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   git-format-patch    ( 1 )

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MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS

Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using various mailers.

GMail GMail does not have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web interface, so it will mangle any emails that you send. You can however use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP server and forward the emails through that.

For hints on using git send-email to send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, see the EXAMPLE section of git-send-email(1).

For hints on submission using the IMAP interface, see the EXAMPLE section of git-imap-send(1).

Thunderbird By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as being format=flowed, both of which will make the resulting email unusable by Git.

There are three different approaches: use an add-on to turn off line wraps, configure Thunderbird to not mangle patches, or use an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.

Approach #1 (add-on) Install the Toggle Word Wrap add-on that is available from https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/toggle-word-wrap/ It adds a menu entry "Enable Word Wrap" in the composer's "Options" menu that you can tick off. Now you can compose the message as you otherwise do (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send, etc), but you have to insert line breaks manually in any text that you type.

Approach #2 (configuration) Three steps:

1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text: Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing, uncheck "Compose Messages in HTML".

2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap.

In Thunderbird 2: Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0

In Thunderbird 3: Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for "mail.wrap_long_lines". Toggle it to make sure it is set to false. Also, search for "mailnews.wraplength" and set the value to 0.

3. Disable the use of format=flowed: Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for "mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed". Toggle it to make sure it is set to false.

After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you otherwise would (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send, etc), and the patches will not be mangled.

Approach #3 (external editor) The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: AboutConfig from http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and External Editor from http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8

1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.

2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit→Account Settings to uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the "Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to send the patch.

3. In the main Thunderbird window, before you open the compose window for the patch, use Tools→about:config to set the following to the indicated values:

mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false mailnews.wraplength => 0

4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.

5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit the editor normally.

Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with about:config and the following settings but no one's tried yet.

mail.html_compose => false mail.identity.default.compose_html => false mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false

There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the steps above and then use the script as the external editor.

KMail This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail.

1. Prepare the patch as a text file.

2. Click on New Mail.

3. Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that "Word wrap" is not set.

4. Use Message → Insert file... and insert the patch.

5. Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send.