At 10:01 AM 3/6/2013, JRodgers wrote:
>I use Gmail as my primary mail server - but I also have Mozilla
>Thunderbird on my computer as my e-mail client software. With it I
>can download my e-mail from Gmail, redirect it into folders by
>subject, and then reply in the manner in which you describe - in the
>message of interest just select the text of interest and click
>reply. Only the selected text will be forwarded from the old message
>in the new message with the new text.

Yes, that's Thunderbird doing it.  You're using gmail the way I do,
as a set of servers to talk to remotely.  We get our choice of
MUA/mail user agent/email client software to do the dirty work and
would prefer that gmail stick to simply providing incoming and
outgoing servers and be as little helpful as possible.  As a
certified ancient flatulator, I've been using Eudora since it were a
pup, and with two hundred or so filters set up I haven't got any
great motive to change, though I hear it's considered very
old-fashioned these days.  Eudora has worked that way for as long as
I can now remember.

However most folks use gmail by way of a web page which pretends to
be an MUA, and it's very helpful indeed.  As of this week, when you
reply to a message using that web page, gmail quotes the entire
message you're replying to, vanishes the quoted text under an
ellipsis at the bottom left of the composing window, and leaves you
with an apparently blank window with a cursor ready for your input
above the invisible quoted text.  To do any trimming, or to bottom
post, you have to click on the pale-shaded "..." at which point
everything springs up in fully quoted glory and you can actually get
to work.  Highlighting text ahead of time is just a waste of electrons.

Yrs,
d