Thunderbird - Reply without Quote

One feature I miss in Thunderbird is the ability to choose whether, when replying to a message, to quote the senders original message or not. Mutt used to have (and probably still does) two different reply keys that let you make this choice each time you reply to a message, and I found it very handy.

Thunderbird does allow you to make this choice, but in an all or nothing way via a choice under "edit account settings". So you can always reply with quoting, or always reply without quoting, which is stupid.

Apparently enough other people agree with me that they have produced add-ons (or used to) to thunderbird to provide just what I am dreaming of, namely a button to reply with or without quoting.

I happened upon an "extension" written by Mark S. Baines. (there are add-ons, extensions, and plugins -- don't ask me!)

• Mark Baines Thunderbird extensions.

If you want to try it, download replywithoutquotetemp_tb.xpi from the link above, and then figure out how to cram it down thunderbirds throat.

Thunderbird is forever changing how you do these sorts of things, but at one time a process like this seemed to do the job:

• Go to Tools --> Add-Ons
• Select Extensions
• Click on a mysterious lever symbol left of the search entry field.
• Select install add-on from file.
• Rattle around and find the .xpi file you down loaded.
• Click the install it button
• Restart thunderbird
• Right click on the upper toolbar and drag the new button to where you want it.

In October, 2013 (with the advent of thunderbird 24.1.0) this add-on stopped working. No doubt the API this add-on depends on has been changed in some way. This left me with a non-functioning button, and now I have reinstalled Thunderbird (which as of this writing is at version 52.0).

So this is all forgotten - but you may want to try this yourself.