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 content="all" /> The Entourage User's WebLog
Are you a Top or Bottom Poster?
2005-12-21 • Hints & Tips
That is, when you reply to a mail, do you quote the original in your reply, and do you like your answer to go above the quoted text or after it?

Well, Entourage can do it either way. Take a look in the preferences, in the 'Reply and Forward' section. The first item is a check box to include the original message as quoted text in your reply. Check that, or uncheck it as you prefer. Most people have it checked.

Now, under the 'Attribution' part of this sections come your options for top & bottom posting. Confusion is going to arise here because replies to Newsgroup messages behave differently to replies to Mail messages.

Let's look at mail first:


These are the options to check in the mail attribution part of the preferences window

Option 1 - check "Use None"


Now, replying to a mail message gives you a window with the Quoted Text, then the cursor for your reply, then your signature (if you have one set).

Option 2 - check "Place reply text at top of message..."


Now a reply has things in this order: attribution line (you can modify what appears in this in the same preferences dialog); quoted text; cursor; signature

Option 2+ - also check the "Place insertion point before quoted text"


The order changes to cursor; attribution; quoted text; signature

Option 3 - check "Place reply at top of message and include From, Date..."


The order in a reply is now cursor; signature; short headers of the quoted message (over 5 lines); quoted text.

Nowhere is the preferred option for most top-posters: cursor; signature; short attribution line; quoted text.

News Messages


Things get even more confusing when we look at replies to newsgroup messages:
First, we note there is a separate section in the preferences for News Attribution, with just one editable entry for the attribution line. Now, doesn't this imply that the options just described have no effect on News? You'd think so, wouldn't you. Well, you're almost right. Options 1, 2 & 3 in the mail attribution section have no effect at all. the replies to news messages always contain: a short attribution line; the quoted text; the cursor; your signature.
However, select option 2+ in the mail attribution section and replies to news messages ARE affected - the order becomes: cursor; attribution; quoted text; signature. Crazy huh?

Note that again, there's no top-posters' preferred option.

The Solution


Before you despair, there is a simple solution. Paul Berkowitz has written an elegant set of scripts that let you customise your reply format a lot better than the Entourage Preferences. Using this script I have the Entourage preferences to reply to a message as a bottom poster: attribution; quoted text; cursor; signature. So, when I hit Cmd-R I get a bottom poster's reply. I have Paul's script set up to use the keyboard shortcut Cntl-Opt-R, and when I hit that I get a message in the top-poster's layout: cursor, signature; short attribution; quoted text.

Beautiful. The best of both worlds. Now why couldn't Microsoft have made it easier than they did?
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