23091 - Need better wording and location for "emoticons and struct" prefs

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect, P3)

Description

[lchiang]

Need better wording and location for "emoticons and struct" prefs.

For a history, see http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21649.

Basically, we have two new features which convert things like :-) to an emoticon
and to have formatting in plain text compose.  To disable/enable these features,
we have put something into the prefs to do.

Jennifer, can you review and suggest a better location in prefs for this or
better wording (if necessary)?

1) Edit | Preferences
2) Go to Mail and Newsgroups, Messages panel
3) You may need to resize this dialog larger.  See the bottom section titled
"Emoticons and Structs"
4) Two checkboxes exist:
a) When viewing a text message, convert emoticons to glyphs. For example,
convert :) to <icon of a happy face>
b) When viewing a text message, convert structs to styles. For example, convert
*text* to text <in bold>

Comment 1

[lchiang]

(If you view this bug report notification in 5.0, the items I put for the prefs
in my original description are slightly not accurate since 5.0 will show the
emoticons and such.)

Comment 2

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Jennifer, some more background:
a more general and accurate word for the emoticon conversion is "glyph
substitution", as e.g. it also turns e.g. (c) into a symbol.

"Struct" is an abbreviation for "structured phrases" and this in turn is derived
from the corresponding HTML 4.0 definition captions
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/text.html#h-9.2>.

Comment 3

[lchiang]

Should we do this for Beta when more of the general population may come across 
this preference?

Comment 4

[leger]

Putting on PDT- radar for beta1.

Comment 5

[jglick]

A potential solution is shown at:
http://gooey/client/5.0/specs/mail/Prefs/images/PrefsMsg1.gif

Waiting for Simone's feedback. These are a couple of tough features to explain 
accurately in a pref.

I reorganized this dialog so it is more Task based (Sending Messages, Reading 
messages, forwarding/replying to messages), vs Feature based (Spell checking, 8 
bit, emoticons and structs, etc.).  I think this might make it easier for users 
to find the features they are looking for. They might not know what the features 
are called, but they know what tasks they are trying to accomplish. 

Assign back to Phil for now.

Comment 6

[Phil Peterson]

Attachment: Jennifer's mock-up as an attachment

Comment 7

[Phil Peterson]

Thanks, Jennifer, that looks good to me. Ben, do you want to do this?

Comment 8

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Phil, you know, that I currently have no time.

Jennifer, the struct pref is also used for outgoing msgs.

The struct example is slightly incorrect, the result is "*test*" (in bold, note
that the stars stay in).

Comment 9

[Phil Peterson]

Good points, Ben. Reassign to hangas.

Comment 10

[simone]

Love this feature, but in order to determine the best way to present it, can 
someone tell me all the available choices for glyphs and structs (or at least 
point me to a list)? I can't assume a user will resort to actually reading the 
online help to find out, but even so, we need to doc it. There's no way to tell 
from the current UI what all the available combinations are.

Comment 11

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Simone,
no, unfortunately, I never wrote something like that. I did it now. You can find
it at <http://www.bucksch.org/1/projects/mozilla/16507/index.html>. Is that,
what you wanted?

Comment 12

[hangas]

Marking M16 since we have PDT-

Comment 13

[lchiang]

Simone - [e-mail] is helping me to try to test this feature.  He wrote up a 
short description for the struct - I'll forward to you.  I don't think it's 
complete though.  You can look at that in addition to what Ben wrote.

Comment 14

[jglick]

> ...the struct pref is also used for outgoing msgs.

Darn.  I really liked the organization of Fwd/Reply, Reading, and Sending as 
opposed to separating each feature out separately as done previously.

Alternatives:
1. Redo dialog so it is feature grouped (8 bit, message wrapping, spell 
check, emoticons and structs)again instead of task based (sending messages, 
reading messages). Really don't like this one. And it makes the dialog huge. And 
makes it harder for users to find what they are looking for.

2. Repeat "Convert emoticons to graphics" for the "Sending Mail Messages" group. 
But then they would have to be implemented so a user could check one and not the 
other.

3. Just don't show in prefs that outgoing messages are affected also.

4. Don't do the feature for outgoing messages, only when reading messages.

5. Any suggestions/comments very appreciated.

Comment 15

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Darn.  I really liked the organization of Fwd/Reply, Reading, and Sending as 
> opposed to separating each feature out separately as done previously.

LOL

Alternatives:
> 1. Redo dialog so it is feature grouped [...] again instead of task based 

I like the new organization, as long as it makes sematically sense, i.e. there
are no orthogonal prefs.

> 2. Repeat "Convert emoticons to graphics" for the "Sending Mail Messages"
> group. But then they would have to be implemented so a user could check one
> and not the other.

We wanted to do that anyway, I just thought, it would be overkill to actually
expose all of them in the UI. But if you like it...
To avoid tons of converter prefs, should we merge struct and glyph pref UI then,
i.e. one checkbox turns on/off both of them? That way, we would have only 2
checkboxes, one for sending and one for reading mail, but advanced users could
change the (hidden) prefs individually.

> 3. Just don't show in prefs that outgoing messages are affected also.
> 4. Don't do the feature for outgoing messages, only when reading messages.

You're not serious, are you?


Can we at least change "struct" to "structed phrases" for beta1? It should be
*really* easy to do.

Comment 16

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

"structured phrases", of course.

Comment 17

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Attachment: Fix for semantic errors in description for structured phrases

Comment 18

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

The description for strcuted phrases is wrong:
1. "structs" has to be "structured phrases"
2. The original plain text tags (e.g. "*") stay in the msg.
3. Styles are not only added when reading text msgs, but also when sending HTML
msgs. (The wording in the fix is only "When viewing or sending a message, ..."
for simplicity. Change it, if you disagree.)

I wasn't aware of problem 3, before started to create the patch. I guess, that's
the reason, why Jennifer's proposal ended up being wrong in the same detail: the
original was wrong, too!

M14 for this (2-line) patch. Can we check it in for M14? It's really just a
change of a label and an entitiy definition in the dtd.

Move back to M16, if the patch has been checked in.

Comment 19

[lchiang]

Ben - I'll clear the PDT- resolution so PDT can review your comment and 
reconsider.  (Otherwise, they won't see this bug report.)

Comment 20

[jglick]

Attachment: Updated gif image of Pref Dialog

Comment 21

[jglick]

Ben, would this be do-able?  Please see attachment.  Is it just the emoticons 
that can be both Reading and Sending?  Or the Structured phrases also? 

What to people think of having this item appear in both Sending and Reading?
Simone?

Comment 22

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Ben, would this be do-able?

Yes.

> Please see attachment.  Is it just the emoticons
> that can be both Reading and Sending?  Or the Structured phrases also?

It is the other way around: glyph conversion and struct. recognition is done at
plain text mail reading, but only struct. recognition is done at HTML mail send.

Wrt wording: struct. phrases are not really converted, but HTML styles are
*added*. The
wording in the patch is "When viewing or sending a message, add styles to
structured phrases."

Comment 23

[jglick]

Attachment: Fixes per Ben's comments

Comment 24

[leger]

Putting on PDT+ radar for beta1.

Comment 25

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

OK, thanks. I don't have a CVS account, so if somebody could please review and
checkin?

Comment 26

[hangas]

Ben, your patch only covers the change in text in the prefs panel.  Jennifer's 
attachment restructures the pref panel and adds a new pref for sending messages 
with structured phrases.  Since you wrote this code, could you give me a patch 
for this new pref in nsMsgSend.cpp and mailnews.js?  I don't need a patch for the 
changes Jennifer made to the pref panel, but I would be happy to take one if you 
were feeling energetic...  :-)

Comment 27

[hangas]

Set completion date of 2/25

Comment 28

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> your patch only covers the change in text in the prefs panel.

Yes, it was meant has a hotfix for beta1.

> adds a new pref for sending messages
> with structured phrases.  Since you wrote this code, could you give me a patch
> for this new pref in nsMsgSend.cpp and mailnews.js?

Yes, will follow tomorrow or the day after.

> I don't need a patch for the
> changes Jennifer made to the pref panel, but I would be happy to take one if
> you were feeling energetic...  :-)

Sorry, I neither feel energetic, nor have time, nor know XUL/JS/Prefs well.

Comment 29

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Attachment: Add extra pref for sending struct

Comment 30

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

The patch above adds a new pref for sending structs and renames the old ones,
now only used for display.
New prefs:
pref("mail.display_glyph",true);
pref("mail.display_struct",true);
pref("mail.send_struct",true);
No change in UI, as hangas intended to change it anyway.

Please note, that even these prefs may be preliminary. See bug #23582.

Comment 31

[leger]

If fix not in on 02/25 by 3pm, will move to pdt-

Comment 32

[hangas]

Fix checked in.  Testing should consult latest available spec from jglick, the 
Messages pref panel should visually match that spec and all items should 
function.

Comment 33

[jglick]

Thanks Paul!
http://gooey/client/5.0/specs/mail/Prefs/Preferences.html

Comment 34

[lchiang]

laurel - can you verify the wording in the prefs dlg?

Comment 35

[laurel]

Look OK in prefs dialog as per spec. Some minor issues noticed with appearance,
will log as separate issue(s).

Any functionality of these prefs will be logged separately.

Wording and general appearance OK using 2000-03-07-09m15 commercial build on
linux rh6.0, NT 4.0 and mac OS 9.0