1171620 - Want to navigate forward and backward through folder history

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, enhancement)

Description

[Kenneth]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/43.0.2357.81 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Tried all the Forward/Back icon arrows


Actual results:

Nothing, except opening unread messages


Expected results:

Forward/Back should have 3 components
Moving forward/back on all messages in the current folder
Moving forward/back on all unread messages in the current folder
Moving forward/back on all folders

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

It works for me.

Do you still see this issue when using a newer version and Thunderbird started in safe mode?

Comment 2

[Kenneth]

Currently using Thunderbird 45.2.0

Next and Previous work fine in both the message and folder windows, although I notice that the message detail line in the folder window is not highlighted (i.e the highlight does not move or change) and I'm unsure what the correct procedure here is.

Moving forward/back on all unread messages in the current folder works fine.

Back & Forward buttons are grayed out in both the message and folder windows! So I'm still unable to move forward and back between folders like Explorer or most File Managers.

No difference observed in Safe Mode.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I never use these features (and never use toolbar) so I'm a terrible person to dig deeper.

Can you investigate or know someone who could speak to these issues?
FWIW, some bugs that mention history: https://mzl.la/2dHe9kv

Comment 4

[Eckard Berberich]

Mac OS X 10.11.6, Thunderbird 45.4.0:
I never use these "Back" and "Forward" buttons but when I'm testing them in the Mail Toolbar or in the small message header toolbar they are working correctly here within the thread pane of a selected folder. 
I'm not sure to understand what Kenneth means by "message and folder windows".

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Eckard Berberich from comment #4)
>
> I'm not sure to understand what Kenneth means by "message and folder windows".

Perhaps screen shots from Kenneth would help.
And listing all steps of instructions to reproduce, with #1 being:
1. start thunderbird

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

xenos, have you seen this?

Comment 7

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Forward and Back are to navigate in the reading history -> only when you read multiple messages the Back button is active. When you go back to a previous visited message the Forward button is active. Both also provide a menu with the last visited messages.

You need the Previous/Next buttons to go through the tree like in Explorer.

Comment 8

[Chris Ramsden]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #6)
> xenos, have you seen this?

Like you, I don't use these buttons or this browsing mode. I don't even have them on my toolbar.

Comment 9

[Kenneth]

It seems that the confusion is that all of the available buttons in the toolbar for browsing are limited to messages. There are no button items for going forward and back through the folder pane in the left window. I use folders extensively, so having to manually navigate is a bit frustrating when the feature is available in other programs like file managers and browsers.
Perhaps this feature (relative to folders) should be classified as a request rather than a bug. Richard Marti has clarified the active nature for Forward and Back (thank yon).
In my opinion, Next and Previous are somewhat redundant (hence virtually no-one uses them) but have more value in a message pane.

Comment 10

[rsx11m]

(In reply to Chris Ramsden from comment #8)
> Like you, I don't use these buttons or this browsing mode. I don't even have
> them on my toolbar.

Me neither, but I've placed them there for testing and browsing the message lists works (on Linux with KDE4). I also see the highlight of the message move with either Forward/Back or Next/Previous, so that part works as well for me despite comment #2 (where even with focus in the folder list, Next/Previous changes messages, not folders, whereas Forward/Back changes both as necessary).

Comment 11

[rsx11m]

(In reply to Richard Marti (:Paenglab) from comment #7)
> Forward and Back are to navigate in the reading history -> only when you
> read multiple messages the Back button is active.

And yes, the "Back" button only shows up for me with the /second/ message selected after restart, "Forward" only if I ever navigate with the "Back" button.

Comment 12

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Not scolding you, but it helps to consult references before filing a bug report in situations like this. One simple reference, that you must have seen, is that mousing over the buttons tells you *exactly* what they are intended to do, and it clearly isn't nagivating folders.

I suspect overlaying folder history on those button would be confusing to users. What you want might be available in an addon such as quickfolders. there may be others.  afaict this is not a duplicate bug, so confirming

Comment 13

[Kenneth]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #12)
> Not scolding you, but it helps to consult references before filing a bug
> report in situations like this. One simple reference, that you must have
> seen, is that mousing over the buttons tells you *exactly* what they are
> intended to do, and it clearly isn't nagivating folders.
> 
> I suspect overlaying folder history on those button would be confusing to
> users. What you want might be available in an addon such as quickfolders.
> there may be others.  afaict this is not a duplicate bug, so confirming

Interesting, I never hover over the buttons long enough for the tool tip to pop up! However, in the context of a bug, it should not have been accepted because the title alone reads:  Want to navigate forward and backward through folder history.

Is a toolbar above the folder pane unrealistic?

Comment 14

[Eckard Berberich]

(In reply to Kenneth from comment #13)
> Is a toolbar above the folder pane unrealistic?

Thunderbird 49.0b1 has a new "Folder Pane Toolbar" at the top of the folder pane.
But it provides the same choices "All", "Unified", "Recent", "Unread", ... etc as the View > Folders menu, no forward or backward navigation.