Closed Bug 1661953 Opened 4 years ago Closed 4 years ago

TB 78: Edit as new - unable to add or change recipients [using TB 68 methods]

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: otto.peter, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:79.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/79.0

Steps to reproduce:

clicked "edit as new" / CTRL-E on existing email

Actual results:

I could not change the recipient, or add new ones

Expected results:

I want to be able to edit the recipient as in any new message. I think that was always possible in earlier versions?
I might be wrong about the purpose of "edit as new", but what I use it for is to re-send messages with typos in the destination address, or when I want to send the same email to another person. I now have to copy-and-paste the email body in that case. I -never- want to send an "edit as new" email to the same address again.

Thanks Otto for providing this feedback.
We have completely redesigned the addressing area, so things now work a little bit different.
Fortunately, detailed documentation for the new addressing area is available in English [1] and currently being translated into other languages.

I think Otto was trying to use exactly TB 68 use patterns:

  1. place cursor after last recipient, press ENTER expecting new row for another recipient to be created - FAIL (because in TB78 that will just move the focus).
  2. place cursor after last recipient, cursor-left to edit that recipient - FAIL (because in TB78 that will just select the recipient item aka recipient pill, but you cannot immediately edit that).

Here's how it works now in TB 78:

  1. New in TB78: With cursor after an existing recipient item, just type another recipient in the same row, then press Enter to confirm that. All recipients of same type now conveniently grouped in the same input field.
  2. New in TB78: Each recipient is an item (which allows easy selection and action on one or multiple recipients), and you need to use one of the following ways to edit a recipient item:
  • press Enter
  • press F2 (Windows only)
  • double-click
  • right-click on recipient item and choose Edit from context menu

These changes achieve massive benefits wrt ux-efficiency and ease of use. You'll soon love them!

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/addressing-email/

Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 4 years ago
Component: Untriaged → Message Compose Window
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Summary: edit as new - recipient → TB 78: Edit as new - unable to add or change recipients [using TB 68 methods]
See Also: → tb-pills

In my opinion, this is really strange behaviour. Certainly no gains in ease of use that I can see right now, as everything is more complicated.

...and requires special knowledge!

(In reply to Otto PETER from comment #2)

In my opinion, this is really strange behaviour. Certainly no gains in ease of use that I can see right now, as everything is more complicated.

Well, new things are always "strange"... cars, microwaves, messages on phone (remember pager devices?), the internet... There's a learning curve in everything which comes with change. That said, users of many other email applications or webmail out there would find the old Thunderbird addressing area "strange", where recipients of all types can be mixed randomly and each recipient occupies its own row...

(In reply to Otto PETER from comment #3)

...and requires special knowledge!

Well, if you have a cursor after a recipient item, that's the traditional indication of "Type here" - so lacking other options, you can only try typing there and will then succeed.
Similarly, if you find that recipients are no longer plain text, but selectable items, general computing knowledge has it that there are very few ways of interacting with items:

  • If click-to-edit fails (wish we had that, but my wish hasn't been granted), the next thing to try is double-click, isn't it?
  • Keyboard equivalent (and well-known for default action) is Enter.
  • Alternatively, F2 on Windows is also quite regular for editing the name of items like renaming files in Explorer.
  • Right-click for context menu is also a very standardized way of interacting with any particular element on your screen (or context menu key on Windows).

That said, if you have specific ideas how to improve discovery without adding permanent clutter, pls share them.
We have Bug 1647654 - Show keyboard shortcuts on recipient pill(s) context menu

See Also: → 1647654
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