Ok, the order I mentioned before (view
html / view images / retrieve entire)
is correct. In certain cases. In other cases, it will be (retrieve entire / view
html / view images) and this is probably where you were thinking inconsistent behavior. It may seem inconsistent, but there is actual logic involved...
Most messages you get from a normal person (not using PP, because PP only sends plain text) will contain a plain text and an
HTML text message. For IMAP, when PP retrieves the "preview" of the message, PP gets the Plain text (and not the
html) format. In this case, you'll see the "retrieve entire" banner first -- because PP doesn't know that there is
HTML available yet. Once it retrieves the entire message, it sees that there is
HTML and so you'll then get the (view
html / view images) banners.
Now, let's say the message *only* contains
HTML. This is more often the case for newsletters and spammers. In this case, PP retrieves the
HTML format for the preview (PP converts the
HTML message into plain text for security). In this case, the order of the banner will show the "view
html" first.
The logic of the banner order is (note that each case is "if applicable")
1) View
HTML
2) Display all images (remote and local)
3) display remote images
4) display local images
5) Retrieve entire
side-note: 2-4 may seem redundant. But if you pay attention to the wording in the banner, it basically tells you what kind of images there are in the message. For any given message, you'll only see 1 of the 3 options, but it can be a different option for different messages. Most people don't really care about the difference between local and remote images (which is why the banner is nice because it combines them into a single action; whereas before they were always treated as separate), but there really is a subtle distinction (e.g. remote images may be web beacons).
So, in the case of an
HTML-only preview -- you'll have the option to "view
html"
before "retrieve entire." If the message is spam, it may allow you to better view the message in
HTML before forcing you to "retrieve entire." Besides, most newsletters that are
html-only won't have any attachments and you'll already have the entire message. So the only time this will come into effect is when it's an
HTML-only message with attachments. Probably spam in a lot of cases...
End result: I think the order is actually good and must be why I made it that way