1666105 - No visual indication for recipient pills of whether a typed address is in the Address Book

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Eyal Rozenberg]

When you enter an email address that's not in the address book, it appears in red font (and this has been the case for many years IIRC). However, once it becomes a pill, there is no longer a color indication of the fact that it's not in the address book.

Now, personally, I'm not a huge fan of the red-unless-in-address-book, but this seems to be the policy. So, if I am not mistaken, it is a regression for the pill of such an address not to have some visual indication - color or otherwise - of not being in the address book.

Comment 1

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Now, personally, I'm not a huge fan of the red-unless-in-address-book

I agree with you here, not a fan of this approach either.
We decided to keep a pill red only if an address is incorrect, to warn the user of a typing error that might prevent submitting an email.
We shouldn't paint a pill red if the address is valid, even if is not in the address book.

We were thinking at some point to use different colours for different states, but we need to be careful to prevent turning the compose window in to a Christmas tree.

We should definitely explore some solutions to help the user distinguish known and unknown addresses.

Comment 2

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Not a defect as the current colouring in 78 was done on purpose.
I also updated the title to better clarify the scope of this bug.

Comment 3

[Eyal Rozenberg]

The thing is, during the typing phase, the address is marked red. I don't think it makes sense for there to be an initial indication, then for it to disappear. This is confusing.

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Indeed, that's unfortunately an inherited behavior of the autocomplete.
I think we can disable that if I'm not wrong, for sure this workflow needs improvements in various stages.

Comment 5

[Eyal Rozenberg]

IMHO the behavior shouldn't be left half-way.

Comment 6

[p≡p Project]

Not a defect as the current colouring in 78 was done on purpose.
Indeed, that's unfortunately an inherited behavior of the autocomplete. I think we can disable that if I'm not wrong, ...

From a privacy point of view, these decisions are near-fatal. Without any warning, it's more likely that private information is sent to the wrong party; in fact, it has sadly already happened in our project that confidential information was sent to the wrong recipient, a case of a dropped/additional letter, so sent to [e-mail] when [e-mail] would have been correct. Note that this is more likely to happen, when address books are not well-maintained or on a new profile without a populated address book.

As for the Christmas tree colours: There are many ways to emphasise the possible mistake, from a different font or style to a different shade of grey or pastel.

From a functionality point of view certainly an unwanted regression.

Comment 7

[Eyal Rozenberg]

pEp project: That's a good point.

What I would really like to see is:

• An "error-indicating" marking for ill-formed addresses, e.g. red font color when typing, red pill etc.
• A less-painful, "notification" marking for not-in-address-book addresses

and that should be the case in both typing and pills. But given what you (pEp project) have said I'm re-classifying this as a defect.

The first order of business is to remove this privacy pitfall, and stylistic preferences can come later.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot: 3 different pill states: Valid address from AB (grey, without indicator), valid address *not* in AB (with indicator dot in the corner), invalid address (red)

(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #7)

pEp project: That's a good point.

Indeed, I share the well-described privacy concerns of pEp project and Eyal that not having some indication that a pillified address is not in the address book is error-prone, so having such indication becomes crucial.

What I would really like to see is:

• An "error-indicating" marking for ill-formed addresses, e.g. red font color when typing, red pill etc.
• A less-painful, "notification" marking for not-in-address-book addresses
  The first order of business is to remove this privacy pitfall

Good news: This has been implemented by Alex exactly as requested here in bug 1660691 filed by myself, with helpful inputs from Magnus. The privacy pitfall has been fixed.

Comment 9

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

As explained and illustrated in my comment 8 (with screenshot), this is a bug in its own right, which has been fixed by Alex in my bug 1660691.
Thanks to Eyal and pEp project for raising this issue!