1635124 - Navigating From selector identity list with cursor down/up prematurely applies each identity (with Auto-CC/BCC): 'Customize From Address' always uses last identity

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

STR

1. compose, have several accounts/identities with different combinations of Auto-CC/BCC
2. click From selector, navigate identity list with cursor up/down
3. navigate to "Customize From Address" (without pressing Enter)

Actual

• 2. each identity which you navigate is immediately applied to the compose window, you can see Auto-CC/BCC entries and Recipient buttons changing.
  • not helpful as those fields are covered by the dropdown
  • potentially datalossy because we're doing all sorts of things to existing recipients as we swap Auto-CC/BCC from one identity to another. I have recently tamed that to be less greedy in Bug 1623285, but I wouldn't bet on it.
• 3. it's unexpected that just navigating onto the last option immediately pops up the modal alert - bad for blind users, too. Maybe they just wanted to let their screenreader 'read' that last option, as opposed to choosing it.

Expected

• list navigation should do just that: navigate the list. As long as I haven't pressed Enter on an option, it should not be applied. I don't think this is a case of live preview as for font and style selectors. Plus the inherent recipient dataloss risk from our Auto-CC/BCC algorithms should be avoided.
• 'Customize From Address' modal dialog should not suddenly jumping into into users face when he didn't explicitly confirm that with Enter yet (important for the blind)

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Worse:

More Actual Result

When you use cursor keys to intending to navigate to "Customize From Address", you'll always end up customizing the last identity because we apply each and every navigated identity prematurely. So you'd have to know this problem in advance to press END or maybe C, that's if you don't have identities starting with C. So this is clearly a bug.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

This bug is especially cunning when (for whatever reason) you focus msgIdentity (From selector) so that it is focused (e.g. with tab), but dropdown closed (e.g. with ESC), and then press cursor down. In former times, this used to cycle identities. Maybe nowadays, I'd expect it to just move focus downwards to To address input. However, we cunningly do both for a single keypress: change the sender (which is very hard to notice) AND move focus. This is unexpected and error-prone.

Comment 3

[ddl-github]

With 15 defined identities, this is my biggest Thunderbird annoyance since the addressing area redesign in v78. Is it likely to get fixed?

Comment 4

[ddl-github]

Via random experimentation, I just discovered that if I navigate to the From selector field via keyboard (using shift-tab) and press ALT-cursordown, it brings up the identity drop-down menu and allows me to navigate it with cursor keys before making a final selection. This comes close to replicating the behaviour of versions prior to the v78 redesign, and is good enough for me.

Thunderbird 78.5.0 under pop_OS! 20.10, installed via apt (v1:78.5.0+build3-0ubuntu0.20.10.1 from Ubuntu's groovy-updates/main repository).

Comment 5

[Eric Jacobsen]

Found this bug while wanting to report my own bug, similar to what Thomas D reported on 2020-07-02 -- I like to navigate by keyboard only:

Ctrl-N (new message)
Alt-R (Focus the from field)
Down arrow (select desired identity to send From)

Since ver 78, the down arrow cycles to the next account but moves focus down to the CC field. I need to repeat Alt-R, down arrow to get further down the list.

Expected behavior: A drop-list that is not open should allow the user to cycle through the items using the up and down arrows without losing focus. For example: Thunderbird > Preferences > General > Default Search Engine. When I tab to this field I can use the up/down arrows to select any item from the drop-list without opening the list.