1751288 - Lost keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N to create a new contact in the new Address Book

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect, P3)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

98.0a1 (2022-01-20) (64-bit), Win 10

New Address book has lost the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N to create a new contact from anywhere in the AB (regression).

Expected

• Ctrl+N with focus anywhere in the AB window should create a new contact in the currently selected AB.
• If All Address Books or read-only AB is selected, create a new contact in Personal Address Book.
• I'm also not sure why we have lost the AB context menu entries for New Contact and New List? Would seem like a frequent thing mouse users might want to do with as little movement as possible.

Note: Imo it makes sense that Ctrl+N is context-sensitive (new msg in 3-pane, new contact in AB tab). For creating a new unpopulated message from AB, we still have Ctrl+M. We won't find a keyboard shortcut that is anywhere near as internationally intuitive for creating new contact as Ctrl+N.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Can we try to fix this soonish? Is it hard?

I'm creating dozens of contacts every day for my work in a growing enterprise (MZLA Thunderbird), and not having this shortcut really slows me down and forces me into unnecessary mouse moves and clicks, which fosters Repetitive Strain Injury Syndrom!

For keyboard-only users with screen readers, it now takes as many as 5 keypresses going through nested menus for a trivial everyday action like creating a new contact. The only way is going through file menu, not exactly intuitive:

Alt+F > N > C > C > Enter
File > New > skip [Chat Account] > Address Book Contact > Confirm

Comment 3

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Attachment: Bug 1751288 - Provide a keyboard shortcut for creating a new contact in the Address Book. r?aleca!

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/97d5a68589c2
Provide a keyboard shortcut for creating a new contact in the Address Book. r=aleca

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/031cd192a085
follow-up, fix linting. rs=eslint

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thomas, can you devise a patch without new strings for v102?

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #6)

Thomas, can you devise a patch without new strings for v102?

Yes, ESR patch is coming.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: [patch for ESR 102] Bug 1751288 - Restore keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+N for creating a new contact in the Address Book (ESR 102). r=aleca

Here's a plain vanilla patch for ESR 102, after a bit of fiddling as I don't usually do ESR patches...

Looks like we have lost the old string for the shortcut, but I think there's no problem with hard-coding the shortcut until the next ESR. In fact, this has a great cost/benefit ratio (UX-papercut), as anyone who may need to create dozens of contacts everyday in the enterprise will testify!

Comment 9

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Comment on attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review]
[patch for ESR 102] Bug 1751288 - Restore keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+N for creating a new contact in the Address Book (ESR 102). r=aleca

Review of attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, I'm okay with temporarily hardcoding the `n` in the code.
Thanks for taking care of this.

Comment 10

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Based on aleca's review in comment 9 (thanks!), kindly check in the patch of attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review] on 102 ESR. Tia.

Comment 11

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Comment on attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review]
[patch for ESR 102] Bug 1751288 - Restore keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+N for creating a new contact in the Address Book (ESR 102). r=aleca

L10n review + (sort of)

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #8)

Looks like we have lost the old string for the shortcut, but I think there's no problem with hard-coding the shortcut until the next ESR. In fact, this has a great cost/benefit ratio (UX-papercut), as anyone who may need to create dozens of contacts everyday in the enterprise will testify!

I strongly disagree with this approach. We need to get rid of the idea that it's okay to ship features "English-only".

I am okay with this one case though. I tracked down the old string, and looked at how the various languages translated it. Overwhelmingly, they used "N" for "newContact.key". (63 of 65).

The two exceptions for the old string are Armenian "Հ" and Serbian "Н".
I'll also note that the new string, Basque is using "B" and Ukrainian is using "Н".

Comment 12

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Rob Lemley [:rjl] from comment #11)

Comment on attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review]
[patch for ESR 102] Bug 1751288 - Restore keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+N for creating a new contact in the Address Book (ESR 102). r=aleca
L10n review + (sort of)

Thanks for reviewing and accepting this patch which Mike has volunteered to fix according to the books on Trunk (missing the feature I guess), and which Wayne has explicitly asked me to port to ESR102 "without new strings" (missing the feature I guess).

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #8)

Looks like we have lost the old string for the shortcut, but I think there's no problem with hard-coding the shortcut until the next ESR. In fact, this has a great cost/benefit ratio (UX-papercut), as anyone who may need to create dozens of contacts everyday in the enterprise will testify!

I strongly disagree with this approach. We need to get rid of the idea that it's okay to ship features "English-only".

Huh?? I think there may be some misunderstandings here.

• I don't know whose idea you're talking about, but it's not mine and a temporary fix (for 6 months until the proper fix lands in the next release) wouldn't carry any ideas except providing better UX to our users asap and working around the well-known problem that we claim to be unable to land new strings between releases (a stupid limitation which I have always advocated should be changed!).
• Keyboard shortcuts (as opposed to access keys) in Thunderbird (and FF too) have never really been translated. Yes in theory we have the characters (not even the modifiers) in localization, but if you were to check on all shortcuts, you'll find that 98% are matching the English template (and iiuc we encourage that).
• While there's pros and cons about localizing shortcuts, here's some benefits of not localizing shortcuts:
  • Save localizers from an endless hassle to get it right. Change Ctrl+N to Ctrl+* for your locale, and you may end up having to change the entire set, because the letters of the alphabet are limited and we're using pretty much all of them.
  • Save Thunderbird team a lot of work and hassles to deal with the fallouts/bugs when localizers get their own set of shortcuts wrong.
  • Save support and documentation loads of hassle, work, and confusion with different shortcuts for each localization.
  • Make it easier for international teams using Thunderbird to have a one-for-all set of shortcuts which they can rely on, easy to teach, memorize and document.
  • English as a worldwide lingua franca is not a bad choice for global shortcuts. Moreover, Ctrl+N actually happens to be one of those universal swiss-knife shortcuts. I'm more than happy that all my German applications, and any applications worldwide for that sake, respond to Ctrl+C for copy, Ctrl+X for cut, Ctrl+V for paste, Ctrl+N for new stuff, Ctrl+S for save, and Ctrl+P for print. That actually simplifies working with software a lot, for everyone!

I am okay with this one case though. I tracked down the old string, and looked at how the various languages translated it. Overwhelmingly, they used "N" for "newContact.key". (63 of 65).

The two exceptions for the old string are Armenian "Հ" and Serbian "Н".
I'll also note that the new string, Basque is using "B" and Ukrainian is using "Н".

Rare exceptions, I guess they are not fully aware of the consequences of having to maintain your own set of shortcuts in localization and documentation (and I wonder if they actually maintain their own documentation).

Comment 13

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

approval-comm-esr102? (Thoroughly reviewed...)

Comment 14

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Comment on attachment 9302035 [details] [diff] [review]
[patch for ESR 102] Bug 1751288 - Restore keyboard shortcut Ctrl/Cmd+N for creating a new contact in the Address Book (ESR 102). r=aleca

[Triage Comment]
Approved for 102.5.0 per wsmwk via Matrix.

Comment 15

[Rob Lemley [:rjl]]

Thunderbird 102.5.0:
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/comm-esr102/rev/b6e9b5a1d1b5