.
OOC: You somehow found that dialog (which I had to test and then check git for ;-) -> Do you have a personal interest in this or just randomly stumbled across it when you actually simply forgot the subject?
I was fiddling around with composer functions when I ended up with this dialogue. It got my attentiion as it wasn't handled in Trojita the way it is handled in clients I have used previously. Fine, it is okay if Trojita is *supposed* to work this way. A user can make such changes downstream if required.
*** Bug 396114 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
BTW, I am all for improving the usability of this. The subject field can get red-highlighted if empty upon a sending attempt, for example. The error dialog could prompt for subject, or at least move the focus there, etc. Patches welcome (via Gerrit, please).