have you addressed the email?

I received an email saying that Matt had answered my problem. I am unable to find his reply anywhere. It's neither within the email nor (as far as I can make out) anywhere in the forum! In forum itself it just says "Have you addressed the email"?

Where's his '"reply" to the issue I raise?

I will try again... Have you addressed the mail.

What do you mean by that? I always address my emails *after* I compose them. In any case "addressing" the email is unrelated to this issue, I believe: one doesn't use HTML formatting (in this instance the blue type face I want for the message body content), when filling in address field.

Please advise

there is a plain text indicator in the address book records for people. Just checking it was not relevant here. No address excludes that as a possible cause.

Open a write window, press enter three or four times as soon as you get into the composition window, use the mouse to reposition your pointer to the start and type something. Is that Blue?

No! It is not I've even deleted the Thunderbird application completely from my Mac. And then downloaded and re-installed anew . To no avail. Same old, same old (problem). tho it's not an "old" problem at all. It just began last week. And I've used Thunderbird for years - with the blue composition text setting which now eludes me.

Which leads me to surmise the issue is possibly some setting in my profile - rather than in the app....but I simply don't know.

Wish someone knowledgeble could provide some helpful suggestion....

I've now uploaded a screenshot with this post. I hope it will further clarify what I've tried to describe. (Won't know till I've posted it here and can see how the screen shot actually looks online)

The screenshot image has 3 parts: At the top is my Firefox browser - which is only there to cover my actual email address which would otherwise show at the top of the image beneath it in that same screenshot. (So disregard)

That 2nd image is what opens in Thunderbird when I click on "Write" in the tool bar - in order to compose a new email. As (I hope) you can see - the previously configured BLUE composition text setting is showing above the email window - but in a *greyed out* manner. Furthermore, as soon as I position my flashing cursor insertion point over to the left and type just one single letter - the greyed out blue rectangle turns jet black!

That's what the 3rd image in the screen shot, at the bottom, is showing. And the text I subsequently type is BLACK - not BLUE!

I cannot fathom why this occurs or how to correct.

Can anyone assist?

"…as soon as I position my flashing cursor insertion point…" - how do you do this?

Try just typing, or using return to generate blank lines. If you position the cursor arbitrarily with the mouse, you don't know where it is wrt to HTML formatting tags.

Or try an HTML source viewer; this might help tell if you're somehow typing outside the blue text zone. I use the Stationery add-on, which offers a built-in HTML editor.

Um, to follow up Matt's comment about the address book; there are also options to declare certain domains as plain-text or html-only. Probably not relevant here, but in my experience, Thunderbird's choice between plain text and HTML is somewhat arbitrary. And once it has chosen plain text, there's no easy way back to HTML. And, if it were using plain text, we wouldn't even see the HTML formatting bar.

I "position the cursor flashing point" by hitting my keyboard tab key several times till it moves (from address bar where it first appears when I open a new email window) to the composition window.

Thanks Zenos: The second I do that (as I said in my prior post - and as shown in screen shot) the coloured rectangle indicating the composition text setting colour - turns jet black - which you can see) And it remains black if I do as you suggest and hit "Enter' several times...and also if I hit the space bar so that the flashing insertion point is further indented.

I believe the issue occurs less than a split second after I open a new email window because when I do so - for a hairsbreath of a second I sometimes will see a bright blue rectangle - which instantaneously becomes a greyed-out blue (as depicted in the screen shot). The formatting bar is always visible and aside from this new anomoly - is fully functional.

So...??????? what could be going on?