198087 - Mark new items in Unsent and Drafts folders to Unread

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

User-Agent:       Opera/6.05 (Windows 2000; U)  [en]
Build Identifier: 

It would be convenient if newly-stored Draft or Unsent messages were marked as
Unread.  This would make it easier to remember these items are present, as the
folders are not generally the folders one visits.  In particular, this would
provide feedback for unexpectedly Unsent messages (mentioned as desirable in
Bug 82998) or for inexperienced users creating Drafts (mentioned as desirable
in Bug 90953).

I find myself doing this step manually whenever I can remember to; having it
automatic would be v. useful.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Rene Pronk]

Agreed, I really do miss this, especially with the Unsent folder. I keep
forgetting I've put some messages in there.

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I've noticed that this duplicates the WONTFIX'd bug 67267, and encompasses bug
90953 as well.

Comment 3

[Scott Brawner]

I would also like to see this feature added, but I will add that it should be
implemented in such a way so that the messages are not marked as read when you
go back and look at them later. 

MS Outlook works this way. Any message in the Drafts folder does not get
automatically marked as read when previewed or opened for editing. The only way
to mark a draft as read is to purposefully do it yourself. (Right-click the
message in the message list and choose "Mark as Read" from the pop-up menu.)

I would like to see this kind of behavior in Moz Mail/TB.

Comment 4

[R.K.Aa.]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 67267 ***

Comment 5

[Alec Flett]

reopening. this was marked a dupe of a bug that was WONTFIXED well over 3 years
ago. I would like this issue to be readdressed rather than shelved by a sly
DUP'ing. 

Many people are requesting this feature and it is common in other mail clients
such as Outlook.

Comment 6

[Alec Flett]

Also note that the other bug (Bug 67267) was about "Sent/Unsent/Drafts" - this
bug specfically addresses the Unsent/Drafts issue. 

(Seems obvious to me that we wouldn't want Sent messages marked unread, but
that's an issue for another bug)

Comment 7

[Scott MacGregor]

Alec, if you are ok with us just marking it as unread when we save it and not
trying to prevent it from getting marked as read when you view it later, then
this would be really cheap to do.

Probably just a couple lines of code.

Comment 8

[Alec Flett]

yeah, that would be ideal.. 

Comment 9

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Thanks, Alec!  When I opened this bug, I intended only that the Unsent/Drafts be 
marked Unread when first stored in the folder.  While I see the potential 
usefulness, per comment 3, of having them never be marked read (at least, by 
viewing them in the preview pane), that's something I can manage myself.

Comment 10

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: possible fix

After doing this, David and I decided we really don't want this behavior on by
default and having UI for this seems like useless UI cluter.

I think the comprise might be to do this just for the Local folder unsent
message case. 

A simplified patch that does it just for local unsent coming up.

Comment 11

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: better fix

Working from a tip from David, here's a slightly better fix for the case where
the message is getting saved to an IMAP drafts folder.

Comment 12

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 145751 [details] [diff] [review]
better fix

for 1.8....

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Does the different remote-folder implementation in the "better fix" mean that 
messages in Drafts folders will be 'unread' after all?-- that is, that contrary 
to comment 10 it's OK to have this requested behavior by default?

The new fix sure looks like it's handling the Drafts case.

Comment 14

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: even better fix

after talking to David, this is a much simpler way to do it for the local
folder case.

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 145758 [details] [diff] [review]
even better fix

looks good.

Comment 16

[Scott Brawner]

So what about someone like me that doesn't use Local Folders?

Comment 17

[Scott MacGregor]

fixed

Comment 18

[David :Bienvenu]

this is fixed/changed for both imap and local folders - if it turns out that
people don't like this new default behaviour, we might have to re-evaluate.

Comment 19

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I can verify that new messages stored to Drafts (in a POP account) or Unread are 
marked as new;
I see this in
  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040413

However (I hesitate to mention...) I don't see a 1.7 approval for this patch.
Is my nightly actually a proto-1.8 trunk build?


I'm also seeing inconsistent updating of the Drafts and Unsent Folders items in 
the Folder pane.  Usually, they update right away; sometimes, I need to select 
the folder before the unread count increments (and before the folder goes bold, 
if it contained no unread items previously).  I'll open another bug for that 
after I've had a chance to play with it some more.

Comment 20

[Scott MacGregor]

I just realized this wasn't checked into the aviary 1.0 branch

Comment 21

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

I was talking to Seth today, and he suggested that instead of marking drafts
unread it may make more sense to just make the folder bold if it contains
drafts.  That way users are reminded of the existence of unfinished drafts
without overloading the meaning of "unread".

Comment 22

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

we should be able to have a css rule for the folder pane that says:  "if it's a
drafts folder and it has messages, make it bold (or what ever)".

we should log a spin of bug about fixing this to do it that way, and not
overload unread this way.

one problem with overloading unread is messages could get marked unread, and
then you'd have the same problem.