How do I remove the "--" on my signatures?

Well Dennis, since about 90% of the email programs allow for breaking it, I guess this hasn't turned into a world wide standard, has it? :) ( Delete or Edit)

Give us the option to remove it.

As for it being a "standard" just because a few mail clients recognize it as a common delineator is a bit concerning. Am I supposed to not be able to type "-- " in the body of my content now for fear that some other mail client is going to reformat my message?

This delineator, "-- ", even if it is a somewhat commonly accepted (though I have yet to see this behavior in any client I've used), is a rather poor choice even if only because it assumes the user would never type those characters alone on a line inside a message body.

Just let me turn it off. Better yet... if mail clients want to reformat sigs differently than the body, establish a "real" standard that isn't so easily broken by regular use. Until then, this is just a poor analogue for any kind of true solution and should be optional at best. ( Delete or Edit)

dv8godd brings up some good points and I agree whole heatedly with what he has to say. ( Delete or Edit)

establishing a new standard isn't an easy thing to do. The best thing would be switching to XML and then wrapping the signature in <signature> tags ... but, then no email client in existence would function properly ... email sucks. it needs to die and be reborn. but it never will.

So, cope with the current standard. If it bothers you enough start raising a stink about ditching the current, antiquated, standard and build a new one that companies will adapt. ( Delete or Edit)

xml - yeah - and re-write every client & spam-checker.
if you want rich&colorful messages - send word-documents.
the general purpose of email is information - not pictures nor HTML.
try to use -- inside a body of an email - it wont mess up your message.
first of it's '-- (newline)', second the structure of email is pretty much described in the RFC.
my guess: you are all mac users ;)
go to 'about:config' and make the seperator 'blank' if you get annoyed by it.

no offense - but a sig-seperator shouldnt be a discussion worth like that and again - no offense - but xml aint the solution for everything.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322
more userfriendly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail

cheers ( Delete or Edit)

You are absolutely right, XML isn't the answer for everything. But it is the answer to modernizing email.

It isn't about formatting (though, that would be a side benefit), its about adding features that people are hacking into email clients that aren't compatible with other email clients. It sucks. the RFC was written how long ago? People want how many more features now?

Like i said, its never going to happen, there is too much expense. So people will keep hacking proprietary features into clients, locking users into one client over time. ( Delete or Edit)

Suggesting sending Word docs, a completely proprietary format that relies upon the user owning Word (Mac, Unix, and even Windows users don't necessarily have it), is a pretty poor suggestion.

Dennis, one of the highlighted points of using THIS email app is precisely to send rich, graphical emails. See also: the homepage of the postbox site, third tab.

Should I suggest that if you don't want rich & colorful messages you send text files?

Times change, as has email. People have been using email for more than just plain text for a while now.

And come on: sly-winking everyone as mac users? Sheesh. ( Delete or Edit)

I dont have a prob sending rich-colorful mails - but I like to stripp your sig when I reply to you via email - therefore '-- (newline)' is needed.
mostly it's the mac-ppl complaining that this and that is NOT as nice looking as it could... I wonder when 'email-designer' is an official job describtion ;)

this RFC is not the only one that is old but still valid. I do agree that ppl want more and more features - sometimes for the lack of functionality.
to be honest - a good anti-spam-mech is more worthy than '-- (newline)'-removal. as a sidenote: using xml i.e. will open a big door for millions of spammers. (now speaking as mail-admin)
cheers ( Delete or Edit)

it also opens the door for easier digital signatures, which if supported in an easy uniform way in all mail clients as part of the XML Email RFC, would go a long way to reducing spam ;-). (speaking as a software engineer and systems administrator) ( Delete or Edit)

IF you can get a user to sign the mail - yes.
IF digital sign's get cheaper - yes.
;) atm a user wont be bothered with and/or digital signing - unfortunately.
most of them havent even understood how mail works (remember all those disclaimers BELOW the sig's) ( Delete or Edit)

I can see your point about wanting to strip the sig in a reply... that is a nuisance. Unfortunately, in my experience, I almost never get emails with people using the delineator so I end up having to do it manually when desired.

That said, I'm not suggesting throwing XML into the mix, specifically. I was more trying to point out the general strangeness of having chosen "-- " (and yes, I know the newline is there) as a de-facto standard. I can easily see some random user just not knowing that putting "-- " alone on a line is going to make the rest of their message into a sig as it's hardly common knowledge. And for that matter, general consumers shouldn't have to worry about things like that. It's just a poor choice with more appeal to legacy than logic, given the current state of things.

As an aside...

Judging by something you said, it almost seems as if you see the discussion as split between form (as Mac users) and function (as mail admins, ie yourself). I don't really see Mac users interested in losing their own functionality... just as not wanting to be bothered with things like "-- " in order to get it. ;)

I tend to think that if most people (not just Mac users) have to give up one of the two... they'd probably give up someone else's functionality for their own form... as sending mails with "-- " doesn't necessarily benefit the sender (unless everyone does it).

Personally, I'd rather a solution that doesn't need to give up functionality or form. Of course, the only thing slower than the development of better online standards is their implementation, so I'm not exactly holding my breath on getting what I want either. ;) ( Delete or Edit)

dv8godd, the "-- " was chosen precisely because it's not common for people to write that, including the space on the end, on its own line within the body of a message. In fact, there seems to be little reason for anyone to explicitly end any line with a space, except for the purposes outlined in RFC 2646, so your argument against the well established format is easily dismissed.

To those suggesting using an XML based email format as the solution and introducing a signature element, that doesn't solve the problem and only creates more. Also, experience on the web has shown that ensuring XML output from tools is always well-formed is not trivial. I've seen tools written by experts in the field output non-well-formed code due to some unexpected input. In fact, even Postbox itself seems to have trouble with generating well-formed XML (see the issue entitled "broken threads"). ( Delete or Edit)

The answer has been, "No" ... because it is the wrong thing to do. some email clients incorrectly remove them for the sake of making pretty emails. ( Delete or Edit)

No, seriously, that's the completely wrong answer. Until Postbox, I've NEVER seen a client do this; ergo, I want them gone. Postbox can -prefer- to insert them all it wants, but I want to opt out. Period. ( Delete or Edit)

That's nice. I still want them gone. ( Delete or Edit)

Ha! You uninstalled PB because of two dashes? ( Delete or Edit)

There is no pb.signatures.include_dashes in that list? ( Delete or Edit)

Please make this change only apply to the text/html copy of the e-mail that is sent, where it is less useful, and which I suspect most of the people requesting this stupid feature are using. Do not let it apply the text/plain copy where it is an essential separator that absolutely must be included so that signature stripping works properly when replying. ( Delete or Edit)

I am not. How do I get that? I don't see a "look for updates" within the app and the online version is 1.0.0 ( Delete or Edit)