1061818 - Quick filter bar is too wide in 3-column-view since 31.0

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, defect)

Description

[Johannes Linke]

Attachment: quick filter bar.png

Before upgrading, the quick filter bar was always as wide as the email list and placed directly above it, which is correct.

Since 31.0, apparently nothing changed for the classic and broad message view, but for the 3-column-view, the quick filter bar expands over the email list AND the message area, which looks weird and is semantically incorrect, since it only modifies  the email list.

The title of Bug 592248 sounds related, but it is not, as far as I can see.

Comment 1

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

This is indeed from bug 592248, and is intentional. For a lot of people using vertical view, the thread pane is just too narrow to accommodate the quick filter; hence, it now takes up (most of) the full width of the UI.

Really though, bug 592248 is just a stop-gap until the two main search boxes are merged somehow. With that resolved, this issue would get fixed automatically.

Comment 2

[Johannes Linke]

then apparently bug 592248 was not fixed, but traded for another bug. before small screen users had their problems (but OTOH, i'm using thunderbird on a 1366x768 screen for ages now and never had such problems), now large screen users are getting confused.  
the fix would have been an option to configure the width of the quick filter bar, or removing the text of the quick filter buttons when the toolbar gets too narrow. afaik there are a lot of responsive UI designs that behave just like that. and somehow i also remember not having the text there in the old version, but i'm not 100% sure there.

Comment 3

[:aceman]

(In reply to Johannes Linke from comment #2)
> the fix would have been an option to configure the width of the quick filter
> bar, or removing the text of the quick filter buttons when the toolbar gets
> too narrow. afaik there are a lot of responsive UI designs that behave just
> like that. and somehow i also remember not having the text there in the old
> version, but i'm not 100% sure there.
The texts of the buttons do hide if there is not enough space. But probably not in the vertical view, as now enough space was created.

Comment 4

[Johannes Linke]

Attachment: 1050px.png

Comment 5

[Johannes Linke]

you're right, the text does hide, also in vertical view. i attached a screenshot how that looks like. now it is even less clear to me why the quick filter bar was widened. i mean, when one has a screen with limited vertical space (less than 1050 pixels), one probably shouldn't use the vertical view, right?

Comment 6

[Johannes Linke]

barely visible in the screenshot, but note that thunderbird is hardly usable in vertical view with 1050px width. folder and message pane really shouldn't be less wide, and look at the column widths of the middle pane.

Comment 7

[chencxmcheng]

I completely agree with Johannes. The new quick filter bar is annoying to use since I not only just type in the keywords, but constantly change the filter element, e.g. from "sender" to "recipient". Now I have to look at and click on the far right of the screen to select the filter element while looking at the left side of the screen for the emails. As Johannes said, I use a relatively small screen (1368*768) and never had problem with the old filter bar that resides only on top of the email list while using the vertical view. 

Please make the location of the quick filter bar customizable!

Comment 8

[lj]

Yes, it is a horrible change (whitout a possibility to change it back).
Please give an option to choose quick filter width.

Comment 9

[github]

Just been through the process of raising a support query (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1091965#answer-801493), then discovering and reading through bug 592248, and now this thread.
So, a +1 for "please fix this".

Can't say I agree with the sentiment behind "now enough space was created" in Comment 3. The extra space was achieved by disassociating two GUI elements that should have a strong logical relationship. A much better solution would have been allowing the quick filter bar to flow onto a second row.

Given that there's apparently no will to fix this due to an intention to merge the search boxes in the future, is there a workaround? Would it be possible for an add-on to fix this for those of us with (relatively) huge screens?

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 1214143 is a duplicate?

Comment 11

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #10)
> bug 1214143 is a duplicate?

No, that's an issue where the message header toolbar overflows the width of the message pane.