103689 - addressbook: compose always uses the results pane, even when the dir pane has focus

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Composition, defect, P3)

Description

[marina]

*** observed with 2001-10-02-0.9.4 build ***
It is not possible to send mail to the mailing list if you do it through the
address picker. If you chose the list that is on the left pane under your PAB
then only the first recipient on the mailing list gets entered. On the left pane
the list is entered into the AB as a card meaning it has no email address in the
email colomn, so is treated as a card without email address and as a result
doesn't autocompletes against description. I think it is quite serious problem.
Steps to reproduce:
- open new mail composition window;
- click on the AB icon;
- from the left thread (under the PAB) chose a mailing list;
- select it and click on the "To" button;
//not: only the first email address is entered into the composition window, if
you select from the right pane then nothing would be entered because the list is
treated as a card with no email address. Nothing of this is happening when you
are typing the list name into the "To" field, it gets auto-compeleted correctly

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

this is very similar to tbe bug 103663 you filed earlyer...?

Comment 2

[Sheela Ravindran]

This bug is a dup of 77353

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 77353 ***

Comment 3

[marina]

Sheela, i don't see how those two bugs are dups?This bug is about a particular
problem with mailing lists that are treated in AB as cards therefor we can not
send to the mailing list through the address picker, only the first recipient
gets entered. Bug 77353 is dealing with a different case, we have to click on
the mail body to enable send. those two problems are not related, re-opening 

Comment 4

[laurel]

I'm assigning this to nbaca for AB area... 
You know, sending to a mailing list works through the address picker if you
select it from the right pane of the AB.  This is similar to the existing old
bug that you can't choose a list in the AB window in the left/directory pane and
click Edit to edit the list because the focus/selection is actually on the first
card in the card pane. 

Comment 5

[laurel]

The "left pane" bug I was referring to is bug 59750, which is similar in effect
to what's happening in the address picker.

Comment 6

[laurel]

You know, I just tried this in 4.x (with address picker) and it works just the
same -- a left pane selection of a mailing list then clicking To: will
select/enter only the first address on the list.  In 4.x doing the same in the
AB window will enter all list recipients.  

Comment 7

[scottputterman]

This is just a focus problem as Laurel says.  We don't seem to handle mailing
list selection from the left pane at all.  Reassigning to racham.

Comment 8

[laurel]

*** Bug 112485 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[Karen Huang]

Based on above dup bug 112485, reassigning to Seth and Ccing racham since Seth 
mentioned that he had started working some of this problem already. (Seth, 
please reassign if I was wrong....)

Comment 10

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

trying to update summary.

one question:  what should it do when you have an addressbook 
(not a list) selected?  Should compose come up blank?  (I think that's what 4.x 
did.)

4.x, as laurel noted, when selecting a list, brings up the compose window with 
all the items of the list as items in the compose window address area.

also, if you select a mailing list in the results pane, and hit "new msg", 4.x 
would bring up a compose window with each item in the list as an item in the 
compose window address area.

jglick, nbaca, & laurel:  do you think we should mimic the 4.x behaviour?  I 
think we should.

Comment 11

[jglick]

There are two things here, the Select Addresses dialog and the Address Book.

Select Addresses Dialog - once bug 89495 (Redesign Select Addresses Dialog) is 
fixed, this won't be an issue anymore since the AB selector is a dropdown 
instead (so no issue of selecting an AB or Mailing list in left pane and 
clicking To/Cc/Bcc).

Address Book Window.
1. AB in left pane has focus, "Compose" --> New Message with blank address area.
2. Mailing List in left pane has focus, "Compose" --> New Message with contents 
of mailing list in address area.

Comment 12

[racham]

I have fix (almost done, developed while working on bug 111248) that mimics 4.x
behavior for both toolbar button 'Compose' and addressbook menu item
File->New->Message. Taking the bug.

Comment 13

[racham]

Attachment: patch, v1.0 - Patch to select correct address(es) for Compose window via Compose toolbar button and menu item File->New->Message

Here are various scenarios I have tested (toolbar compose button &
File->New->Message of addresbook window) and the results :

Action							Address(es) selected
for	       
							    Compose window
------						      
--------------------------

AddrBook entries : foo, bar, xyz in that order

1. Select Addrbook					foo (i.e., the first
address)
2. AddrBook -> AddrBook address bar			bar
3. AddrBook address bar -> AddrBook			bar
4. AddrBook -> AddrBook addresses foo, xyz		foo, xyz
5. AddrBook addresses foo, xyz -> AddrBook		foo, xyz

where AddrBook is either PAB (Personal Address Book) or CAB (Collected Address
Book).

Mailing List entries : foo, bar, xyz in that order

1. Select Mailing List					foo, bar, xyz
2. Mailing List -> Mailing List address bar		bar
3. Mailing List address bar -> Mailing List		foo, bar, xyz
4. Mailing List -> Mailing List addresses foo, xyz	foo, xyz
5. Mailing List addresses foo, xyz -> Mailing List	foo, bar, xyz

Also,

1. Open Addressbook window				First PAB address
2. List A -> List B					All addresses in the
List B

Where A -> B indicates that focus was originally on 'A' and is now on 'B'.

Comment 14

[racham]

Column headers are 'Action' and 'Address(es) Selected for Compose Window'
respectively. Format got messed up due to tabs.

Comment 15

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

> 2. Mailing List in left pane has focus, "Compose" --> New Message with contents 
> of mailing list in address area.

jglick, can you clarify?

if the mailing list has the name "foo", but the mailing list contains three
addresses "a","b","c", what shows up when the left pane has focus, and the
mailing list "foo" is selected?

1) a compose window addressed to "foo"?
2) a compose window addressed to "a","b","c" (this is what 4.x does)

Comment 16

[jglick]

I like #b (4.x beh) because it makes it very clear to the user Who the message 
is going to be sent to (they see the mailing list address-ies listed out).

Comment 17

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

I agree, I like the 4.x way better.

Comment 18

[racham]

Attachment: patch , v1.1 - updated patch which generates list of addresses for compose window based on focussed element

Comment 19

[racham]

New patch posted mimics the 4.x behavior. Generating the list of email addresses
based on whether directory pane is focussed or not is one of the major
improvements. mailABOverlay.xul is already included via contents.rdf. So, there
is no need to include it explicitely. Thanks to Seth for his suggestions.

Comment 20

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

looks great.

one issue:

-<!-- retrieve generic commands -->
-<?xul-overlay href="chrome://messenger/content/mailOverlay.xul"?>
+<!DOCTYPE window SYSTEM "chrome://messenger/locale/mailOverlay.dtd">
 
we were only including for the entities defined in the dtd?  make sure we 
weren't including for an functions defined by any js that mailOverlay.xul 
includes.

sounds like you've tested well (as always).

sr=sspitzer

Comment 21

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

Comment on attachment 64761 [details] [diff] [review]
patch , v1.1 - updated patch which generates list of addresses for compose window based on focussed element

sr=sspitzer

Comment 22

[racham]

I have checked mailOverlay.xul and the js it is providing is exactly for the 2 
functions I have added in mailABOverlay.xul. Functions in mailOverlay.xul are 
very generic and are designed to be fired from any window. However, Addressbook 
is a special case, as it can provide the list of addresses to be pre-populated. 
So, we just needed to share the dtd file for lables, accesskeys, etc. Thanks for 
the review.

Comment 23

[Sean Su]

Comment on attachment 64761 [details] [diff] [review]
patch , v1.1 - updated patch which generates list of addresses for compose window based on focussed element

the patch looks good, however, it turns out that this patch fixes a similar
problem to original bug, not the original bug itself.

This patch fixes the problem if the steps to reproduce this bug were changed
like this:

- open AddressBook
- from the left thread (under the PAB) chose a mailing list;
- click on the Compose button.

r=ssu for this patch that fixes the above mentioned problem (not the original
bug).

Comment 24

[racham]

Jennifer brought up both issues in her comments from the update 

------- Additional Comment #11 From [e-mail] 2002-01-08 16:51 -------

Fix for the AddressBook compose button, File|New|Message & Ctrl+M are all taken
care of with the current patch. 

Issues with Select Addresses dialog should be obsolete when bug 89495 is solved.
Please follow that bug for further updates.

Thanks for reviews. Closing this one as fixed.

Comment 25

[Ninoschka Baca]

Trunk build 2002-02-01-03: WinMe
Trunk build 2002-02-01-08: Linux RH 7.1
Trunk build 2002-01-01-08: Mac 10.1
Verified Fixed. 

In the Address Book window, with the list selected in the directory pane then 
the following displays a compose window with the addresses expanded in the 
address area (not the list name).

- Compose button
- File|New|Message menu item
- Ctrl+M