Below is an outline of the future development plan for the HTML Multiple Reply Signatures for Gmail Firefox Extension:
Future Development
| Feature name | Release Version | Description | Files |
| Fix the multiline functionality in the editor textbox | 1.2 | This will involve adding functionality to the browser.xul file that will add ending and beginning single-quotes to each line, as well as a plus (concatenate) symbol. | browser.xul; sigEditorWindow.js |
| Create XBL Components | 1.2 | Use XBL to create re-usable XUL components, such as for the preview box, editor, and GPL textbox. | browser.xul; sigEditorWindow.xul; about.xul |
| Enable Radio Button Label change | 1.2 | When the user toggles the "Configure Reply Signatures" radio button, the "Initial Composes" label above the signature names list should say "Reply Signatures". | sigEditorWindow.xul; sigEditorWindow.js |
| Signature name renaming. | 1.2 | Implement renaming of the signature names. | sigEditorWindow.xul; sigEditorWindow.js; javascript.js (The Greasemonkey script) |
| Overload dump functionality | 1.2 | Enable a "logging mode" so that dump statements can be sent to a log. This log could then be used to help troubleshoot new bugs. Implementation details: Override the JavaScript dump function so that it writes to a log file in addition to calling nthe native dump functionality. | sigEditorWindow.js; browser.xul |
| Add/Remove Signatures | 1.2 | Add functionality to add more than four signatures. This should also include the ability to remove signatures. | sigEditorWindow.xul; sigEditorWindow.js; javascript.js (The Greasemonkey script) |
| Enable Signature Boundary | 1.2 | Places a grey "Do not edit below this line" in the editor to discourage editing below the "--". Changing signatures will delete any content entered below the line. Enable support for the "Do not edit below this line" bar that will appear in the Gmail editor to mark the signature boundary so users don't enter content in the dynamic signature area. Currently, this will only function properly using the first "Send" button in Gmail. This needs to be implemented for subsequent "Send" buttons. | javascript.js (The Greasemonkey script) |
| Editor User Documentation | 1.2 | User Documentation needs to be created for the editor. The script functionality already has an IE/Firefox-compatible demo. | |
| Uninstaller Script | 1.0.2 | Because some of the bugs render the XML file unreadable, uninstalling and reinstalling the script will not fix the problem. Uninstalling the extension should result in the data file either being removed or backed up. | |
| Stronger Signature Validation | 1.0.2 | Eliminate the ability for a user to save XML data that is unreadable. Write data to a separate XML file and verify that it can be read by comparing the memory to the file. If it verifies, copy to the real data file; otherwise, warn the user that errors exist. | |
| Utilize Firefox XML Parser | 1.2 | When an XML file is opened in Firefox, the browser will identify XML parsing errors. This could be leveraged in the Extension. |
Currently-known Bugs:
| Bug name | Date found | Description | Possible Fix | Status |
| Quotes cannot be used around attributes | 6/10/07 | Simply leave out the quotes because they are not required. Unfortunately, using quotes in the signature will be somewhat limited. | Unknown. The development of the script involved writing JavaScript within JavaScript and relies on nested quotes. UPDATE 9/27/07: Convert quotes in the editor to " to store in the XML file. | open - fix in 1.0.2 |
| The signature names can't be renamed. | 6/10/07 | Signature names can't be renamed. | This is not yet completely implemented. | open |
| Gmail editor - Changing signatures deletes some or all content. | 6/10/07 | After entering email content, selecting a different signature will cause part or all of my email to be deleted. | Be careful to not type below the "--" characters. There are invisible markers around the signature that mark the dynamic section. (Actually, the signature is placed inside a span element. If you type below the "--", you are typing inside the span element). A planned fix is to place makers around he signature that will be removed on a "Send" click event. | open |
| Multiple drop-down lists | 6/10/07 | When pressing "Compose" in Gmail more than once, more than one drop-down list appears. | No fix planned. Just delete any unwanted signatures from the Gmail editor. | closed |
| After entering a signature on multiple lines in the editor, the signatures would not appear in the Gmail compose or reply editors. | 6/9/07 | This was due to multiline functionality being enabled in the signature editor textbox. This has been temporarily disabled at this time to avoid an "unterminated string literal" exception. | Functionality needs to be implemented to insert ending and beginning quotes in the htmlsigX variables as well as a + concatenator operator. I enabled the multiline attribute of the textbox, which the script did not know how to handle. The temporary fix was to disable multiline support until I have time to fix the problem and test it thoroughly. Be aware that if you want line breaks in the signature, simply use a <br> or <div></div> | closed - Fixed in 1.0.1 on 6/9/07 |
| issue | 9/27/07 | Entering in the editor causes the XML data file to become unreadable. Converting ampersand characters to text will help resolve these conflicts. | Avoid using ampersand characters until the bug is fixed. | open |