MUAs and quoting [was Re: qe missing config reference to if_uba]

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

(Yeah, offtopic.  I won't pursue it very far onlist.)

> Ps.  What mailer do you use/recommend for quoting?  Outlook, sadly
> (don't laugh), is not very good at it, it seems.

Based on the little I can tell, Outlook is good at almost nothing
except annoying people who have encountered better MUAs.  (I haven't
used it myself as far as I can recall, but both its network-visible
behaviour and the behaviours it typically provokes from people are
pretty horrible.)

I'd recommend almost anything else, and I say "almost" only because I'm
sure _something_ out there is even worse.  I have run into a webmail
interface that appears to give no control whatsoever over the quoted
text (it's entirely hidden); that might count as worse, at least as far
as handling quoted text goes.

If I were saddled with Outlook, honestly, I'd copy the message I'm
replying to into a text editor, compose the email, and then copy the
result into a new, non-started-as-a-reply, mail.  That's basically what
I do on the few occasions when I have to use that webmail interface I
mentioned above (one of my workplaces imposes it on us).

Since you mention Outlook, I suspect you're using Windows.  My first
recommendation in that case would be to ditch Windows, at least for
mailreading; if you don't consider that an option, all I have to
suggest is ssh to something saner and then use a text MUA (mutt, elm,
mh, alpine, etc - there are many).

As for what I use, I wrote my own MUA.  It's text-based and uses the
user's preferred text editor (in my case, a Gosling emacs variant) for
composition, including handling of quoted text.  You're welcome to a
copy if you want it, but - especially if you're on Windows - it may not
be of much use to you.  (But it may; the OS I use it on is NetBSD.)

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