1239818 - Nickname does not autocomplete

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1012397

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Paul Ausbeck]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20150826044534

Steps to reproduce:

Click "Write", to compose a new message.
Enter an address book nickname in the "To" field.
Press the tab key to advance to the "Subject" field.



Actual results:

Address book nickname does not autocomplete from the address book entry.
Autocomplete can be forced by typing a "space" following the nickname AND waiting for ~1 second. Quite annoying really. Even today, after months of use, I still forget to space and then wait the appropriate time. I get all the way to failure sending due to invalid email address and must go back to the "To" field and press space and wait one second, then autocomplete completes the address and the message can be sent.


Expected results:

Autocomplete should function without typing a superflous space AND then waiting for one second. I first noticed this new undesirable behavior when moving from version 24.x to 31.3. The behavior still exists in 38.x.

Comment 1

[Paul Ausbeck]

Actually, the space bar does not need to be pressed following the Nickname, only the delay is necessary. Something less than 1 second. My normal use pattern is to type without particurly looking at the screen, so waiting the requisite delay is something that I can't seem to get used to. I don't think this some sort of machine performance issue. My email machine is an Intel Core i3-2120T, not particularly fast, but not particularly slow either, 2.6GHz dual core, 3MB level 3 cache.

Comment 2

[:aceman]

So what should happen? For me when I type a nickname the results are shown in a dropdown list, but none of the items are selected.

On tab, do you want to autocomplete to the first found entry and move to the Subject field?

Comment 3

[Paul Ausbeck]

Yes, that is correct. Most, or even all, of my nicknames don't interfere with one another, so there is no "list" per se, just the single entry. Like I mentioned previously, if I type the nickname and just wait for a fraction of a second before pressing "tab", then the complete address is automatically entered into the "to" field. But if I don't wait, but just type without looking like I normally do, the complete address is not placed into the "to" field, but only the nickname. So later, when I click on the "send" button, I get an error dialog because the "to" field does not contain a valid email address. I think a younger person than I would maybe not run into this. Perhaps picking names from lists may be something that they would be used to. I'm old enough that I just remember things like first names and phone numbers, so I don't tend to look at drop down lists. It may help to say again that this bug or feature was introduced somewhere between version 24.x and 31.x. Up to that point, typing the nickname and immediately pressing the tab key did reliably enter the full email address into the "to" field.

Comment 4

[:aceman]

Can you see if this is the same as bug 1012397 ?

Comment 5

[Paul Ausbeck]

Yes, it is the same bug. One can see from the discussion there that this issue has created discontent. Just to add another two cents that I didn't see there. In Thunderbird's original conception of a nickname, one could expect that such would be automagically expanded to a full email address anytime it was typed in an address field. In vaguely remember, in fact, that this expansion may not have even taken place until the message was actually sent. In the "modern" Thunderbird with fancy autocomplete, this idea has been completely lost. So my workflow of adding nicknames to email addresses and using them instead of full email addresses no longer functions. The work of adding nicknames and making sure that they are all orthogonal to one another is also down the drain. What is the point of having a nickname if it isn't going to have priority when autocompleting email addresses? In general, the idea of making Thunderbird easier to use for novices is valid. But also in general, the idea of keeping Thunderbird useful for more sophisticated users is also valid. Both ideas need to be kept in mind when making changes.

Comment 6

[:aceman]

OK, in that case, the problem should be fixed starting with TB 44.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

> vaguely remember, in fact, that this expansion may not have even taken place until the message was actually sent. 

This was never the case, in the last 8 years at least.

FWIW, 44 beta is available at http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/channel/

Comment 8

[Paul Ausbeck]

Wayne, it turns out that my memory of deferred nickname expansion goes back to when I was using Outlook and/or Outlook express. Or even further back to the days of unix mail. I can't recall with any certainty the historical progression of Thunderbird. Not to give up the point that deferred expansion is somewhat of a reasonable idea, maybe even superior to contemporaneous completion.

I tend to stay with long term support versions of Firefox, and for that reason I'm still using Thunderbird 31.x. It would be better for people like me if Thunderbird would change a bit more slowly over time. Slow enough to avoid many regressions such as this one. My understanding of the expediant nature of the 44 beta fix sort of compels me to stay in my beaten path.