Closed Bug 76079 Opened 24 years ago Closed 22 years ago

'Next' and 'Back' should move

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
MailNews: Message Display
Type:
enhancement
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED INVALID
Milestone:
Future

People

(Reporter: marlon.bishop, Assigned: sspitzer)

References

(
URL
)

Details

the toolbar button 'Next' is unnecessary in 3-pane, should only appear in message 
view.
I actually really like it in the 3pane and this is the main way I read my mail 
since I don't like using the standalone window.  Why is it unnecessary?  If we 
ever get customizable toolbars then I agree this could go, but not until then.
Oh ok, it wasn't my personal preference or anythign to remove it, i just thought 
the feature was intended for message view.  To have 'next' and 'previous' on 
message view provides an alternate way to navigate through mail, with full 
message display area. Many users prefer the bigger message area, but at the 
moment we don't offer a way to navigate 'previous', only 'next'.

With 3-pane toolbar being somewhat crowded, which is why i recommend move such a 
navigation to message view only.  Message view is truly glorious for reading lots 
and lots of mail (no scrolling necessary, more favorable screen area), we could 
promote this mode to users by simply adding navigation there. Sorry, didn't mean 
to redesign something that was intentional.   

Well, I know Jennifer is really pushing to get some customizable toolbar 
buttons in a future release and I know the Next button is the first to go if we 
get this, so you will get your wish at some point for the default 
configuration.
note to marlon:  "P" takes you to the previous message.

See "Go | Previous | Message".

I agree with you guys, customizable toolbars for mail would be great.

we should morph this bug into that bug, or mark this "wontfix" and open a new bug.


:-)
"Next" button is really helpful even in 3-pane view if you have a bug folder
sparcely populated with unread messages.
the next button isn't going away.  it's not unnecessary.  marking wontfix.

#78532 tracks "customizable mailnews toolbars", which if we implemented would
solve the problem.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Sorry, for the delay in my rationale behind this.  It's not that the next button 
is unnecessary, it's just that it doesn't belong in the main toolbar.


TOO MANY BUTTONS

whilst i agree that customizable toolbars are going to be a blast, it's not 
really what i am talking about.  Ease of use for the product, is much less a 
matter of including everything that's important to a given task, as much as it's 
about hiding/layering complexity as much is practical to do.   The process of 
designing the main toolbar should be one of selective discarding.  I am making 
the point that the mail toolbar has slightly too many buttons.  I firmly believe 
that a successful UI is comprised of layers.  How we organize these layers to 
unfold, revealing deeper and more abstract features as a task becomes
involved is how we should look at this.  If you were to lay out all of the very 
specific functions on the main toolbar, in addition to the generic, we'd have one 
very overcrowded space. This burdens the user with visual complexity, and it 
frightens people.  From our own, personal, everyday use, the NEXT button sounds 
entirely logical, pretty safe to assume and understand.  However think in terms 
not of using the product daily as we do here everyday at work, think in terms of 
your first experience with email ever. 


3-PANE MAIL

There are so many important things we feel must be represented at the top layer 
to accomplish a given task, however in reality we must decide on a small concise 
set that is optimal.  "Next" is a very specific feature because it handles 
sequential and linear navigation. The main toolbar in 3-pane however, is too 
generic a location for such a specific task.   The 3-pane toolbar should 
contain items that are generic to overall goal of managing large lists of mail. 
Getting messages, forwarding, filing, or deleting large selections of messages is 
in the domain of the main toolbar.  A sufficient, clever UI however, should 
reveal the appropriate layer of sophistication as the task becomes more specific.  
The tree column headers for example provide one mechanism for getting the same 
result that Next would provide: sorting and picking.

Parallel to managing in mail 3-pane, is the operating system-like task of 
managing files.  To manage files in an OS you're usually: picking, sorting, 
selecting and dragging.  These features are pretty much forced upon you wherever 
large numbers of files are involved.  This paradigm should be carried across as 
closely as possible to task of managing mail - because the task of managing mail 
is one which involves lists of files, commonly large lists, just like file 
management.. It is also the one thing we can acceptably rely on about users, they 
will vaguely understand these fundamentals.  In every case we should rely on 
these fundamentals to strengthen their meaning, and leverage ease of use and 
sufficiency in our app - this benefits the most advanced, as well as the first 
timers.

Without turning this into a discussion over how file management should be re-
designed, i just want to make my point which relates to the next button here - in 
a list view, the fundamentals are pick, sort, select and drag. If a "next" 
feature would be redundant in an file management system (not unnecessary 
though!), then it might be reasonable to conclude that it is redundant in our 
mail list view;  provided of course the user could draw a close enough parallel 
with our mail UI.  If not, we very well might need buttons in the toolbar like: 
select, next, back, up, down, left, right, rotate, u-turn... so on and so forth.  
"Next" falls into the category of being very specific, and to reverse my initial 
observation that Next was just *unnecessary* - it is by all means necessary, it's 
just located on too generic a layer.

I want to also bring up a side-point that the Next icon *by itself*, without 
"Back", is too ambiguous, abstract and again, even further out of context.  This 
is another reason I doubt the Next button will find much understanding, no matter 
how clever you make the icon - there just is no simple way to completely 
represent the concept with a picture that explains what's happening.  A "down 
arrow" translates as "download" - through pretty much ubiquitous use everywhere 
on the web.  A right arrow, by itself, would be in just as much trouble, because 
without "back" associated with it it could very well mean "forward" or whatever 
else an arrow might mean by itself with no context.  Next NEEDS Back, up needs 
down.  An arrow, simply by itself, unassociated, is a completely new dilemma, has 
a whole new meaning.  Yet, Back and Next together tells the user, "Navigation". 
But this is beside the point, because my argument is that it would be more 
effective located off of the main toolbar.

Sorting and picking are proven ways to accomplish the feature that Next provides 
in the mail list view - this is familiar and fundamental to OS file management.  
However, Next is still an entirely useful feature, as I am about to explain.


THE SOLUTION

The reason that Next is so specific, is because the button by itself on the 
toolbar begs the question: "what will i get Next? Next what?", does Next mean 
"next biggest size"? or does it mean "next new mail".  If i sort by attachment in 
the list view, since there is no direct correlation to the list view, the outcome 
of clicking it is not apparent. Because it's high up there on a generic layer in 
the main toolbar, it can't be attributed with a clear and predictable meaning 
which one could expect.. However, if we move it down a few layers to an area with 
more specificness, say to the message header area in message view, we can then 
automatically and magically attribute a clear and definite meaning.

please see:

http://rocknroll/websites/ui-eng-themedev/themes/screenshots/nextmsg1.jpg
http://rocknroll/websites/ui-eng-themedev/themes/screenshots/nextmsg2.jpg


CONCLUSION

We shouldn't borrow crutches from 4.x, we should instead be making 6.x a huge 
improvement, both in features and in ease of use. I can remember my first 
experience with Netscape email, 4.x probably. I was coming straight from the 
horrible days of Pine (which was difficult and required memorization of keys). 
When I first saw the mail toolbar in Netscape, I was presented with a large 
number of toolbar buttons all at once, and my initial impression was, "Lordy, 
email must be difficult, i have to know alot of stuff!".  

It would be really nice if people instead responded, "gee, email looks simple 
enough, i think i can handle it".  Great UIs are commonly referred to as, 
"simple", but I hate that explanation.   I'd say we have a simple UI already: we 
simply put all of the features on the main toolbar. Rather i'd choose to say 
that great UIs are clever, they just look simple.

Thank you for your time.
Summary: 'Next' should not appear in 3-pane view → 'Next' and 'Back' should move
Hi Marlon, good points and I like your screenshot ideas. What if the message has 
attachments though? Then the attachment listbox is displayed in the far left of 
the evelope area.  Would it be too cluttered then?
i thought about that i think attachments could live underneath, we'd have to see. 

In your spare time :-) I'd love to see ideas how this might work without being 
too cluttered.
the new microscrollbars feature will be great for that, joe and i are anxious to 
see how it will finally look.  sorry about the quick rendition here

http://rocknroll/websites/ui-eng-themedev/themes/screenshots/msgview3.jpg

i agree it might be somewhat crowded, but i think we could resolve it maybe by 
making attachments a drop down too.  so if you had attachments, it would by 
default be collapsed, but as soon as you expand your attachment, it would 
remember the behavior for all of your mail.  same thing for other droppies. 
remember the expanded state that the user chooses and keep it that way as they 
navigate through mail.

i also think instead of saying "attachments" which takes up lots o space, we 
could use the small attachment icon. 

that particular icon isn't the best one i'd want to use though.  we could even 
incorporate a new attachment button into a smaller paperclip dude based on the 
new one:

http://rocknroll/websites/ui-eng-themedev/themes/screenshots/paperclippy.gif

should be easy to create

after talking to Joe, i was thinking that the new next and back buttons would be 
closely tied to the date and time now. so that you would be navigating through 
history of messages recieved.  not to confuse it with your last read message read 
which might be something else. this should be easier to implement too, just 
paging back and forward through history basically.

1) Is is possible to post the URLs for the images that would work for people
outside of netscape.com?

2) There is one big difference between managing files and managing mail - mail
has a "read/unread" flag associated with it while files do not. When you manage
your mail, one operation you often want is for system to present all unread mail
to you, one at a time, in some reasonable (and customizable!) order.

3) The "Next" button is the main way of reading mail and especially - newsgroups
for lots of people (including myself and, according to his comments,
putterman@netscape.com). Those users will be really surprized not to find the
"Next" button in the main toolbar.

4) As far as it is not being clear what we mean by "Next" I have two answers -
first, it is not as important - the main function of the "Next" button is to
show you the next unread piece of information. Second, according to bug #59264
and the way it used to work in N4, the "Next" button is supposed to also be a
way to access a menu that would allow you to specify, what exactly you mean by
"next" (e.g. next message, next unread message, next unread thread, etc).

5) Changing the order to always be "the order messages were received" is a
terrible idea. Consider, for example, reading messages in the newgroup in
threaded view. The "order messages were received" would mean that you would
almost randomly jump between threads instead of going through threads
one-by-one. 
BTW, with so many bugs about the "Next" button (I know at least 5 open ones, not
counting this one) and how it is supposed to function, do you think it's time to
create a meta bug to track them?
Aleksy, see comments that refer to your points above:


1) sorry, i just tried twice to make an attachment, but it doesn't seem to work 
right now.. it might be because its 1.4mb.  I could email it to you if you like. 
is there another way to quickly post these publicly that anyone has access to?

2) i realize that there are probably alot of differences between them. but my 
point was that file management is a starting point

3) they wouldn't be as suprised as much as they would be relieved ;) plus i am 
not proposing loosing the functionality, just relocating it,

4) ---"...the main function of the "Next" button is to show you the next unread 
piece of information. Second, according to bug #59264 and the way it used to work 
in N4, the "Next" button is supposed to also be a way to access a menu that would 
allow you to specify, what exactly you mean by "next" (e.g. next message, next 
unread message, next unread thread, etc)...." ---

should we just put that in the tooltip? ;)  seriously, it took you 2 sentences to 
explain that, which i think makes my point.
 
5) You're very right, i wasn't thinking about news.  IF you could take a look at 
these screenshots, i think it would work equally well for news though.  The 
behavior would be to follow the thread first, then the dates and time.


reopening for discussion.  Changing severity to enhancement. moving to future. 
There are some good ideas and we should pursue some of them in the future.
Severity: normal → enhancement
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: WONTFIX → ---
Target Milestone: --- → Future
> should we just put that in the tooltip? ;)  seriously, it took you 2 sentences
> to explain that, which i think makes my point.
>
No, the whole explanation is just "Show the next unread message" (or just "next
unread message" as N4 tooltip states). 

The menu attached to the "Next" button would probably be verbose enough and does
not need to much explaining.

> The behavior would be to follow the thread first, then the dates and time.
>
Still, I am afraid that would look too random sometimes. For example, often I
want to read all messages by a particular poster that I haven't read yet. In N4,
I would sort the messages by poster and then use the "Next" button (which would
skip the messages that I have already read).

I think that using the same order for the "Next" button and for displaying is
the best idea - first, the order is natural and expected; second, it's easily
customizable; third, we already have all the functionality and all the UI for
customizing the order in place. Please see bugs #59264, #59638, #60139, #65962,
#70121 (with total of 5 votes) - hopefully they will convince that lots of
people want their "Next" button to be as functional as possible (and not just
use some simple order because it is easy to implement).
Aleksy, i totally concur with your intention for the news behavior, i think that 
should be thought over more carefully.. When i was saying that it would be easy 
to implement, i was really only talking about mail.  News threading could be 
worked out however.

Marlon e-mailed me the images and I've put them at
ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/nogin/76079/ so that people outside of netscape.com
could access them.

I do not see anything inherently wrong with the idea of moving "Next" and
"Back", but I see several problems with the proposed implementation:
1) The arrows should point up and down, since we are using them to move up and
down in the headers pane (or what's the correct name for the upper right pane?).
2) Putting the message count next to the arrows is misleading. It would have
been fine if we were talking about the arrows that take you 1 message up/down,
but the arrows we are discussing are supposed to take you to the next/previous
_unread_ message (although there would be nothing wrong with having both kinds
of arrows, provided we have space for all them).

Btw, how about putting these arrows vertically, right to the left of the
leftmost ("Threads", I guess) column in the upper right pane?
forgive me for commenting without having read the whole bug yet.
I'll finish reading later and comment again.  but I wanted to say:

1) there's a bug on adding front end and back end support for back / forward for
mail.  (UI not designed yet.  also not sure if we'll integrate with the history
sidebar.)  most likely the first thing do land would be the back end work and
the accelerators to allow power users to use it.

2) next / previous:  in mail, see "Go | Next | ..." and "Go | Previous | ..."

clicking and using arrow keys is one way to navigate, next / previous 
is the next level of sophistication since you can go to the next or previous of
a specific type: "unread", "flagged", etc.  

I think the next button is there in the toolbar because "go to the next unread"
is the most common action.  and, unlike clicking or arrow keys, it will (by
default) take you to the next folder.  by default, we prompt the user.  but
there are hidden prefs for go without asking me, and never do cross folder
navigation.

"next unread" so common that if you keep hitting space bar in the message pane,
we'll page down until we get to the bottom and then we'll take you to the next
unread.

I think the intent of the next button was to give the new user a way to discover
next unread.

next unread is a great for quickly reading all the unread mail you've got,
across several folders and accounts.


`Now that we have the functionless envelope graphic at the left end of the 
Modern 3 mail toolbar, at 640*480 you can't even see the whole of the Stop 
button -- let alone the throbber. We're going to get laughed at if it stays 
that way. I don't want to get rid of the envelope graphic (even though it's 
annoyingly similar to the "Get Msg" button), because it looks cool. So can we 
please get rid of the "Next" button instead? Oh, and while we're at it, let's 
re-engineer people's mail-reading behavior ...'

I would hope that's not an accurate translation of this bug, but that's what it 
looks like.
doh, this bug is not concerned about masthead envelope, please send all sarcasm 
and opinions about the modern theme to: 

modern-feedback@netscape.com 






alright, user now can hide Next button thru' perferences.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago → 22 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
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