Outlook-like Quick Style Text/Paragraph formatting option

Feature request
1

Hello,

I recently discovered eM Client, and so far I liked it as a GMail client. I’m using it in a work setting, and it’s doing most of what I want well.

There is one feature from Outlook that I frequently used and am missing from eM. Perhaps there is a way to add it which I have not currently found.

Outlook (for Windows at least, not the Mac version) has “Quick Styles” which you can define and then allocate a button for. The button can be added to the title bar. What you do is create a paragraph/text style (font, size, color, background color, bold, italic, underline, paragraph indentation, basically any text formatting) and give it a name. You then assign that name to the button. Now when creating email, you simply highlight the text of interest and click the Quick Style button.

I can get to the same result with multiple text format clicks in eM, but I use this so often that it is frustrating.

What I would really like is the ability to create a Style and assign it as a custom button. But if that’s too much effort, a great step in that direction would be to allow me to at least create a style and add a list of styles to the text format button. That would save me several clicks…

If there is a way to do this which I’ve missed, I’d love to know. Otherwise, please consider this for a future feature request.

Thanx!

2

I just received the notification of the new 7.1 version. I’ve downloaded and installed, looks good so far.

I would like to reiterate my request for the above feature. Hopefully others would find it useful as well. I do this so often, and my common quick-style required 4 formatting changes that it really does become a bit cumbersome. If there is any way to do something like the 1-button click for a style, that would help my workflow significantly!

Thanx for the consideration…

3

There is a work-around, if a bit annoying and inconvenient :  
 If you have an app like Word, cut and paste the text you want to format into it,  do your paragraph spacing etc.,  then paste it back into your email composition window.  Worked fine for me.

4

If it were a one-time use, that would work. Unfortunately I do this often with my email. I’m really missing a feature like this. To replicate the one-click feature from Outlook, for my specific scenario, requires 7 clicks in eM.

5

Pinging this one again in hopes that someday this feature could be supported. I’m doing it more and more, and really missing the Outlook-style ‘Quick Style’ feature…

6

YES PLEASE!!!

I second (and third, and fourth) this feature request.

I’ve just discovered emClient and have been trialling it. So far I love it. It does a 2,000% better job than Outlook at what Outlook does: it’s fast, you can sort things easily, the search works, there are thunderbird-style “search folders”, contacts seem to work reliably, the calendar works well - all good stuff.

The one thing that is *not* good is the email editor. 

Just a couple more functions needed

I’m a big believer in having just the right amount of functionality - especially when it comes to formatting. Less is definitely more with formatting controls.

Block-style formatting dropdown

However - one really useful (and very user friendly) formatting option is the “block level” formatting dropdown found in most HTML WYSIWYG editors (which is a more basic version of what the OP is referring to here with “quick styles” - they’re just baked-in styles without the ability to customise).

Simply put, I should be able to put my cursor anywhere inside a paragraph (without highlighting the whole paragraph) and choose “Heading 1”, or “Heading 2”, or “PREFORMATTED” (etc) from a dropdown list.

When combined with some “email stationary” (which would be nothing more than an HTML template email containing some embedded CSS rules), the various built-in “block styles” would take on some kind of consistent appearance (so there’s no need to mess about with font size or line spacing etc).

Create paragraphs, not DIVs

The other thing the emClient HTML editor does, which is a little bit crummy, is that it wraps every paragraph in DIV tags (with no spacing between “paragraphs”).

It’s nicer when the default behaviour of the ENTER key is to create a paragraph (HTML P tag), with the option to use SHIFT+ENTER to put in a line break (BR tag).

That’s a *really* useful trick for adding a bit of extra space between items in a bulleted list without triggering an extra bullet point (and without needing to fall back on some advanced paragraph formatting dialog box and a whole lot of mouse-clicking).

It’s also consistent with how most HTML email editors, and word processors work (ENTER for paragraph break, SHIFT+ENTER for carriage return).

A few more inline-style buttons

Finally, it would be good to have Strikethrough, Superscript and a Subscript buttons.

Just those things alone are really all the formatting options needed (beyond what is already in emClient). I’m not sure which HTML editor you’re using in your software, but - if it’s a commercial or open source editor you’ve embedded - that the block style dropdown will probably be hiding in there somewhere, just waiting to be switched on :slight_smile:

Why headings are sooooooo important

I use headings a *lot* when I write a long email. If this post was an email to a client, I probably would have stuck several headings in here so that they can skim-read … actually, I’ll go back and add a few headings now - just to illustrate my point.

Headings make it much easier for people to skim-read (or re-read) a long email, and adding them in should be as easy as typing a heading, clicking somewhere on it and then picking “Heading 1” or “Heading 2” (etc) from a list. Right now if I want anything more than just bold text, I’ll have to mess about with font sizing *and* bold for *every* heading (or use the format painter) - and that still won’t create some extra space above the heading (something that is usually baked into the style template for headings).

7

Ok, so I’ve just looked at emClient again and I can see that, actually it *does* already do the SHIFT+ENTER vs ENTER thing - it’s just that ENTER adds a DIV each time, and not a P, so there’s no visible difference between the two.

I’ve also found the superscript, subscript and strikeout options (buried in a right click context menu) - it would still be much nicer to have the option to include those three things on the toolbar (even if they’re not turned on by default)

And of course … block-level formatting - pleaaaase! :slight_smile: (combined with the ability to set up a “template” for emails, a-la outlook or thunderbird “stationary” - naturally with a basic template used by default to put some sensible styling on various heading levels etc)

8

With the move to the new forum, I figured this was a good time to reiterate my request for this functionality… Please. :slight_smile:

Thanx!

9

No, you have not missed anything.

eM Client does have Quick Text for pasting in preformatted text, and Paint Format to copy styles within the compose window, but it does not have the option to apply complex formatting from a preset list.

10

1+ on this one.

Would LOVE to be able to define text in an email as a paragraph rather than div, so we don’t have to hit Enter twice to create a new paragraph. Perhaps for now there’s something we can edit in a cfg file or something? This is how Thunderbird works.

1+ on headings, too, please.

11

My annual login to the forum looking for some information, so I will continue to bump this request in hopes that someday it may make it to the list for feature consideration. :slight_smile:

1 Like
12

I would like this also; I start all my email with a greating in bold, which I then manually have to change to the darkest gray color, as this looks better to me. It would be most useful if we could define our own styles, so “bold” for me always used a certain formatting.

However - I’m afraid from a business perspective, I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Reason being I myself own three (3) “Perpetual Licence” and would thus not add revenue to emClient, even if this feature was introduced, as I simply have no use for additional licences.

Thus - the licencing model prohibits long time loyal users to add value to the software by requesting new features. OTOH, should emClient decide to discontinue the “Perpertual Licence”, current licence holders might not take the move kindly.

Catch-22…