1619815 - Advice to update to new version of TB does not link to Release Notes for that version.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[jmacauslan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:73.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/73.0

Steps to reproduce:

Checked Help > About in TB 68.4. It told me a new release (68.5.0) was available. But no link to the NEW version's Rel. Notes -- and no obvious way to get to the new version's Rel. Notes from the website. (Complicated URL, no clear links to new version's Notes when I visited old version's Notes page.)

So I could not check for problems in advance, which was the point of checking.

Actual results:

Nothing "happened", I couldn't read Notes before updating, I had to Take It or Leave It. :-/

Expected results:

I should have been given a link in order to read new version's Rel. Notes before upgrading. Probably in the Help > About popup, but that's a matter of taste.

Comment 1

[Dan Pernokis]

I couldn't agree more with this idea!

Once upon a time, Thunderbird had it almost right -- they had a RELEASE NOTES heading under HELP, which is where it belongs. This pointed to the Release Notes page for the current version (the page that WHAT's NEW shows today). But the Firefox team decided their own menus should be trimmed down -- and the Thunderbird crew had to follow suit -- so RELEASE NOTES was removed from HELP in TB, and only the WHAT's NEW link in the HELP, ABOUT panel would be the access in both packages. WHAT's NEW would display the release notes for the newly-installed version, with the fallacy being that it would soon become "What's Old" real quick. (Some comments at the time suggested the average user is not interested in Release Notes, etc. Perhaps true, but a sizable number of people need them, and technical people often rely on them enough to make them worthwhile having and to implement them correctly.)

The WHAT's NEW idea only makes sense for a pending or newly-installed version, and I stated so in several previous bugs. Release Notes for current, What's New for the truly new -- simple, straightforward, and accurate.

So here's what I suggest for both Thunderbird and Firefox:

(1) The HELP menu should contain Release Notes for the currently installed version. This would tell the user about their particular installation.
(2) The HELP, ABOUT panel should also & always contain a similar RELEASE NOTES link to the current version.
(3) The HELP, ABOUT panel should contain a WHAT's NEW link only if & when a new release is available (and perhaps even if just pending -- the notes could state the imminent release date).
(4) The HELP menu might also have a link to WHAT's NEW if this can be accomplished without complicated (or error-prone) logic to rebuild the menu if a pending new version is detected.

The trick comes in handling automatic updates. Fully-automatic (as is done in Google Chrome) updates the product at any time without user knowledge or intervention and ALWAYS triggers an immediate update-if-available -- which cannot be overridden -- during a manual check for updates. I don't like this. There should simply be a choice of whether or not to update at the point of checking, even if updates otherwise run automatically and unattended when the user isn't looking. In this way, users can use HELP, ABOUT to check for pending updates but don't have to trigger them. If they have an automatic setting, they will get the update sooner or later anyway, or could get it immediately if they choose. If they don't want the update right now, they could escape. If for any reason they don't want it at all, they could always disable automatic updates now and then manually run the update later at their leisure. Full choice to the user.

And it makes total sense to implement this for both Thunderbird and Firefox (and whatever else Mozilla has in its portfolio).

Comment 2

[jmacauslan]

Although it is secondary to this problem, I will support Dan's comment about fully automatic upgrades: Please do not EVER do that. (There is a reason I use Mozilla instead of Google.)

Comment 3

[anders]

I've just had the same problem as the OP with Thunderbird -- I consider a 'blind' update without an easy way to review the relevant release to be unhelpful, and something that should be fixed.

I don't follow Dan Pernokis's comments entirely -- but that may be because things have change since: case (1) and case (4) does not seem to provide any significant change to what Thunderbird does (the link is in the About dialog, i.e. as case (2)), and case (3) seems to be covered as an update button is shown instead of a link),

For my part, I would be happy if the presence of an Update button in the Help | About Thunderbird view was accompanied by a link to the relevant release notes for the update, or, if the update button led to a dialog that contained the final button as well as a link to the relevant release notes.

A problem I see is if there are multiple updates pending, and the user don't want a big-bang update: that probably needs to be handled differently.

Comment 4

[anders]

I should add my current Thunderbird version: 91.4.1.

Comment 5

[Dan Pernokis]

In reply to ANDERS...

Thunderbird menus have changed a little since I wrote my Comment #1 above, but my words are still applicable, correct and valid. Here's a revised context.

Case 1: The HELP menu has only ABOUT THUNDERBIRD, linking to the ABOUT panel which now has "Release Notes" for the current version (as it should). I think this used to be titled WHAT's NEW in earlier versions, which was wrong and is the issue -- it pointed to the current Release Notes which (as I stated) quickly became What's Old.

Case 2: Ditto above, Release Notes in ABOUT panel are now actually called Release Notes.

Case 3: But the ABOUT panel should also have a link to WHAT's NEW only if and when there is a newer release available or imminent.

Case 4: Similarly the HELP menu could/should also have a link to WHAT's NEW visible only if and when there is a new release available or imminent.

As for multiple updates pending, I've never seen a multi-step update, at least not in the ABOUT panel update button. I've only ever seen updates jump directly to the current release, usually by downloading a larger update package or in some cases totally installing the new version. So "you can't get there from here" -- you can't go from Version x.1 to x.3 without getting x.2 in the middle -- you can't bypass x.2, because x.2 is now part of (and included in) the x.3 release. You would have to freeze at x.1 and wait for some later release that fixes or reverses what was wrong in x.2.

Comment 6

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Attachment: Bug 1619815 - Display a "What's New" link next to the "Download Update" button in About dialog. r=mkmelin

The "Release Notes" link always points to the current running version. This links
to the update's release notes for beta and release channels. (Daily does
not have any release notes to link to.)

Comment 7

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Attachment: image.png

This is what the updated dialog looks like.

Comment 8

[Dan Pernokis]

LOVE IT !!!
I'm presuming the UPDATE and WHAT's NEW items are transient and appear only when there is something new.
I'm also presuming this will be put into the live releases, hopefully ASAP. We all need to have this, not just the developers & testers.
Thank you!

And further to my Comment 5 in reply to Anders...
If there are multiple updates pending, perhaps the same mechanism can handle multiple update buttons, as long as users understand they can't skip an update (they would get everything up to that point), but could progressively update as far as they wished and then stop. Or they could jump headlong to the end and get the latest & greatest.

Comment 9

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

(In reply to Dan Pernokis from comment #8)

LOVE IT !!!
I'm presuming the UPDATE and WHAT's NEW items are transient and appear only when there is something new.

Correct.

I'm also presuming this will be put into the live releases, hopefully ASAP. We all need to have this, not just the developers & testers.
Thank you!

If the patch is accepted it will go into the next major release this summer. I can't promise it will be uplifted to 91.x.

And further to my Comment 5 in reply to Anders...
If there are multiple updates pending, perhaps the same mechanism can handle multiple update buttons, as long as users understand they can't skip an update (they would get everything up to that point), but could progressively update as far as they wished and then stop. Or they could jump headlong to the end and get the latest & greatest.

The update server doesn't work that way. It sends a single version to update to based on current state. In cases where multiple updates happen, (such as 60.9.1 -> 68.12.1 -> 78.14.0 -> 91.5.1) there's a reason: Profile migrations and update file format changes come to mind.
In general, updates will skip within a major version (eg. 68.x) and stop at the last version before updating to the next major version.

Comment 10

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Attachment: Bug1619815_esr91.patch

esr91 patch.

To avoid needing a new string for "What's New", it uses "Release Notes" again and hides the link to the current version's release notes (when an update is available).

Comment 11

[Dan Pernokis]

Rob, in your Comment 10, I read this to mean the dialogue changes from what you previewed for us. It sounds like:
(i) TB will usually show "Release Notes" and link to the notes for the current release (as now);
(ii) If & when an update is pending, the phrase "Release Notes" will link to Release Notes for the NEW version only -- there will be no link to the current version.

This could be a little confusing for the user since the same phrase (and in their mind the same link) one time goes one place and another time goes somewhere else -- inconsistent and, um, something MS might do. I would very much prefer the straight-forward clean appearance and function of the preview.

Comment 12

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Since this is a new feature with a new string that needs translating getting it uplifted to Thunderbird 91 as I described is not feasible. It won't appear in a release version until Thunderbird 102.

Comment 13

[Dan Pernokis]

Thanks, Rob -- I see now in your Comment 10 (and my Comment 11) that the change is only for the 91 patch. Phew.

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/87bcf7738396
Display a "What's New" link next to the "Download Update" button in About dialog. r=mkmelin

Comment 15

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Comment on attachment 9262320 [details]
Bug 1619815 - Display a "What's New" link next to the "Download Update" button in About dialog. r=mkmelin

[Approval Request Comment]
Regression caused by (bug #): n/a
User impact if declined: n/a
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): n/a
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): Med-low risk. The changed code affects the About Thunderbird dialog as well as the update portion of Preferences. There should be no change to Preferences. The change only affects Beta & Release, so requesting uplift to move the process along.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9262320 [details]
Bug 1619815 - Display a "What's New" link next to the "Download Update" button in About dialog. r=mkmelin

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Comment 17

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 98.0b2:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/4198d194243b