1078277 - Write new message To field disappears if numRowsShownDefault is set too low

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Anje]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0
Build ID: 20140923175406

Steps to reproduce:

This bug has been in previous recent versions, but it is in version 31.1.2

A new Write message has 3 TO fields available as default.
but if want to reduce this to create more space, but still need the ability to add more than one TO field email address then you can edit the preferences.

Tools > Options > Advanced > General tab 

click on 'Config Editor' button it will tell you to be careful :)

In top search type: numRows 
look for this line:

    mail.compose.addresswidget.numRowsShownDefault; Value = 3 

double click on the line to open a small editing window. 
Type: I 
click on OK 
close config Editor 
Close Thunderbird  
Open Thunderbird and click on 'Write' 


Actual results:

The new Write message does exactly as expected and opens showing 1 line for a TO field.

However, if I type in the first TO field email address and then press Enter / Return to enter another TO filed email address, the first TO email address disappears.
You can keep entering email addresses eg: 4, but they will all look like they have disappeared except for the last one entered providing you do not press Enter/Return.

As there is no scroll bar, the only way to check the list of TO email addresses is to do the following.
You can move the divider (below headers but above compose area), to reveal all the entered but not displaying email addresses.

There is no scroll bar offered until you expand the divider and then shrink it back to show 2 lines.

This can be irritating to have do this procedure each time and for some users they may believe there is a problem and not realise they can expand the divider etc.




Expected results:

It would expect the first TO field to remain visible and a second TO field to appear for entering email address.
I would then expect a scroll bar to appear on the right as subsequent email addresses are entered.

However, if you want the scroll bar and no 'disappearing' email addresses, you must set the preference to a minimum of 2:
mail.compose.addresswidget.numRowsShownDefault; Value = 2

then the first and subsequent email addresses do not seem to disappear.
The scroll bar will then be available to reveal other entered email addresses
but it does mean you have to have a minimum of 2 TO fields to invoke this.

So the problem only occurs if:
mail.compose.addresswidget.numRowsShownDefault; Value = 1

Comment 1

[:aceman]

Well, if you intentionally crippled the compose window to only show one To line at a time, do not wonder that previously typed addresses are scrolled out of view.

As to the missing scrollbar, I agree there is a bug. It is probably that the address widget (a <listbox>) refuses to draw the scrollbar if even the arrows do not fit in the available space. It is not sure if some shrinked arrows would be better/usable. Maybe we should enforce a minimum of 2 for mail.compose.addresswidget.numRowsShownDefault ? But then some people could complain they only want one line as they mostly send to a single recipient. We could automatically enlarge the box to 2 lines if enter is pressed or there is more than one recipient. But that needs UI thought to not create some jumping mess :)

Comment 2

[Anje]

I actually use more than one line, but as someone else on the support forum was asking about reducing to one line, I did some testing before advising them on how to make the changes required. At least then I was able to warn them of a potential issue they might experience and how to get around it.

Then I found the bug which does not take into consideration what occurs if only one TO line is set as default (to reduce visual space I presume).  Hence I'm reporting it, then at least it is known. 

As you say, the scrollbar probably cannot function correctly when only one line is selected. 

I agree with you, that if one TO line is used as default and the person presses Enter to insert a second TO field email address, then the process needs to temporary increment the integer to 2 and display two TO lines which should make the scrollbar visible if required.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

I'm not sure how you're able to shrink the listbox down so small; admittedly I'm playing around with attributes in DOM Inspector and using SeaMonkey's Compose window rather than Thunderbird, but I was only able to get the scrollbar to disappear by turning off the listbox's flexibility. Since I wasn't able to reproduce the exact layout I can't comment on the apparent dataloss issue.