1829737 - Threading: quick way to have unthreaded as default using mailnews.default_view_flags

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, enhancement, P3)

Description

[david]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/112.0

Steps to reproduce:

This was reported by this thread:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1411596#answer-1577179 The post is that the steps to undo threading make Thunderbird out of compliance with ADA. I am a SUMO volunteer and posting it here to ensure the accusation receives appropriate review by those authorized to make decisions on the issue.

Actual results:

This is a potential compliance issue.

Expected results:

What is proposed to exist is a simple, one-click means to undo threading as default.

Comment 1

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

There is already a way to apply the current message list view to all accounts.
In table view, click on the column picker > Apply current view to... > Folders and its children...
And select the account you want to apply the same view to everything.
That will be the new default.

Comment 2

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

There's also the other more brute-force approach which is to open the config editor from the settings and set mailnews.default_view_flags to 0.
That will make every folder unthreaded by default.

Comment 3

[llavegrifa]

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] (PTO Nov 1 - 15) from comment #2)

There's also the other more brute-force approach which is to open the config editor from the settings and set mailnews.default_view_flags to 0.
That will make every folder unthreaded by default.

Sorry to contradict but: This isn't working.

Comment 4

[llavegrifa]

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] (PTO Nov 1 - 15) from comment #1)

There is already a way to apply the current message list view to all accounts.
In table view, click on the column picker > Apply current view to... > Folders and its children...
And select the account you want to apply the same view to everything.
That will be the new default.

Not a good solution:
I have 1000+ folders half for incoming and half for outgoing mail and they have different configurations. Applying this protocol would spoil half of them.

Comment 5

[Elizabeth Mitchell]

(In reply to llavegrifa from comment #3)

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] (PTO Nov 1 - 15) from comment #2)

There's also the other more brute-force approach which is to open the config editor from the settings and set mailnews.default_view_flags to 0.
That will make every folder unthreaded by default.

Sorry to contradict but: This isn't working.

In 122 (current daily), setting the flag to 0 does override any folders that have not been customized at any point. Which version are you using (so I can test it there)?

However, if a folder has been customized, that folder retains its settings. It would be hard to know which folders have been customized.

In my opinion, there needs to be a quick way to reset a folder to the default view. There also needs to be a quick way to reset all folders back to the default view.

Comment 6

[david]

To further clarify, setting mailnews.default_view_flags to 0 only sets NEW folders to unthreaded. ALL existing folders, whether customized or not, remain threaded. (Yes, I verified this by setting up a new Thunderbird, set up accounts, changed the mailnews setting to 0, and all folders remained threaded.) In the year since threaded was made the default, this has been the most despised, cursed, feature posted on SUMO. People set up several accounts and only then discover that all their folders are threaded. I even created a video to help clicking through resetting all folders in all accounts and that has been only partially successful. Users are also complaining that they shouldn't have to dig into the config editor to reset options that appear on menus. We need a GLOBAL setting to reset threading.

Comment 7

[david]

I also propose that the title of this bug needs to focus on the issue, not a hoped-for, quickie, solution. The users' request is to be able to change all folders to unthreaded. A title of 'how to' achieve it may misdirect effort.

Comment 8

[llavegrifa]

(In reply to Elizabeth Mitchell from comment #5)

(In reply to llavegrifa from comment #3)

(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] (PTO Nov 1 - 15) from comment #2)

There's also the other more brute-force approach which is to open the config editor from the settings and set mailnews.default_view_flags to 0.
That will make every folder unthreaded by default.

Sorry to contradict but: This isn't working.

In 122 (current daily), setting the flag to 0 does override any folders that have not been customized at any point. Which version are you using (so I can test it there)?

However, if a folder has been customized, that folder retains its settings. It would be hard to know which folders have been customized.

In my opinion, there needs to be a quick way to reset a folder to the default view. There also needs to be a quick way to reset all folders back to the default view.

I'm using TB 115.5.1 (64-bit). An the problem is that I have hundreds of folders with different configurations. THerefore I cannot use the "copy to all" because it would solve the problem for only a fraction of them.
BR

Comment 11

[G. R. Main]

(In reply to david from comment #6)

To further clarify, setting mailnews.default_view_flags to 0 only sets NEW folders to unthreaded. ALL existing folders, whether customized or not, remain threaded. (Yes, I verified this by setting up a new Thunderbird, set up accounts, changed the mailnews setting to 0, and all folders remained threaded.) In the year since threaded was made the default, this has been the most despised, cursed, feature posted on SUMO. People set up several accounts and only then discover that all their folders are threaded. I even created a video to help clicking through resetting all folders in all accounts and that has been only partially successful. Users are also complaining that they shouldn't have to dig into the config editor to reset options that appear on menus. We need a GLOBAL setting to reset threading.

I concur.
In Thunderbird 128.5.0esr (64-bit), setting mailnews.default_view_flags to 0 ONLY SETS NEW folders to unthreaded. We need a setting to GLOBALLY set all EXISTING folders to UN-THREADED.

Comment 13

[david]

When I opened this bug back in 2022, I was still learning about Thunderbird, and thought what I reported was doable within Thunderbird. Now (as a user and not a developer), my inference is that there is no facility within Thunderbird to do global changes, whether to reset threading, reset column views, and any other options that may apply at the mail folder level. Still, this has been the most disliked feature of Thunderbird since threading was declared the default with release 102 (in my opinion from SUMO experience), and some ability to address this will help many of our users.

So, since adding a global-reset feature to Thunderbird doesn’t seem to be a possibility, would it be feasible to develop a standalone utility or an addon that might be able to scan the many msf files and apply the needed changes? Not being a developer, I don’t know whether this would work, but providing the ability to ‘change all’ settings for mail folders seems to be a needed service. On SUMO, I have seen users switching to Betterbird for the one feature of unthreading being the default. Thanks for listening.

Comment 14

[David]

The other issue here is, if there is no global change capability, DON'T go making unadvised global changes (such as converting ALL folders to thread-based display)!!

Comment 15

[david]

I see there are two Davids here. My apologies for any confusion. To the David who just commented, there were NO unadvised global changes done. Thunderbird has defaults that apply when the user creates a new folder, but does not change current folders. Please also refrain from aggressive or accusatory comments; this is a forum for sharing ideas.

Comment 16

[David]

Several releases ago Thunderbird explictly changed ALL folders to display by thread rather than individual messages. This is the change that necessitates the GLOBAL FIX for this problem.
\

Comment 17

[G. R. Main]

I concur. When Mozilla forced me from "Release" To "ESR" back last summer, they GLOBALLY RESET ALL of my folders to "Threaded".
As to "Aggressive" or "Accusatory" comments, that is the only way to get the "Developers" to pay attention to actual problems

Comment 18

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

You are mistaken. The defaults for new folders changed, nothing else. If it changed on any other folders that would be due to some bug or missing/corrupt .msf file for the folder (=> creating a "new" one necessary).

Comment 19

[David]

With that version ALL of my existing folders changed to display as threads.

Comment 20

[David]

(In reply to david from comment #15)

I see there are two Davids here. My apologies for any confusion. To the David who just commented, there were NO unadvised global changes done. Thunderbird has defaults that apply when the user creates a new folder, but does not change current folders. Please also refrain from aggressive or accusatory comments; this is a forum for sharing ideas.

This is demonstrably incorrect -- ALL of my existing folders changed to display as threaded with this version.

Comment 21

[G. R. Main]

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #18)

You are mistaken. The defaults for new folders changed, nothing else. If it changed on any other folders that would be due to some bug or missing/corrupt .msf file for the folder (=> creating a "new" one necessary).

No Mistake!
My copy of Thunderbird was functioning perfectly until Mozilla pushed me to the ESR version. That caused ALL of my folders to be GLOBALLY RESET TO THREADED!

Comment 22

[David]

NO MISTAKE !!

ALL of my folders changed to display as threaded !!

Comment 23

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I occasionally see columns change with no action on my part. (But I haven't paid much attention to whether threading changes.) So I believe it is possible for the threading and columns to change when the folder repair/reconstruction is flawed.

However, if it is happening/happened globally and not according to our spec, then it needs to be investigated, best in support or a new bug report.

Comment 24

[G. R. Main]

This begs the question; How many bug reports must we file before the developers pay attention?

Comment 25

[David]

This was PRECISELY what my original ticket was written about. If this current bug report is not that issue, PLEASE REOPEN my original ticket.

Comment 26

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to David from comment #25)

This was PRECISELY what my original ticket was written about. If this current bug report is not that issue, PLEASE REOPEN my original ticket.

Your ticket is Bug 1911157 - Please revert Thunderbird to displaying conversations as unthreaded by default OR providing a global setting. So I think it is correctly the same as this bug.

Sometimes the frustration is about this bug - easy access to a default. But sometimes this conflated with folders which change threading. https://mzl.la/3DK2XBn lists a mix of both.

Comment 27

[David]

Yes, that's the same thing. The problem is that a Thunderbird release CHANGED ALL my folders to be thread-based conversations, so I asked for a way EITHER to revert to previous folder settings OR to allow me to make the change myself.

I don't know any other way to ask for a solution to this problem.

Comment 28

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Please be kind

I would kindly ask everyone to please be patient and supportive of the developers.
We're only 13 desktop developer maintaining an application used by 11+ million monthly users. We get hundreds of bug reports per day and there's only so much we can do, and unfortunately things slip through the cracks or get put in the backlog because of lack of resources.

The problem

The core of the problem is, as usual, how this whole architecture was implemented on the first place.

• New folders are created with the default prefs of the application.
• Changing a folder config (thread, sorting, etc) only affects the single folder and nothing else.
• Because of this here's no easy way to apply the same config to every folder all at once.
• Furthermore, there's no easy or intuitive way to apply a configuration to only specific folders in batch.

Some of those operations can be done via the context menu of the table view header, but that's not very intuitive and it has been proven unreliable.

The new default

We changed the new default to always be threaded.
For those of you that saw their folders suddenly change, that's due to the fact that those folders didn't have any user-changed configuration, therefore they get what the pref is set to.

• Disclaimer: this is also sometime unreliable because if the user opened one of those folders in the past, the old flags were already stored so changing the pref doesn't affect anything.
• We changed this default because a threaded view is what the majority of the users expect. We have data confirming this with new user adoption and retention going up for the first time in 12 years. All other email applications have threaded emails by default and not having it was mostly alienating new users.
• We understand that this is super annoying and frustrating for existing users, we apologize and we will work on a solution.

Some workarounds

Apply the current config to another folder or batch folders
In table view, click on the column picker > Apply current view to... > Folders and its children...
And select the account, or a parent folder, you want to apply the same view to everything.

Use the menuitem
When you stumble upon a folder that you want to be unthreaded, use the menuitem View > Sort by > Unthreaded.
That will apply the new setting and maintain it for that folder.
Super annoying to do this if you have even a dozen of folders, so this is definitely for a one off.

Use the thread pane header
Click on the Message list display options button in the thread pane header and access the Sort by > menuitem to change things.

Change the pref
In the config editor you can change these 2 prefs to 0:

• for Mail/RSS/... (nsMsgDatabase) mailnews.default_view_flags
• for News (nsNewsDatabase) mailnews.default_news_view_flags
  Apparently this solution doesn't work reliably...fun...

The real solution

As usual, the more permanent and reliable solution is to rebuild this thing and build it in a way that makes sense, so that's what we're gonna do.
This is a generic plan of action.

A single place to change everything

• Having a dedicated Appearance section in the settings to change the default threading, sorting, etc, of all the folders.
• Allowing to edit the configuration of a single folder without affecting the global settings.
• Implementing a more intuitive "Apply this configuration to other folders" with an easy batch selection of the folders to affect.

Most likely the first intervention will be to:

• Prevent flags from being stored when a folder is opened and only store them when the user actually changes them.
• Expose that pref to the UI.
• Implement tests so we don't break it anymore.

Timeline
As I wrote at the beginning, we're a few devs dealing with a lot of things, so we can't commit to a deadline for this yet because, even if it's annoying, there are workarounds to mitigate the issue and this problem is not causing dataloss or inability to use the application.

We apologize with the delay and we thank you for your patience.

Comment 29

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Attachment: Bug 1829737 - Expose the default folder sort and view type options in the UI. r=#thunderbird-front-end-reviewers

Comment 30

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Small update with some discoveries and a change of plan.

It turns out that the current structure of the DBViewWrapper for the folders heavily relies on settings all those flags (thread, sort, view type, etc) when a folder is opened. Preventing those flags to be stored when a folder is opened causes a series of rendering issues and makes the folder unusable.
Refactoring the DBViewWrapper is too large of an effort and a bit out of scope for this, so...change of plans!

• I will first tackle the implementation of the UI to globally control the default folder settings (thread, sort, view type, etc).
• These settings will automatically affect newly created folders.
• I will then add a button to "Apply settings to All Folders" to enable a batch-apply-to-all actions.
• At last, will add a button to "Choose which folder to apply these settings to..." which will open a folder picker dialog, allowing users to choose which folders to affect.

These additions should give enough flexibility to fully control the state of old and new folders, as well as exposing these important preferences in a simple and intuitive UI.

Cheer me up and send good vibes, hoping to get this done in a few weeks!

Comment 31

[David]

Thanks for the update! Good luck with these changes.

Comment 32

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Attachment: Screenshot 2025-01-10 143703.png

The initial UI is completed and those menu lists actually change the default preferences.
Now it comes the tricky part of creating proper functions for those buttons.

Comment 33

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/72509f81f51b
Expose the default folder sort and view type options in the UI. r=arschmitz,freaktechnik,laurel

Comment 34

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Release Note Request
[Why is this notable]: Implement a new "Appearance" section in the Settings for better UI control
[Suggested wording]: New "Appearance" Settings UI to globally control message threading and sorting order.

Comment 36

[david]

If I may offer a compliment: I opened this bug two years ago, at a time when I knew much less about how Thunderbird works, but I was hopeful that a workable solution would evolve. Working with users on SUMO for the past two years further highlighted the value to which users place the ability to quickly and easily change sort orders of folders. For a long time, the issue seemed (to me) too complex to fix without major redesign. So, I am exuberant to see the simple, yet effective, solution that has been created, a solution that now seems obvious and intuitive. My THANKS to all the creative minds that made this possible. Thank you for making this happen.