361434 - Minor Options UI Cleanup

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, defect)

Description

[Scott MacGregor]

Before the beta 1 string freeze, I'd like to suggest a few minor changes to the Options dialog. I'm basing some of these comments on what I see in Firefox's new Options dialog.

1) Advanced / Offline & Disk Space would become
Networking & Disk Space
  Configure how thunderbird connects to the Internet [connection settings...]
  Configure offline behavior [Offline Settings...]
  Disk Space

so the connection dialog would move from the Options / General panel. The existing offline options would move to a separate dialog reachable from this Networking & Disk Space tab. this would free up a bunch of access keys for the advanced tab panel.

2) Create a new tab in the advanced panel for "Encryption" or "Certificates & Security". Move the existing security tab under "Privacy" to this new tab.

Mike usually has good opinions on Pref dialog changes. cc'ing him for thoughts.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Both of those sounds like good changes.  Do you want to move the Connection Timeout field (Advanced|General) under "Networking"?

With the extra access keys, are you thinking of also fixing bug 346205?

If you want to make improvements generally on the Prefs dialog: Bug 283268 (a string change) and bug 359632 (dropdown sizing) are fairly minor.  Bug 322752 is another reasonable string-change request.

Composition|General looks a bit cramped to me, and there's more vertical space available.  But the "... 8-bit ... quoted-printable" is opaque to most users and not usually toggled, while "Confirm when using shortcut" option seems as "advanced" as "Remember last selected message".  Is it worth having a Composition tab under Advanced?  (I know, I know -- the access keys.)

I saw a suggestion recently, I'm afraid I forget from whom, to make the URL of the Thunderbird Start Page an Advanced Option, since hardly anyone uses it.  As far as I'm concerned, it could become a hidden pref, or the whole Start Page thing could be dropped -- just always use about:blank.

The existence of   Advanced|General   when there's also an "Advanced" button 
on the main General page is a bit confusing.  Relabeling to "Sounds..." 
(bug 354160) is no longer correct, but see bug 310297.

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

If you're interested: one thing you could do in the Account Settings dialog is to move the Local Directory field from Server Settings (which, for POP, is a very tall options page) into the Disk Space page.  Both logical and practical, as you could then reduce the height of the entire Account Settings dialog.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

To further the Account Setting suggestion: also move Empty Trash on Exit to Disk Space.

Comment 4

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: work in progress

Comment 5

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: screen shot of work in progress

Mike, what do you think of these new screen shots. This takes into account many of the bugs you listed that were specific to the options dialog. Still not enough access keys for return receipts to have its own tab in the advanced panel.

I'd also like to make enough room in the General panel for the new mail alert customization options so we don't need the separate notifications dialog for that at all. 

I also got rid of the HTML compose options dialog and folded it into the compose / General tab. 

Off topic idea: it might be interesting to make a new top level panel for Tags. Then fold the fonts and encoding settings into the Display / General panel leaving no tabs for Display.

Comment 6

[Scott MacGregor]

I'd also like to remove the UI for changing the following prefs where our default values make sense for most users:

In Options / Display / Formatting, remove:

When displaying plain text messages
[X] Wrap text to fit window width
[X] Display emoticons as graphics

In the space that frees up, add:
Configure the fonts used by Thunderbird [Fonts...]
Incoming Mail: [Character Encoding]
[ ] Apply the default character encoding to all incoming messages

Then move the outgoing mail encoding settings to the compose / general tab from display / fonts.
Then remove the Fonts tab altogether from Display.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Created an attachment (id=246362) [edit]
> screen shot of work in progress
> 
> Mike, what do you think of these new screen shots. 

Those are nice!
> I also got rid of the HTML compose options dialog and folded it into the
> compose / General tab. 

Very nice.


> Off topic idea: it might be interesting to make a new top level panel for
> Tags.
> Then fold the fonts and encoding settings into the Display / General panel
> leaving no tabs for Display.

That could be good, since Tags have the potential to be a major organizing feature.  Of course, we still need a full-featured tag-edit capability.

> In Options / Display / Formatting, remove:
> 
> When displaying plain text messages
> [X] Wrap text to fit window width

I'm OK with that.

> [X] Display emoticons as graphics

I'd kind of like to see this one kept, maybe as an Advanced|General option.  Just because I usually run with it off but sometimes need to turn it on for testing.  But if it becomes hidden, I'm OK with that.


> In the space that frees up, add:
> Configure the fonts used by Thunderbird [Fonts...]
> Incoming Mail: [Character Encoding]
> [ ] Apply the default character encoding to all incoming messages
> 
> Then move the outgoing mail encoding settings to the compose / general tab
> from display / fonts.
> Then remove the Fonts tab altogether from Display.

Um... for apply-default-to-incoming: one thing I've never really known is how this affects the folder's "default charset" property.  Is that preference used to initialize the property for new folders?  What about for existing folders --
if someone sets up an account, then changes that setting, don't all the folders still have whatever the original setting was?

It would be cool if the folder property could have a value of "use global preference."

Comment 8

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: [landed on branch and trunk] the fix

This isn't everything, but we should start landing the changes I've made already even if we want to do more later.

I didn't end up splitting the encodings options into display and compose options as the compose panel doesn't have enough room. So that still needs to be worked on.

David, most of this code is just moving stuff around and finding new access keys for things.

Comment 9

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 246730 [details] [diff] [review]
[landed on branch and trunk] the fix

this patch is now in the branch and trunk so Mike and others can test / provide feedback on the changes so far.

Comment 10

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Comment on attachment 246730 [details] [diff] [review]
[landed on branch and trunk] the fix

From an l10n point of view, yay, no help for the prefwindow reorg :-)

OK, seriously. I took a look at the l10n part of the patch, and saw some accesskey changes with and some without change of entity name. My personal opinion here is, no need to change the entity name, as the accesskeys may be totally different in a locale anyway.

I guess this calls for a post to .l10n, too, in particular the "we're not done yet, but this is the huge chunk", and the "check all your accesskeys".

Comment 11

[Thomas Stache]

I don't know, but this re-org falls a bit short, in my opinion.

I doubt changing the mail notification sound warrants a spot on the first page of the dialog. Like the font settings this is more of a one-time affair.

Instead tags need to be emphasized. There is no tag editing, if a color turns out to be unreadable, it must be possible to change it. Is there a bug for that? Another idea is to put the attachment saving location on the front page, as in Firefox2. Get rid of the top-level attachments pane.

Please consider cc'ing Mike Beltzner, isn't he the "Mozilla UI Specialist"? He spent ages over the Firefox2 prefs re-org, and I think he made a good job.

Comment 12

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #10)
> (From update of attachment 246730 [details] [diff] [review] [edit])
> From an l10n point of view, yay, no help for the prefwindow reorg :-)

Not sure if you mean we did something wrong or if we did something right :)

> My personal
> opinion here is, no need to change the entity name, as the accesskeys may be
> totally different in a locale anyway.
> 
Axel, should I undo the changes that change the access key entity name in that case?

> I guess this calls for a post to .l10n, too, in particular the "we're not done
> yet, but this is the huge chunk", and the "check all your accesskeys".

great suggestion. I just did that. Thanks for the feedback.

Comment 13

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> (In reply to comment #10)
> > (From update of attachment 246730 [details] [diff] [review] [edit] [edit])
> > From an l10n point of view, yay, no help for the prefwindow reorg :-)
> 
> Not sure if you mean we did something wrong or if we did something right :)

I'm just seeing the prefwindow reorg landing last again. Then again, it's one week out 'til freeze, more or less, so that's OK. If we had help, though, it'd be scary.

> > My personal
> > opinion here is, no need to change the entity name, as the accesskeys may be
> > totally different in a locale anyway.
> > 
> Axel, should I undo the changes that change the access key entity name in that
> case?

Not sure, I guess it would just be OK now, as only three locales checked in updates, yet, on the other other, it'd bust those three. I'm undecided, I guess I'd leave it as is. (And I did intend to CC me, thanks for fixing that and the post to .l10n.)

Comment 14

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

3a1-1128, Win2K

I haven't test exhaustively, but only a few access keys in the Options pages are working right now.  Only the so-far untouched Attachments page, and the Privacy page, work entirely.


(In reply to comment #0)
> 1) Advanced / Offline & Disk Space would become
> Networking & Disk Space
>   Configure how thunderbird connects to the Internet [connection settings...]
>   Configure offline behavior [Offline Settings...]
>   Disk Space

Check.


> 2) Create a new tab in the advanced panel for "Encryption" or "Certificates &
> Security". Move the existing security tab under "Privacy" to this new tab.

As "Certificates" -- check.  Note that three of the dialogs that popup (all but "Verification") have Close buttons of the sort which have been decreed superfluous.  (Same issue with   View & Edit Actions  and  Show [junk] log .)
These also all (except V&E Actions) close on <esc> but, if I understand the guidelines correctly, should only close on Ctrl+W.  I can open another bug for these if you want.


(In reply to comment #1)
> Both of those sounds like good changes.  Do you want to move the Connection
> Timeout field (Advanced|General) under "Networking"?

Check.

> With the extra access keys, are you thinking of also fixing bug 346205?

That bug's basic problem has been addressed; I don't know if moving the settings from their own dialog to one (or two) option pages is still in the cards.


> Bug 283268 (a string change) 

Check.

> bug 359632 (dropdown sizing) are fairly minor.  

Check -- thanks a lot for that one!


> Bug 322752 is another reasonable string-change request.

Unaddressed.


> the "... 8-bit ... quoted-printable" is opaque to most users
> and not usually toggled, while "Confirm when using shortcut" option seems as
> "advanced" as "Remember last selected message".  Is it worth having a
> Composition tab under Advanced?  (I know, I know -- the access keys.)

Unaddressed.

> I saw a suggestion recently, I'm afraid I forget from whom, to make the URL
> of the Thunderbird Start Page an Advanced Option, since hardly anyone uses
> it.

Unaddressed.


> The existence of   Advanced|General   when there's also an "Advanced" button 
> on the main General page is a bit confusing.  Relabeling to "Sounds..." 
> (bug 354160) is no longer correct, but see bug 310297.

Check.


> I'd also like to make enough room in the General panel for the new mail alert
> customization options so we don't need the separate notifications dialog for
> that at all. 

Check.


> I also got rid of the HTML compose options dialog and folded it into the
> compose / General tab. 

Check.


(In reply to comment #6)
> In Options / Display / Formatting, remove:
> 
> When displaying plain text messages
> [X] Wrap text to fit window width

Check.

> [X] Display emoticons as graphics

Left in -- thanks.


> In the space that frees up, add:
> Configure the fonts used by Thunderbird [Fonts...]
> Incoming Mail: [Character Encoding]
> [ ] Apply the default character encoding to all incoming messages
> 
> Then move the outgoing mail encoding settings to the compose / general tab
> from display / fonts.
> Then remove the Fonts tab altogether from Display.

Fonts tab gone, but still in a separate dialog with both incoming and outgoing settings.

Comment 15

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #13)
> 
> I'm just seeing the prefwindow reorg landing last again. Then again, it's one
> week out 'til freeze, more or less, so that's OK. If we had help, though, it'd
> be scary.

Also keep in mind that we aren't doing any l10n for beta 1. Localizers have almost a month and a half to sync up. so it's not like we're landing large string changes and expecting them to sync up in the next couple of days before the en-US string freeze. 

Comment 16

[Marek Stępień [:marcoos, inactive]]

+<!ENTITY systemsound.label                "Default system sound for new mail">
+<!ENTITY systemsoundMac.label             "System Alert Sound">
+<!ENTITY systemsound.accesskey            "y">

I think you should at least reconsider adding a systemsoundMac.accesskey here, as the translations of these two texts may be different in some languages, the two strings are way too different, IMHO.

Comment 17

[Marek Stępień [:marcoos, inactive]]

Oh, and this is pretty evil:

<!ENTITY modeAutoAddonWarn.accesskey    "-">

Comment 18

[Scott MacGregor]

Mike, on the branch build, all of the access keys are working for me (Win32). I just walked through each panel one by one. Can you give some examples of which ones aren't working for you and I'll take a look.

I can't take credit for the font size items looking right. I'm not sure what I did that made that work, it wasn't intentional :).

Let's file a new bug for the close button issue for the security dialogs. those dialogs are all owned by the psm team and not us so changing them is not as easy as the rest of this stuff.

Not enough free access keys in the advanced panel for return receipts to get its own tab.

Comment 19

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Oh, and this is pretty evil:
> 
> <!ENTITY modeAutoAddonWarn.accesskey    "-">
> 

Marek, why is that evil? (Just asking). We've run out of keys again in the advanced dialog, I couldn't find one to work for this string. I suppose I could use something like "Z" that's not actually in the add on warn text string.

Comment 20

[Marek Stępień [:marcoos, inactive]]

(In reply to comment #19)
> Marek, why is that evil? (Just asking). 

That's evil from the accessibility point of view, I think. An underlined "-" may just look like an "=".

CC'ing Aaron Leventhal. :)

> We've run out of keys again in the
> advanced dialog, I couldn't find one to work for this string. 

Yeah, I'm running out of them in the pl localization of that window as well. :)

Comment 21

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: add a separate access key for the mac system sound

per Marek's suggestion.

Comment 22

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Mike, on the branch build, all of the access keys are working for me (Win32).
> I just walked through each panel one by one. Can you give some examples of
> which ones aren't working for you and I'll take a look.

I just restarted 3a1 and many more keys were working correctly, but I still had a lot of no-ops on the Composition tabs.  Then I fooled around with looking at other stuff, came back to Options | Composition, and they seem to be working fine now too.  Restarted again, everything seemed to work right away.  I have no idea what's causing the hiccup.  Subsequent restarts continued to show this off-again/on-again.  If I figure out a cause, I'll open a bug for that.


By the way, if you're leaving in the 8-bit/quoted-printable option, how about using Alt+8 for its access key?  That character's unique.

Another idea to reduce keys:  When you've got radio buttons, instead of giving each button its own key, give the radio group a key, which places the focus on the selected item.  Then require arrow keys to change the setting.  (This is similar to the way radio groups behave in the tab order, as seen on the General page.)

With most of the radio groups you've got, the access key could be on the group label, but it's trickier if your radios are dependent on a check box.  But  when a checkbox enables an edit field, the field typically has its own label with its own access key to put the focus on the label.  

And there seems to be a slight glitch with that, on Advanced|General:  
[] Wait, when set, puts the focus on the field, and when unset, leaves the focus on the checkbox -- but the field has its own access key, so the Alt+W, or for that matter clicking on the checkbox, to set it should *not* be shifting focus.
(Compare to Composition|General, [] Autosave, altho that checkbox doesn't disable the field.  (Should it?))

Comment 23

[Cédric Corazza]

We encountered the same problem in the Sunbird pref window. The first time you access to a tab, all accesskeys are working; then moving to another tab, accesskeys still work but returning to a previously viewed tab, some of the accesskeys don't work anymore. Closing the pref window and reopening it reproduce the same behaviour.
I didn't find anything about that. So if you got some explanation about that, I would be glad to know :) . The bug I'm talking about for Calendar is bug 348254.

Comment 24

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

(In reply to comment #23)

Prefpanes are dynamically loaded overlays, any conflicts in accesskeys only show up once the conflicting panes are loaded.

Comment 25

[Aaron Leventhal]

Would the accesskey issue be solved by a fix for bug 143065? That is sooo close to fixed, we just need someone to push it through final review (hopefully before it rots more).

Comment 26

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #25)
> Would the accesskey issue be solved by a fix for bug 143065? That is sooo close
> to fixed, we just need someone to push it through final review (hopefully
> before it rots more).
> 

Yeah, Bug 143065 will make things much easier!

Comment 27

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #18)
> Let's file a new bug for the close button issue for the security dialogs.
> those dialogs are all owned by the psm team and not us so changing them is
> not as easy as the rest of this stuff.

Bug 362257.

Comment 28

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: possible new privacy panel

I like this change a lot (eliminating tabs on each options panel is a good thing), but it does come at the loss of several lines of descriptive text for junk, anti-virus and phishing. What do you think mcow/david?

Comment 29

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: patch for the privacy panel changes

Comment 30

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I don't think "Scam and Antivirus"  group together as logically as "scam and junk" do.  

Also: One thing I'd like to see is some sort of linkage between global options and the account- or identity-specific settings that are related; Junk is one of those features with settings in both dialogs.  By compressing the features as shown, space that could have been used for that linkage is eliminated, along with the explanatory text.  Better 'Help' would make both of those issues moot.

Comment 31

[David :Bienvenu]

I really like getting rid of tabs (sometimes I forget they're there and wonder where my choices have gone), but I think I dislike getting rid of descriptive text a little bit more. If we had Help, I wouldn't mind nearly as much...

Comment 32

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Another thing I don't care for on the single-tab is having the "Reset" button right next to the two log options -- the positioning implies a tie-in between Reset and Log.

If you keep the tabs as they currently are, how about renaming the "Junk" tab to "Junk Mail"?

Oh, and I just noticed: the explanatory text for the Junk tab *is* the linkage I was talking about comment 30.  (In that sentence, "Account-specific" should be hyphenated.)  On re-reading the texts, I think that particular item is the most important.  The text for AV maybe could be more informative -- I know what problem that option solves, and if someone was having that problem, I'm not sure the text there would help them figure it out.


(Re: linkage:  Something similar on Composition|General -- "Identity-specific composition settings can be configured in Account Settings" -- would be similarly desirable.  I've often seen the question "How do I change it to compose in plain text?"; xref bug 209744.)

Comment 33

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

A separate nit: on Advanced|General, how about moving Config Editor to the bottom of the page, below Return Receipts?

Comment 34

[Scott MacGregor]

How bout this option instead then:

1) Bring back a general tab to the privacy panel. 
2) Collapse Anti-Virus, E-mail Scams and passwords into this single tab. Would still include the descriptive text. 
3) Rename the Junk Tab to Junk Mail.

That turns 4 tabs into 2 while still keeping the descriptive text.

Comment 35

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Hm.  What about a "Scans" or "Intrusions" tab for AV, Scam and Junk mail, and a separate Passwords tab?  Can the useful texts be fit that way?  Passwords is conceptually quite distinct from the other three.

Comment 36

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: another screen shot of the privacy panel

I can't fit junk with scams and AV. What about this screen shot though? Would like to come up with a better name than Intrusions and Passwords.

I'm doing something that's causing the Intrusions tab box to get clipped even though the dialog is tall enough for the elements involved. It doesn't matter how tall I make the options dialog, the tab box is always getting clipped. I need to figure out what I'm doing that's causing that.

Comment 37

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #36)
> 
> I'm doing something that's causing the Intrusions tab box to get clipped even
> though the dialog is tall enough for the elements involved. It doesn't matter
> how tall I make the options dialog, the tab box is always getting clipped. I
> need to figure out what I'm doing that's causing that.

The description elements used for the anti virus and phishing group boxes are causing this clipping issue. Something about the line wrapping isn't being calculated properly when layout calculates the height of the tab. I can remove those two description elements and add a couple other elements that take up even more vertical space and there is no clipping. Very very strange.

Comment 38

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Just from a logical point of view, I'd prefer seeing Passwords with its own tab.  If three tabs is too many, then whatever scheme you want to use is fine with me.

(In reply to comment #37)
> The description elements used for the anti virus and phishing group boxes are
> causing this clipping issue. Something about the line wrapping isn't being
> calculated properly when layout calculates the height of the tab. I can remove
> those two description elements and add a couple other elements that take up
> even more vertical space and there is no clipping. Very very strange.

Uh-huh.  I think that widget has serious problems generally; see
bug 242531 comment 31.

Comment 39

[Axel Hecht [:Pike]]

Could you create a testcase and file a bug on that?

I have seen similar bugs in localizations, too.

Comment 40

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #38)
> Just from a logical point of view, I'd prefer seeing Passwords with its own
> tab.  If three tabs is too many, then whatever scheme you want to use is fine
> with me.

I hate to go back to 3 tabs, but we might just have to. If we move Passwords back into its own tab, any suggestions for what to call the tab for scams and anti-virus? Intrusions was suggested, any other ideas?

I'm also going to rename View Passwords to Edit Passwords because it brings up a dialog where you can view and edit saved passwords. I've run into some users that didn't think to click it when they wanted to remove a saved password because they thought it would just let you view them.

I will also swap config editor and return receipts in the advanced panel. 

Comment 41

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: strings for possible changes to the privacy panel

Getting in some extra strings for the privacy panel before the l10n freeze. We may not end up using these, but at least they will be there.

Comment 42

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I don't think anyone is going to understand what "intrusions" are.  Why not have a privacy and a security panel like Firefox?  Or if you're going to leave it as is, use "security" in place of "intrusions"? It fits, and I think makes a lot more sense in this instance, AND will be easier to understand to the user.  Also, if anything is an intrusion, it's junk mail, and as already stated, it won't fit in the same panel as email scams and anti-virus.

Comment 43

[Frédéric Buclin]

(In reply to comment #40)
> I'm also going to rename View Passwords to Edit Passwords because it brings up
> a dialog where you can view and edit saved passwords.

I think this change is a mistake. It's more confusing than helpful. I thought I could edit passwords themselves, i.e. change their content instead of only deleting them. "Manage stored passwords" would be clearer IMO.

Comment 44

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

IMO all these buttons should be as consistent with Firefox as possible, especially the ones that do exactly the same thing.  Now I'm not saying to only do what Firefox does, if you guys get a better idea then get Firefox to use them as well.

This is one thing I've noticed as a Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird user.  I'd really like the things that do the same things to be called the same.  Then I know I'm in the right place from knowing the other app better.

FWIW Manage is a bad word as well, that makes it seem even more functionful than "edit."

Comment 45

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

How about if we wait on "just do what Firefox does" until someone does a good job of fixing bug 382447 - as it is, the instructions to see whether or not you saved what you thought you did as a password ("Click Show Passwords twice... no, not the one Show Passwords button twice, click Show Passwords and then Show Passwords") don't exactly make it look like the most highly polished gem of UI deserving of emulation.

Comment 46

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I never said "just do what Firefox does" and I took a lot of care to make it clear that's not what I meant.

IMO work with the Firefox team so that the change here and a fix to bug 382447 have the same result.  Seems like calendar is using whatever TB uses for consistency for lightning.

Really you're viewing the saved logons, not passwords with the original button. Not sure any iteration on "x passwords" is "right" in that sense.

Comment 47

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

Bryan, still relevant?

Comment 48

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

not likely the patches still apply, but it is somewhat relevant.  bug 482617 will be adding a 'Junk' tab to the preferences UI so screenshot in attachment 247133 [details] is likely what we're aiming at but wouldn't have the junk sub tab.  However I think there's another bug for cleaning up the, now security, tab and so we don't need to continue work here.

Comment 49

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Closing then.