1745833 - Subscribe with large shared folder tree should open collapsed

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[tomdereub]

Attachment: Capture.PNG

Steps to reproduce:

In my company, we have a lot of shared folders (public folders).

Actual results:

When we want to subscribe to a new folder, the folder tree is expanded, so it's a pain to search the folder we want to subscribe. It's impossible to collapse all.

Expected results:

We want that the folder tree starts all collapsed, so it would make much easier to navigate in it.

Comment 1

[tomdereub]

Up ? Is there some development on public folders, or is it a feature in some way abandoned in thunderbird ?

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to tomdereub from comment #1)

Up ? Is there some development on public folders, or is it a feature in some way abandoned in thunderbird ?

Don't understand your question

Comment 3

[tomdereub]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #2)

(In reply to tomdereub from comment #1)

Up ? Is there some development on public folders, or is it a feature in some way abandoned in thunderbird ?

Don't understand your question
This issue is 3 years old without answer, and the public folders functionality is really hard to use for us on thunderbird :

• this bug with folder view not collapsed, and no search bar
• difficult to rename/deplace/delete any public folder (we have to do this in command line on server side, with scripts that update any user subscription)
• no possibility to automatically subscribe subfolders of a subscribed folder

Outlook has a "shared folders" functionality that is much better.

So I'm wondering if there are other people than my company that are using public folders ? If yes, is there some ways to make it work easier ? Is there some development planned in thunderbird to make it better ? Or is it used by too few users and so it's not the priority ?

Comment 4

[gene smith]

I'm sure there are users using "Public (shared)" and "User" folders (I hear from them occasionally) but sound like it works for you but the main problem is the subscription dialog. Apparently there has been some changes in the dialog since you posted your capture.png in comment 0.
There is no way to select multiple folders and subscribe (or unsubscribe) just selected ones now. That feature used to be present but now there is no "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" buttons.
Also, the search feature labeled "show items that contain:" is no longer present. However, it appears that it was disabled for imap even with tb versions < 100. Maybe search in subscribe dialog currently only works for nntp, not sure.
Not sure about the rename/delete issue. Maybe it requires the ability to set the ACL for the folder which tb definitely doesn't support (maybe there's an addon?).
I'm sure it's possible to show the folders in the sub dialog collapsed. This is how the folder list for selecting offline sync now displays. But not everyone would want that; or maybe a config option or another dialog control would be needed so user can choose to show expanded or collapsed.

Comment 5

[gene smith]

From comment 3:

no possibility to automatically subscribe subfolders of a subscribed folder

FWIW, I found this bug while looking for info for another bug I was working on regarding subscriptions (Bug 1992248). I wanted to select a long list of folders and subscribe and and unsubscribe them all. Now I have to click the check mark on each individually even though I can still select a range with click then shift click or randomly with ctrl-click. Found that the subscribe/unsubscribe buttons that did this in the past were removed here since they were deemed "not needed", "confusing" and "a design rough edge": Bug 1710319.
With the feature that was removed you could select any combinations of folders and set them subscribed or unsubscribed.
This didn't support "automatic" subfolder subscribe but makes it fairly easy to select the subfolders to sub or un-sub.

Comment 6

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

(In reply to gene smith from comment #5)

From comment 3:

no possibility to automatically subscribe subfolders of a subscribed folder

FWIW, I found this bug while looking for info for another bug I was working on regarding subscriptions (Bug 1992248). I wanted to select a long list of folders and subscribe and and unsubscribe them all. Now I have to click the check mark on each individually even though I can still select a range with click then shift click or randomly with ctrl-click. Found that the subscribe/unsubscribe buttons that did this in the past were removed here since they were deemed "not needed", "confusing" and "a design rough edge": Bug 1710319.
With the feature that was removed you could select any combinations of folders and set them subscribed or unsubscribed.

Just press the space key after multi-selecting folders. But you are right, there should be at least a "Toggle" button to provide this functionality without having to use the keyboard.

Comment 7

[gene smith]

(In reply to Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw] from comment #6)

Just press the space key after multi-selecting folders. But you are right, there should be at least a "Toggle" button to provide this functionality without having to use the keyboard.

That occurred to me too before I read your comment but hadn't tried it. Tried it now and it toggles the checked selections. Thanks!
I guess that's fairly standard UI behavior but I had forgot about it.