61139 - progress bar proportional to the messages size when downloading mail

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Matp75]

when downloading your mail (pop), you know the number of mail downloaded, the
total number of mail to download but the progress bar is completely meaningless.
In Netscape 4.x, the progress bar was proportional to the messages size so you
could know when you were downloading a very big mail or when it was stalled.
Combined with bug 52705, this is very annoying
the progress bar should be proportional : size downloaded/total size to download

Comment 1

[Keyser Sose]

Changing to mark NEW since its a RFE.

Comment 2

[Keyser Sose]

*** Bug 61787 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Message sending feedback is critical to our next release, so maybe this should
be looked at also? CC:ing all the people who matter.  Also, I don't know who
should take this, but jefft is no longer here.

Comment 4

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

taking from jefft.

Comment 5

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Is it even possible to interrogate the mail server and find out the size of each 
message (in order to work out total progress) before you start downloading it?

Comment 6

[Matp75]

If I telnet on the pop server and do
user xxxx
pass xxxx
list

I get
+OK
1 1440
2 1267
3 2084
4 1535
5 540
6 1204
7 1056
8 1116
9 1125

the first number is the mail number and the second the size
looking at the code in mozilla, it seems there are already functions to
calculate the percent bar.
I tried on two different pop servers (one is running exchange 5.5SP3 and the
other is running linux). no progress bar
perhaps everything is already here except linking the results to the UI part 

Comment 7

[jglick]

Adding mail3 keyword so considered for next release.

Comment 8

[Fabian Guisset]

*** Bug 63644 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Tobias Burnus]

Note that there seems to be two different POP3 implementations.
Depending on which server I use I get with 4.x a percentual progress and no
progress with other servers. (Implementing it the NS 4.x/Linux way isn't
sufficient. For the version which doesn't displays a % in 4.x see also bug
63644)

Comment 10

[scottputterman]

for the moment I'm going to nsbeta1+ this and move it to mozilla0.8.

But, I just want to make sure this isn't going to slow us down in case we have
to perform extra operations.

I'm also not sure we want to be inconsistent vs news and imap which will still
do it by # of headers.

Comment 11

[scottputterman]

moving to mozilla0.9

Comment 12

[scottputterman]

marking nsbeta1- and moving to future milestone.

Comment 13

[Dimitrios]

No activity on this bug, 1 1/2 years have already passed. Considering the flaws
of the current progress meter in status bar, I think it's worthwhile to
implement this one.

Comment 14

[Peter Bartecki]

Bug 103875 is pretty much similiar to this one or at least proposes same kind of
solution - the progress bar or better separate progress window for downloading mail.
 
Also in bug 146237 the same feature is requested.

Comment 15

[Matp75]

progress bar in status bar has started to work correctly so someone has
corrected some bug somewhere :-)
It is even correct when I download two pop accounts at the same time (although I
can obviously only see one at the same time)

Comment 16

[rob cherny]

i'd like to see progress on each account. i regularly check several accounts at
the same time, and i feel like right now there's NO feedback for multiple
accounts. in eudora and outlook you can get a pop-up which has the status
messages for each thread pulling down mail. now i feel like i'm flying blind in
MailNews.

Comment 17

[Eliot Lear]

Under 1.3b it now appears that we lost whatever progress bar we had, to begin
with, so we are regressing.  Want more details?  Let me know.

Comment 18

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 199609 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[Tom Sommer]

Status to this bug should really be updated.

Comment 17 is correct; all progress indication when downloading mails is now gone.

This RFE is essential to any Mail application.
I highly recommend its priority be acknowledged.

Comment 20

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

*** Bug 213150 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

[WD]

*** Bug 223870 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 22

[Eliot Lear]

The regression I reported in Comment 17 cleared up in 1.4, so I don't know that
there is a bug here at this point.

Comment 23

[Marijn de Jong]

Thunderbird still has no way of showing the download progress. Since I started a
Bug 223870 about thunderbird that turned out to be a duplicate I saw this bug in
existance since the year 2000!

I requested a "blocking 1.6" because this shouldn't be hard to fix and really
limits the application.

Comment 24

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

*** Bug 286771 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 25

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

This is a frontend bug. I want to try this if MScott wants this for Tb.

Comment 26

[Marcel Berteler]

Maybe using the extension that is mentioned in this forum could speed up the development?

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=14769

This feature is needed hard when having more than 1 account and/or having to deal with lots of emails.

Comment 27

[Lee_Dailey]

(In reply to comment #26)
> Maybe using the extension that is mentioned in this forum could speed up the
> development?
> 
> http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=14769
> 
> This feature is needed hard when having more than 1 account and/or having to
> deal with lots of emails.
> 
howdy marcel,

that thread is out of date. the current one for _now_ is here ...
- Progress History TB extension Version 0.1.4 Released
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=408559

take care,
lee

Comment 28

[Bartosz Piec]

Any progress on this?

Comment 29

[Stefan]

I can´t believe this hasn´t been implemented even after 6½ years! I just started using TB2 and I´m used to being able to see the total size of the mails to download from Outlook Express. If someone sent me big attachments I could always see how long it was going to take to download the messages! Please just fix this!

Comment 30

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

(In reply to comment #29)
> just fix this!

Please learn how open source works before adding that same comment to any more bugs. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html for a start.

Comment 33

[Ronald Killmer]

Attempting to removing the Blocking Aviary 1.5 flag.

Needs Whiteboard update to remove nsbeta, etc.
The URL was tested and is still valid.
Assigned needs update to reflect Help wanted
Target Milestone nominated Tb 3

The history of this bug has flip flopped during the life of the Suite, but has been consistent issue for Tb. Wanted a Peer to decide if We want this for Tb 3.0. 

Comment 34

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

(In reply to comment #33)
> Attempting to removing the Blocking Aviary 1.5 flag.

Please do not *ever* do that again.

Comment 35

[Ronald Killmer]

Sorry, was not aware that was a forbidden action. 

Is there a reason the out of date blocker was still set?

Comment 36

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Yes, two: because it was set to -, as in not blocking, and because the fact that it was set to anything is a part of the bug's history. Before, someone triaging could easily see that the triage team for Tb 1.5 had looked at it and decided it wasn't a blocker, now that's as hard to tell as the fact that the Mozilla 1.6 triage team considered it not a blocker. There is absolutely no reason to remove old blocking- flags, so doing it will look to anyone watching like an attempt to erase history.

Comment 37

[Ronald Killmer]

I appologise for my error. I noted the tree of blocking boxes has changed as a consequence. 

Comment 38

[Michael A. Pasek]

Removed no-longer-functioning URL from "URL:" field:
http://img28.exs.cx/img28/6494/connection8ri.jpg

Comment 39

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Isn't the functionnality here covered by the activity manager ?

Comment 40

[Michael A. Pasek]

(In reply to comment #39)
> Isn't the functionnality here covered by the activity manager ?

No, I dont think so.  See:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=534390#c2

Your average user -- like the one in the GS topic -- could care less about a log window or a status line; they want to the impression that the program is actually DOING something.  I just took a look at the "Activity Manager" window in my TB.  Two problems with attempting to use this as a progress bar:
1) It moves to the background when you click on a folder/account (in order to "Get Mail"); moving it off to the side of the main TB pane only shows a portion of the AM window on my laptop screen.
2) The entries in the AM screen do not appear to be in any  particular chronological order; rather, they are grouped by "status", with no option to change the view order.  Unless I clear the display, I have no clue where my current activity will be displayed (i.e., it may not be in the portion that's visible).

I think making the existing status/progress bar  a little more accurate and providing an option to have it displayed (along with the status text) in a separate window, would satisfy most users desires for a "progress bar".  This would be true for POP, IMAP, SMTP, copying folders, attaching attachments, etc. For a possible implementation example, see classic Eudora's "Task Progress" window, which allows multiple activities to be displayed -- each with its own progress bar -- in the same window.

BTW, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=486282#c1 was a little premature; the functionality is not in TB3.

Comment 41

[Michael A. Pasek]

See: http://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/task_status_console_in_main_window

Comment 43

[Avner Falk]

Bug 672023 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. In fact, it is not. This bug is about the lack of proportionality between the message-download-progress bar and the proportion of the message that has been downloaded. Bug 672023 is about the complete absence of the message-download-progress bar in Thunderbird 5.