1760692 - Implement `Select all addresses in {To|Cc|Bcc etc.}` and `Select all addresses` from pill context menu (mouse equivalent of [2x] Ctrl+A)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1686949 +++

Selecting all recipient pills in composition is a most basic and useful action (e.g. to move all pills from Cc to Bcc) which is currently very hard to do with mouse only (and easy but not discoverable with keyboard: press Ctrl+A once or twice).

Actual:

• Selecting all pills (of the same type, or of all types) is very hard with mouse only: You'd have to Ctrl+click on each and every pill to select all of them.

Expected:

• The most straightforward and very discoverable way of enabling this functionality for mouse users is via the pill context menu:
  • Select all addresses in {To|Cc|Bcc etc.} (select pills of the current address row)
  • Select all addresses (select pills of all address rows)

(For comparison: In a text input, you can right-click on a word and choose Select All from context menu, which will select the entire text. So we're using the same pattern for pills here.)

This bug seeks to remove the bottleneck for mouse users with an easy implementation.
We can cover main menus and Bug #1686949 (select all from empty address input's context) later as that involves overriding the existing traditional toolkit/command menuitem for Select all, which is harder to implement, and unrelated to what we need here.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: 1760692_selectAll.diff

Simple patch.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: Pill context menu with `Select All Addresses [...]` actions added

Screenshot with patch of attachment 9268785 [details] [diff] [review] applied.

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Comment on attachment 9268785 [details] [diff] [review]
1760692_selectAll.diff

Alex, this implements the two menu items which you proposed (see below) for the pill context menu.
See attachment 9268787 [details] for a screenshot with the patch applied.

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] from bug 1686949, comment #3)

Indeed, Ctrl+A is the way to go and it's super useful the double press to select all pills in every recipients.
I think we can definitely implement something in the context menu of the recipient fields, maybe a couple of items like:

• Select all addresses in "FIELD_NAME"
• Select all addresses

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Comment on attachment 9268785 [details] [diff] [review]
1760692_selectAll.diff

Hey, hell yeah!
This is a great usability addition, great work!

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Bug 1760692: Implement `Select All Addresses in { $type }` and `Select All Addresses` on pill context menu. r=aleca

This enables the basic and important scenario of selecting all recipient pills
in composition for mouse users. The existing keyboard equivalent is pressing
Ctrl+A once or twice.

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Ready to land! I like moz-phab! :-)

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/3f33c93e81a7
Implement Select All Addresses in { $type } and Select All Addresses on pill context menu. r=aleca

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Thank you Magnus for landing this!

Verified working correctly on 100.0a1 (2022-04-04) (64-bit), Win10.