1514222 - Sort by subject ignores "Fw:" prefix by default (can be fixed by editing "mailnews.localizedRe")

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Anje]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0

Steps to reproduce:

Sort by Subject , Ascending, unthreaded



Actual results:

example of Subject list:

Birthdays ideas
Economy7
Family Website
RE: Family Website
Fw: DPS Deposit
FW:Everest Home
Fw:Your M&S Order
Fwd:FW:Francis William
Re:Fwd: Re:Xmas
Ikea Sofa
Looking at family tree
Re: Louis
Re: Mum
Re: New Address
New Email address
Re: Old xps

Subject with no Re: or FW: is in correct order.
Re: is always ignored and order based on Subject

Fw is Not ignored and order based on the Fw or Fwd or FW, so Subject is not sorted on Subject.

Hence :
Re:Fwd: Re:Xmas 
Subject 'Xmas' should be second to last in list

Fw:Your M&S Order
Subject 'Your M&S Order'  is following 'Everest Home' because the Fw is included in the Subject sort. when it should be last in the list.





Expected results:

Subject with no Re: or FW: is in correct order.
Re: is always ignored and order based on Subject
Fw is always ignored and order based on Subject


Please test to see if this is also the case in current 60* versions.

Comment 1

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

Please try safe mode. Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled.

The sort order looks correct to me in a test of 52.9.1 and my 60.3.3.

Everything is in proper alphabetical order with the Re: and Fwd: ignored.

Comment 2

[Anje]

Tested in Safe Mode and still the same.
It also does the same in: Sort by Subject , decending, unthreaded
just in reverse.
also note:
Fw: DPS Deposit - should be second in list
FW:Everest Home - should be immediately after Economy7

on another folder Sort by Subject , Ascending, unthreaded
I can see how numbers would be before letters, but 'Discontinued Item' is at the top probably because of the [External] in between the 'RE:' which I would expect to get ignored and this should be sorted as a 'D' item.
It would also seem that [ and the music note icon gets preference to numbers. Perhaps that is normal? In which case as there are no Fw then all shows ok on that folder.

RE: [EXTERNAL] Re: Discontinued Item
[Friday Nov 3, 2017 Brown Bag]: Mozilla Support's Community on Firefox 57
♪ Happy Birthday to You... Happy Birthday to You ♪
Re: 1265242 - Thunderbird 45.0 hangs 
All about your order
BT here. Get ready: our engineer's visiting soon
Re: Chimney repointing work
Google Chrome update – is your site secure?
Rewards available at Terrys Fabrics - your monthly update
Your BT service should be back to normal now

But a check on any folder with a 'Fw' or 'Fwd' will read the 'F' and never ignores it. So all forwarded items in list will be sorted under 'F'.

Comment 3

[Alfred Peters [:infofrommozilla]]

1. You'll have to extend the setting: "mailnews.localizedRe" to at
last: "Fw,FW,fw,Fwd,FWD,fwd". (no space and it is case sensitive, so
you need all spellings you want)
<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/config-editor>

2. This setting has no effect on old mails. So if you want, you need
to reload them by: context menu of that folder:
-> Properties -> /General Information\ -> [Repair Folder]
Attention: This will re-download all mail from an IMAP account, and
handles all mail as new.

Comment 4

[Anje]

mailnews.localizedRe;Fw,FW,fw,Fwd,FWD,fwd

This had the desired effect in that all emails are now in correct sort order.
But it has removed all the 'FWD' etc and replaced with 'RE' so now it is impossible to know what has been forwarded by looking in the list. Although when the email is selected it is immedately obvious in the headers as the FW is now visible.

Comment 5

[Anje]

'Fixed' is not exactly the word I would use. 
It has sorted the sort by removing FW visibility from the 'Subject' column list.
Removing 'FW' from the list means you cannot see what has been forwarded.
You cannot use Quick Filter to search/sort on FW on Subject, because it is not really the Subject, so is not included in results.

It's not exactly the best idea to suggest opening emails manually to locate all forwarded mail as a trade off for getting a sort to function.


The solution offerd removes the 'Fw' from the list and therefore ignored in sort by Subject. A kind of fix, if knowing what has been forwarded is of no relevance or concern.

The solution required does not remove the 'Fw' from list, it should be ignored in the same way as 'RE' is ignored, to this extent nothing has been resolved.