1656648 - Account drop down list not wide enough in the Filter Dialog

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Filters, defect)

Description

[Matt]

When opening the filter dialog in V78 the drop-down list of accounts is simply not wide enough to display the names of accounts in sufficient detail to identify the account in the list. The inclusion of an icon here is probably not helping as only 8 actual characters are displayed.

This may have been the case since the search filter box was introduced and 78 amplifies it because I am back to mostly defaults for things like dialog locations and sizes.

This is with the EN-US version.

Perhaps the dialog can get a redesign to make it overall larger to accommodate the full display of account names and to make the account list much more prominent.

Most support requests about filter are from users that did not even notice it was a per account listing or realise that the filters were actually for a particular account.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: Filter dialog smallest possible size - search box too big

Richard, can we increase the default size of this dialog a bit, and reduce the size of the search box?
I think if the search box could take 50% of dialog width, that would be enough. Currently it's more than that.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Can anyone enlighten me how to reset the dialog to default size, short of reinstalling and possibly new profile?

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Matt from comment #0)

When opening the filter dialog in V78 the drop-down list of accounts is simply not wide enough to display the names of accounts in sufficient detail to identify the account in the list. The inclusion of an icon here is probably not helping as only 8 actual characters are displayed.

Yeah, it's a bit small perhaps. Unfortunately, can't test because it remembers the previous size which I have already changed.
Btw: Are you and users in support aware that this dialog can be resized, even maximised?

This may have been the case since the search filter box was introduced and 78 amplifies it because I am back to mostly defaults for things like dialog locations and sizes.

Search box looks a bit too large.

Perhaps the dialog can get a redesign to make it overall larger to accommodate the full display of account names and to make the account list much more prominent.

Well, maybe.

Most support requests about filter are from users that did not even notice it was a per account listing or realise that the filters were actually for a particular account.

We cannot read the screen for them...

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 2: Resize indicator in lower-right corner of Windows 10 native dialogs (File-Open)

Richard, on windows, resizeable dialogs usually have a visual hint in the lower-right corner to indicate that they can be resized. Can we do the same for resizeable Thunderbird dialogs?

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

.

Comment 6

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #2)

Can anyone enlighten me how to reset the dialog to default size, short of reinstalling and possibly new profile?

Delete or rename the xulstore.json in your profile. With newer versions there will be a xulstore folder.

Comment 7

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #4)

Created attachment 9167474 [details]
Screenshot 2: Resize indicator in lower-right corner of Windows 10 native dialogs (File-Open)

Richard, on windows, resizeable dialogs usually have a visual hint in the lower-right corner to indicate that they can be resized. Can we do the same for resizeable Thunderbird dialogs?

No, toolkit removed the resizer.

Comment 8

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Attachment: 1656648-messageFilter-size.patch

Changing in the dialog the width to min-width prevents it to shrink it too much. I gave the searchBox a max-width. Flexing with mixed XUL (menulist) and HTML (searchBox) doesn't work correctly and giving the max-width makes the searchBox not grow too much.

Comment 9

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Comment on attachment 9167473 [details]
Screenshot 1: Filter dialog smallest possible size - search box too big

See my patch.

Comment 10

[Matt]

I think if it can be achieved the account selector should be on its own line. Users do not really get the fact that filters are per account. Because of that lack of general knowledge, anything that highlights the actual account selector would be a good thing in my opinion. While it is not a big support topic, it is a case of the user interface is not really intuitive enough.

@Thomas, In reply to your comments about resizing. I had to shrink the Dialog to put the screenshot into this bug, I automatically just dragged the dialog. Then though it was a poor interface if I needed to do that as there is nothing special about my 8 year old system except it's growing age.

@penglab Given your comment 7. Is there any visual indication of which dialogs can be resized? Or is it just try it and see?

Comment 11

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

The only visual indication is when you hover the window border the mouse pointer changes to a left/right- or up/down arrow. And this is on all sides.

Comment 12

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Comment on attachment 9167482 [details] [diff] [review]
1656648-messageFilter-size.patch

Review of attachment 9167482 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think this is good.

Comment 13

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Comment on attachment 9167482 [details] [diff] [review]
1656648-messageFilter-size.patch

[Approval Request Comment]
User impact if declined: the filter list editor can be too small to show enough of the account name
Testing completed (on c-c, etc.): on the way to c-c
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): low

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/01493100c994
Set a min-width for the message filter dialog and a max-width for the searchBox. r=aleca

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9167482 [details] [diff] [review]
1656648-messageFilter-size.patch

[Triage Comment]
Approved for beta

Comment 16

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 80.0b2:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-beta/rev/e2c6058f62df

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Comment on attachment 9167482 [details] [diff] [review]
1656648-messageFilter-size.patch

[Triage Comment]
Approved for esr78

Comment 18

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 78.1.2:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr78/rev/752d8f312c22