Message preview in message list sometimes gets misrepresented

[jancborchardt]

Steps to reproduce

1. View the message list in any mailbox
2. Sometimes it looks off (listed below)

Expected behavior

The preview text should look like the text when you open the mail.

Actual behavior

Sometimes the text includes:

• ALL-CAPS of text which is normally written in the original mail (like for our own notifications, see screenshot below)
• Alt-text of images in [Brackets], unnecessary inclusion (see below)
• Links rendered in [Markdown style](https://example.com), also unnecessary to include the link part, only the text is enough.

Mail app version

Current on cloud.nc.com

Mailserver or service

No response

Operating system

No response

PHP engine version

None

Web server

None

Database

None

Additional info

No response

[GretaD]

Can you reproduce locally with the latest main?

Yes, it is there, but i am having a look if the text insde [] is added by a sysadmin setup like [external] or mail app adds it

[hamza221]

After a bit of investigation, the issue comes from the html2text package. The link problem is easily fixable since html2text provides an option to hide markdown-style links. when it comes to image alt text, If mtibben/html2text#116 gets merged the problem will be fixed, if not a workaround would also be possible. I'm not sure I understood

• ALL-CAPS of text which is normally written in the original mail (like for our own notifications, see screenshot below)

correctly, So we should avoid having all-caps text even if it's in the original mail?

[hamza221]

Also, In the case of a list the preview looks like this

Should we keep it the way it is, or remove the asterisks

[ChristophWurst]

In the specific case of a suspicious_login email (and likely other nextcloud emails) there are two alternative parts in the message. A text one and a HTML one. I probably makes most sense to take the text part for the preview, not the HTML.

[ChristophWurst]

I probably makes most sense to take the text part for the preview, not the HTML.

By flipping the order of the two ifs at

mail/lib/IMAP/MessageMapper.php

Lines 891 to 921 in dcde859

	$htmlBody = ($htmlBodyId !== null) ? $part->getBodyPart($htmlBodyId) : null;
	if (!empty($htmlBody)) {
	$mimeHeaders = $part->getMimeHeader($htmlBodyId, Horde_Imap_Client_Data_Fetch::HEADER_PARSE);
	if ($enc = $mimeHeaders->getValue('content-transfer-encoding')) {
	$structure->setTransferEncoding($enc);
	$structure->setContents($htmlBody);
	$htmlBody = $structure->getContents();
	}
	$html = new Html2Text($htmlBody);
	return new MessageStructureData(
	$hasAttachments,
	trim($html->getText()),
	$isImipMessage,
	$isEncrypted,
	);
	}
	$textBody = $part->getBodyPart($textBodyId);
	if (!empty($textBody)) {
	$mimeHeaders = $part->getMimeHeader($textBodyId, Horde_Imap_Client_Data_Fetch::HEADER_PARSE);
	if ($enc = $mimeHeaders->getValue('content-transfer-encoding')) {
	$structure->setTransferEncoding($enc);
	$structure->setContents($textBody);
	$textBody = $structure->getContents();
	}
	return new MessageStructureData(
	$hasAttachments,
	$textBody,
	$isImipMessage,
	$isEncrypted,
	);
	}

text parts would that precedence over HTML.