1073946 - Hint how to display Menu Bar toolbar, which is hidden by default

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1666228

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[J2m06]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/37.0.2062.124 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Hello ( Bonjour)

Create a new profile (Créer un nouveau profil)


Actual results:

More menu bar (Plus de barre de menu )


Expected results:

At least have a message (next tabs for example!) Telling me how to display the menu bar of TB (Alt or F10)
Sorry but I have not found a place for suggestions ;-)
Jean-Marie
*---------------------------------*
Au moins avoir un message (à coté des onglets par exemple !)  m'indiquant comment afficher la barre de menu  de TB (Alt or F10) 
Désolé mais je n'ai pas trouvé un endroit pour les suggestions  ;-) 

Jean-Marie

Comment 2

[J2m06]

Attachment: Message (or link) to specify how to display the menu bar when masked

Hello (bonjour)

These are only suggestions  ;-)   
Message (or link) to specify how to display the menu bar when masked

Comment 3

[J2m06]

Attachment: link_display_bar_menu.png

Comment 4

[J2m06]

Comment on attachment 8498766 [details]
link_display_bar_menu.png

Hello

These are only suggestions  ;-)

Comment 5

[J2m06]

hello


These valuable suggestions for the Address Book and Writing Mode 
As for Firefox :)

I have attached screenshots ;-)

These are only suggestions

Sorry for the Google translation:-(

*------------------------------------*
Bonjour

Ces suggestions valables   aussi pour le carnet d'adresses et en mode Rédaction
Ainsi que pour Firefox :) 

J'ai joint des captures  ;-) 


Ce ne sont que des suggestions 

Désolé pour la traduction Google :-(

Comment 6

[J2m06]

oops sorry for the duplicate comments:-(

Comment 7

[J2m06]

oops sorry for the duplicate comments:-(

Comment 8

[J2m06]

Attachment: Message (or link) to specify how to display the menu bar when masked

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to J2m06 from comment #8)
> Created attachment 8498810 [details]
> Message (or link) to specify how to display the menu bar when masked

What do you think of the first possibility shown in attachment 8498810 [details] "Alt or F10 to display ..."?
Would it make sense to only display it on startup?

Comment 10

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment #9)
> Would it make sense to only display it on startup?

If at all, I'm to show it only the first time on a new profile or the first time after the menu bar is selected to be hidden. Every time is for many users which knows this shortcut annoying and would need a exposed pref to disable it.

But I'm more to WONTFIX this as it is on Windows common for many programs to hide the menu bar like Explorer, IE, FX etc. TB also has the AppButton with all menu entries.

When a user wants to use the alt+ shortcuts then he normally knows what happens when he presses alt. The only issue is that the menu appears only on releasing the alt key, but this is a core issue as FX behaves the same.

Wayne, do you have a good reason to not WONTFIXing this bug?

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I agree, every startup would be too much.

Definitely not wontfix IMO. Although I know this isn't the type of thing we normally do.

> Wayne, do you have a good reason to not WONTFIXing this bug?

I won't list all possible reasons. Here are my top reasons:
- not every user is a geek that they would know these keys
- not even all geeks know F10 (there was a time when I didn't) or alt 
- some people used mouse for menus, i.e. not everyone who used alt or F10, so they would have no reason to know those keys.
- when a user doesn't see a menu (or does not know that one is available), then there is no reason to try to bring it up, so they will never know it is available - perhaps if they have used it in the past they might think to try - but this is far from obvious
- there are many functions available in menu toolbar that are not available via the app menu (it's nominal replacement)
- one might argue the UI/operating evironment of thunderbird is far more rich than that of Firefox, and this is exposed/discoverable in THunderbird's menus

(I came up with way more than I thought I would when I started this list)

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

xref bug 1016027. We should consider having the normal (old style) menu the default.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

should consider bug 1016027 perhaps

But IMO there's no compelling argument in bug 1016027 so far.  No dupes, and very few users CC.  Also I don't recall hearing much complaint about it in support forums for it's return (late 2012 - early 2013). (perhaps Matt will remember something different. Forensic look at m.s.thunderbird when TB17 came out shows are about 40 posts.) So I'm not convinced it should go back to being the default.

I'm personally happy without it displayed, and I use it all the time. But I'm also not a heavy mouse user - which to me is the *most* compelling reason for a user to have it displayed by default.

OTOH some of our more simple user (eg. less technically adept users) I'll bet have at times gotten into trouble by clicking something unintended or that the shouldn't have. Sometimes only because they hit the alt key.  I know my mother did.  Granted, they can still shoot themselves in the foot today. But if it's not on the screen by default, then they are more likely to notice something out of the ordinary is happening because the menus poped up. 
 
Google is pretty mum on the subject - not zero, but not off the hook either.  
https://www.google.com/search?num=20&safe=off&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A9%2F1%2F2012%2Ccd_max%3A6%2F1%2F2013&q=thunderbird+hamburger+OR+menu+missing+OR+gone+OR+hidden+-prices+-sausage+-restaurant+-minuteman+-express+-food+-burgers+-school+-titlebar+-%22title+bar%22&oq=thunderbird+hamburger+OR+menu+missing+OR+gone+OR+hidden+-prices+-sausage+-restaurant+-minuteman+-express+-food+-burgers+-school+-titlebar+-%22title+bar%22&gs_l=serp.3...55001.61285.0.62648.23.17.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..23.0.0.ezlPZ7cHDx4

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

xref bug 790713, bug 814742

Comment 15

[Matt]

We did not "Turn it off" for existing users,  so the only ones exposed to the new UI were new users.  They are not likely to complain about a missing Menu.  They do not know we have one.  

IIRC  The default is only on Windows releases after XP.

What I can say from support is that it made life difficult, all our support documents referenced the menu bar, and most still do.  Those less skilled have all sorts of issues turning the menu bar on,  and seriously pressing Alt appear to also be a challenge. 

I think what we should be doing is dusting off the upgrade wizard from V3 and enhancing it.  As a first run in a new profile we have not just an account wizard.  We have an appearance wizard that offers a menu bar, the compact header add-on, a toolbar layout that compensates for no header toolbar, a theme or two.  The content here is really open, and I think in keeping with the forward plan to offer features as add-ons.  What Thunderbird really does poorly is make it's features and add-ons discoverable.

In short,  we need to advertise features and make locating them easy.  I see this bug as a symptom of the poor discover-ability.  I recently saw screen shots of Thunderbird in Windows without Aero.  Even the toolbar looks just like a row of buttons.  Ugly and not at all intuitive.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Another reason to add to comment 11, is touchscreen users, who may not normally be keyboard users.

But certainly could use a UX team to study this, rather than one or two people making a decision.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

duping forward to bug 1666228