1829728 - Missing target account/folder path information to disambiguate `Move|Copy to > Recent|Favorites > Inbox|Foldername` - e.g. menu tooltip or extended menu label

Status: ASSIGNED

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1798374 +++

• Users have no way of telling apart different target folders with same folder name from Move|Copy to > Recent > ... menu for reusing those targets.
• Problem is worse for users with large, similar folder structures (IT support etc.) who are most likely to use this ux-efficiency feature to avoid re-digging into deep folder structures.
• Same for Move|Copy to > Favorites > ... by analogy.
• We need to add information to disambiguate the targets, e.g. a tooltip on the target folder menu items.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Have two folders with same name (may or may not be in different accounts), e.g.

• Account 1 > Inbox and
  Account 2 > Inbox
• Account 1 > Project 1 > Planning and
  Account 1 > Project 2 > Planning

2. Move one message into the first twin folder
3. Move another message into the second twin folder
4. Look at Message > Move|Copy to > Recent > ... with an intention of reusing a specific recent target folder

Actual results:

• Ambiguous multiple target folders with same name and no way of telling them apart:

  Move|Copy to > Recent > Inbox
                          Inbox
                          Planning
                          Planning

• No way of knowing the account the target folder belongs to
• No way of knowing the folder path for different folders with same folder name on one account
• User confusion and perceived dataloss when due to impossibility of disambiguation, wrong target folder is used, then messages are not found in the expected target folder

Expected results:

• target folders of Move|Copy to > Recent > ... should not be a lucky guessing game
• user needs to have a way of knowing the full folder path including account name for each target folder to be able to tell apart different folders with same name

Suggested simple, light-weight fix:

• Add a tooltip with the full account/folder path to each target folder menu item.
  • Advantages:
    • Maintain slim UI (folder name only)
    • Keep implementation simple, and fix the worst part of this problem fast
  • Disadvantages:
    • Still need to hover each target to find out the details.
• Perhaps we could use status bar, but tooltip seems better (in-place).

Exploring other/complementary ways of fixing this:

• Afasics, most other ways of fixing this would involve adding text directly into the UI.
  • labels between the target folder menus, e.g. account name
  • account name into the target folder menus
  • adding (some) folder info into the target folder menus (??)
• Richard L. has explored some such solutions in his Bug 1829710 Comment 0.
• Such solutions will be harder to implement and may cause significant UI bloat which defeats the purpose of simple ux-efficiency. Consider long folder paths, long account names etc.
• Highlighting target account/folder in folder pane would be nice, but also not easy to get the behaviour right, as target may scrolled out of view, collapsed etc.

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Alex, what do you think?

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #0)

Suggested simple, light-weight fix:

• Add a tooltip with the full account/folder path to each target folder menu item [under Move|Copy to > Recent|Favorites > ...]
  [snip]

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Yes, a tooltip for those menu items might work.
Not sure if it works also for macOS, something to explore.

Comment 5

[vm5926358626575912v]

I'm having the same problem with TB v115.9.0 .

My Recent (Copy/Move To) list contains:

forename - operator@...
forename - operator@...
forename - operator@...

My forename is located 4 or 5 times in the operator's hierarchie. Which one is which?

That's why I renamed some "done" folders into "done_prj", but that does not work in all cases.

If the whole tree is known to TB at the time an entry is added to the Recent list, there might be an easy (cost efficient) way to determine an unique part among all the tree for the name of the entry. Maybe abbreviated.

Comment 6

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

Attachment: Bug 1829728 - Disambiguate folders with the same name in 'Recent Destinations' and 'Favorites' submenu. r=#thunderbird-front-end-reviewers

If the submenu contains multiple folders with the same name, show the full path
for them. Only append the account name if they are from different accounts.
Limit the path to 48 characters by inserting an ellipsis.

Comment 7

[Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw]]

Attachment: Bug 1829728 - Comment only. Improve documentation for FolderUtils.getMostRecentFolders(). r=mkmelin

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/3e7419325a66
Comment only. Improve documentation for FolderUtils.getMostRecentFolders(). r=mkmelin