149274 - "compose mail" button on component bar

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[calocybe]

The navigator button in the component bar currently works this way:
if (there is no open navigator window) {
    open new navigator window
} else {
    if (the button was pressed from within a navigator window) {
        if (there's another navigator window open)
            activate that one;
        else open a new one;
    } else {
        // button pressed from within [mail | address book | ... ] window
        activate one of the already open navigator windows
    }
}

This sucks (and back in the days of NN4, it sucked too). If I wanted to activate
another open window, I would know very well *which one* (I often have ten or so
windows open). I would certainly not use the component bar navigator button
then, which activates any window on its own choice. This button should *always*
open a new navigator window.

Besides that, two more buttons would be useful in the component bar:
"New Tab": Open a new tab in the current window. (like Ctrl+T on Windows)
"New Message": Open a new blank messagecomposer window. (like Ctrl+M on Windows)

Comment 1

[timeless]

1. the behavior you're complaining about is covered in another bug
2. a button for new tab is covered in another bug, but it doesn't belong in the 
component bar
3. a button for new email message is an interesting rfe. however, you could 
easily make such a thing for the personal toolbar, and i'm not sure how much 
value you add by putting a new message icon into the component bar.

I'd suggest a new bug (or finding a pre-existing one) for 3 and closing this 
bug in deference to the three bugs described in comment 1.

Comment 2

[calocybe]

> 1. the behavior you're complaining about is covered in another bug

It would probably have not been entirely unhelpful if you had pointed us to that
bug. After all, I'm pretty sure that I have intensively searched for one.


> 2. a button for new tab is covered in another bug, but it doesn't belong in
> the component bar

Again, please tell us the bug number so that other people can compare the
entries and verify what you say.

Whether that button is put into the component bar or somewhere else where it's
easily reachable doesn't matter. No problem to create a wholly new bar with
another name that holds these buttons. In the end, it doesn't matter to the user
whether you call that bar "Component bar" or "Most frequently used functions
quick access bar". The important point is to have a quickly accessible place
where these buttons are grouped together.


> 3. a button for new email message is an interesting rfe. however, you could
> easily make such a thing for the personal toolbar, and i'm not sure how much
> value you add by putting a new message icon into the component bar.

The personal toolbar? You mean that thing where one puts most frequently used
bookmarks in? How can I use this to open a mail window? Please don't tell me I
have to enable JavaScript and write a bookmarklet for that purpose as an end
user probably wouldn't classify this in what is meant by "usability".

Comment 3

[timeless]

bug 112769 added new tab
come on, searching bugzilla shouldn't be hard 'new tab button' (all words as 
substring)
[yes, i could have found the number by checking my bugmail inbox, but i had 
better things to do]

as for the first part, please experiment with bugzilla search and find it. i'd 
imagine that you'd become an expert at searching bugzilla in the hour or so it 
takes you to find the bug.

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

>> 1. the behavior you're complaining about is covered in another bug

I'm sorry about timeless, he says that a lot.  I think he needs to learn how to
search bugzilla quickly and/or not add useless comments to bugs.

The problem you described is at least partially bug 20306, "Can't open more than
2 windows with navigator button".  I tried a few searches before finding the bug
and eventually succeeded with a search for 'navigator button'.  Another search
that would have found the bug is 'votes:2 button window'.  I just added the
phrase "component bar" to 20306's summary in order to make the bug easier to find.

It's easier for us to track which bugs are fixed when each bug report covers a
single issue, so I'm restricting this bug to #3, a "compose mail" button on the
component bar.  I searched for 'compose,new mail button,icon' to make sure this
bug isn't already filed.

Comment 5

[timeless]

uid is being phased out.

Comment 6

[Ray]

Is anyone working on this one? This is also one of those features that would
make use of Mozilla so much more convenient. Having to open that stupid mail
window just to open the compose window is really inconvenient especially if you
then also have to enter your pop password.

Any chance of making it into 1.6? Or is it planned for another release?

Comment 7

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 8

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but still has no comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project 5 years ago.

Because of this, we're resolving the bug as EXPIRED.

If you still can reproduce the bug on SeaMonkey 2 or otherwise think it's still valid, please REOPEN it and if it is a platform or toolkit issue, move it to the according component.

Query tag for this change: EXPIRED-20100420