1579384 - remove modewidths

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Calendar Frontend, task)

Description

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

https://searchfox.org/comm-central/search?q=modewidths&path=

modewidths seems like a very odd concept. I never saw it actually work the way it's (according to the code) supposed to work. Now with bug 1567424 landing, it is working "like it should". But I think it's not nice UX to change the todaypane width according to if you're in tasks, event and tasks, or events: very jumpy UI.

I see no reason to keep this.

Comment 1

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][☁️📆]]

Afaik the reason this was introduced is that we wanted a consistent experience per tab. The today pane is techncially across all tabs, but given the content is different per tab the width should also be. It actually used to be part of the tab before it moved to a sidebar.

Maybe Alex can offer UX opinion before we can go ahead and remove it?

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Aah, I think I understand what it's doing better now.
It's only under some circumstances that the content is different though: depends on the mode you're in, e.g. Events & Tasks will stay when you move from mail to calendar (but not to tasks).

Alex, any thoughts?

Comment 3

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

As far as I know you can configure the Today Pane differently in all tabs, e.g. show events+tasks in mail tab, show only tasks in event tab, show only events in task tab.

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Hi, thanks for pulling me into this.

I always found it very odd having the Today Pane repeated in both Calendar and Task view, and even more odd having it change layout and width between tabs.
I understand its function as a "quick overview" for events and tasks if you're in the "Email" tab, for tasks in the "Calendar" tab, and for "Events" in the Tasks tab, but it took me a while to get it, and I'm still sometimes confused by its behavior.

I'm working on some UI and UX proposals to fix these problems, but for now I'd recommend to try keeping the width of the Today Pane consistent across the different tabs, unless the user collapses it for some of those tabs.