1795807 - Nested mailing list contained in another mailing list wrongly displayed and editable as a regular contact

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Marc Auslander]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:105.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/105.0

Steps to reproduce:

Created an address list. Created a second list one of whose entries is the first list. While viewing the second list in the address book, clicked on the contained first list name in the second containing list display.

Actual results:

A bogus address entry was displayed for the first list name showing the first list name as an email address.

Expected results:

The containing list should be displayed as a list.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Confirming for TB 102.7.1 (64-bit), Win10, also on Daily 111.0a1 (2023-02-09) (64-bit). Already broken on TB 91, but now even more exposed.
Nested mailing lists are a very powerful feature especially for enterprises and organizations, so we should continue to support this and make it work properly. Maybe it's not too hard to get this right - hopefully we could use the same/similar algorithm that displays a mailing list between other contacts correctly and use that for the mailing list display, too.

STR

• Create two mailing lists List 1 and List 2 and populate with a contact each (probably not needed, but let's avoid potential artifacts from empty list).
• Edit List 1 and use autocomplete to add List 2 as a member of List 1.
• Select parent List 1 in the directory pane (similarly broken in the contacts list of the AB containing List 1)
• In the contacts list of List 1 members, select child List 2 and look at its list entry and display in contacts pane; try Edit as well.

Actual result

• Child List 2 (contained in List 1) is wrongly styled like a regular (person) contact in the list of List 1 members.
• Child List 2 (contained in List 1) wrongly displays like a regular (person) contact with a pseudo "email address" in the contacts pane.
• Edit of child List 2 (contained in List 1) presents the Edit form of a regular (person) contact in the contacts pane. Perfect recipe for confusion and errors.

Expected

• Child List 2 (contained in List 1) should be still be styled, displayed and be editable as a mailing list.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: Nested mailing list looks and acts like a plain vanilla person contact

Here's a screenshot: Nested mailing list looks and acts like a plain vanilla person contact.

Comment 3

[Marc Auslander]

In case it's relevant bug 1795118 is also about nested mailing lists and maybe the issues interact in some way.

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Marc Auslander from comment #3)

In case it's relevant bug 1795118 is also about nested mailing lists and maybe the issues interact in some way.

Thanks!