1862412 - Accessibility issue: keyboard navigating through the list of emails doesn't work when the message list is not focused

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Disability Access, enhancement, P3)

Description

[crimle]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0

Steps to reproduce:

• Click on an empty space of the list of emails
• Press either of these buttons [Home], [End], [Cursor up], [Cursor down], [Page up], [Page down]

Actual results:

None of these buttons has any effect
It is not easily possible to navigate through the mails with the keyboard (as it was the case with earlier versions of Thunderbird).
I understand that I need to click a certain email (not the empty space) in order to be able to navigate by keyboard.

Expected results:

Pressing the button [Home] should highlight the first email on top.
Pressing the button [End] should highlight the last email to the bottom.
Pressing the button [Cursor up] should move the highlight one element up.
Pressing the button [Cursor down] should move the highlight one element down.
Pressing the button [Page up] should move the highlight one page up.
Pressing the button [Page down] should move the highlight one page down.

This was the case in earlier versions of Thunderbird. It is claimed that TB 115 has enormoulsy increased the accessibility for disabled people. This may be true, but in the cases mentionned above it has become worse or the programmers have overseen something. I would appreciate very much if this feature could be implemented with one of the next releases.

Comment 1

[Elizabeth Gray [:elizabeth]]

(In reply to crimle from comment #0)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0

Steps to reproduce:

• Click on an empty space of the list of emails
• Press either of these buttons [Home], [End], [Cursor up], [Cursor down], [Page up], [Page down]

Actual results:

None of these buttons has any effect
It is not easily possible to navigate through the mails with the keyboard (as it was the case with earlier versions of Thunderbird).
I understand that I need to click a certain email (not the empty space) in order to be able to navigate by keyboard.

Expected results:

Pressing the button [Home] should highlight the first email on top.
Pressing the button [End] should highlight the last email to the bottom.
Pressing the button [Cursor up] should move the highlight one element up.
Pressing the button [Cursor down] should move the highlight one element down.
Pressing the button [Page up] should move the highlight one page up.
Pressing the button [Page down] should move the highlight one page down.

This was the case in earlier versions of Thunderbird. It is claimed that TB 115 has enormoulsy increased the accessibility for disabled people. This may be true, but in the cases mentionned above it has become worse or the programmers have overseen something. I would appreciate very much if this feature could be implemented with one of the next releases.

Hi,

Thanks for your report.

This does work in 115 when clicking or selecting an email, which you have mentioned. The buttons do work when the message list is in focus.

The problem is when clicking on an empty space and not an email. The result is that the message list is not in focus. As a result, the message list navigation keys do not work.

At this point, this works as designed. The message list has special keyboard functionality when it is in focus. But when it is out of focus, those keys don't work.

A workaround that you can use is the Tab key to focus the message list. Tabbing twice in the Table View and once in the Cards View will get you into the message list if you happen to click on the empty space.

Does the above workaround address your needs? Thank you!

Thanks for reporting this issue. We want to make the application as accessible as possible.

Something we could consider is that if the focus is inside of the message list pane, but not focused directly on the message list, the keys you mentioned would work as they do when the message list has focus. But that may or may not be a change that could be made. More research would be needed.

Comment 2

[crimle]

Hi

I appreciate sharing your thoughts. The suggested workaround is not very helpful, because I would need to press the [Tab] button several times in order to place the cursor in the messages list.

1. pressing [Tab] the cursor goes to the «Quick Filter» Icon,
2. pressing [Tab] the cursor goes to the «Display options for message bar» icon
3. pressing [Tab] the cursor goes to the «Toggle news topics» icon
   For me, pressing [Tab] four times is somehow clumsy.
   I would like to emphasize that in earlier versions of Thunderbird this has been working fine. That means: no matter where the focus was (either anywhere inside the message list pane or directly on the message list) the keys worked as expected.
   I am using Thunderbird extremely often and I have quite a number of mailboxes. I am jumping from mailbox to mailbox umpteen times a day and the lack of the reported funcionality was driving me crazy. So I went back to TB 102.15.1 which I am still using. Time and again I have to turn down the offer to update to TB 115.
   I would be very grateful indeed, if this functionality could be brought back to the new TB.

Comment 3

[Elizabeth Gray [:elizabeth]]

Thanks for your feedback.

I think we might be talking about two different parts of the application. By list of emails do you mean the list of email addresses / folders or do you mean the list of messages that belong to a particular folder? Thank you!

Comment 4

[crimle]

Attachment: 2023-12-18 Posteingang Mozilla Thunderbird.png

Comment 5

[crimle]

I am talking about the mousclicks that are necessary in order to go from one mailbox's messages list to another mailbox's messages list.
Initially, the cursor is on any email in let's assume mailbox A.
Now I want to open the email that has arrived just now in mailbox B (this happens maybe 100 times a day).
In order to do that, I need to click the folder concerned, let's assume «Inbox» of mailbox B.
For me, the fastest way to proceed is:

• click somewhere (!) in the messages list
• press [Home] then press [Enter]
  With TB 102.x this works perfectly, no matter where in the messages list I am clicking .
  With TB 115.x I need to be far more precise. If I happen to click on an email then press [Home] and [Enter] it works as usual. But if I happen to click on the white (empty) space, nothing happens when I press [Home] and [Enter].

I admit, that most people would doubleclick exactly the email they want to open and they probably do not agree with the issue I am trying to describe here. But here we are talking about an accessibility (!) issue, that is to say: an issue users with limited motor skills might be encountering. This is exactly the case for me. Using the mouse, especially double-clicking is becoming more and more a torture for my right arm and my right hand. I am experiencing pain after having worked all day long and used the mouse too often. So I prefer the keyboard as often as possible.

Comment 6

[crimle]

I just found out, that there is a similar bug Report «Bug 1859568». Maybe the description there is less detailed than here, but I think the goal is the same: reduce as many mouseclicks as possible.

Comment 7

[Elizabeth Gray [:elizabeth]]

I'll look over this information you shared. These might be different but related. Thank you!

Comment 8

[Elizabeth Gray [:elizabeth]]

This was marked as duplicate by mistake.

Comment 9

[Elizabeth Gray [:elizabeth]]

These are different, but related. Thank you!

I need to test this on Windows 11 to see the current functionality in 115. I'll update this bug once I have a chance to test this further.

Thanks for reporting this and the information you have shared!

Comment 10

[crimle]

I just re-tested this using TB 115.7.0 on Windows 11 23H2. The results are still the same. To be more specific:
The keys [Home] and [End] only work if an email has previously been selected.
People who do not click so accurately should be able to navigate to the top email in the list by using the [Home] even if the cursor focus is not on a certain email but somewhere in the email list. This happens when clicking by chance somewhere on the blank space of the email list. Typically this happens for handicapped people or people in a hurry (like me).

The [Home] key worked according to my suggestion with older versions of Thunderbird. This is the reason for me being reluctant upgrading from TB 102 to TB 115. I guess it would be a piece of cake for a programmer to assign this function to the [Home] key. And would make me happy :-)

Comment 11

[crimle]

I just re-tested this using TB 128.2.3 on Windows 11 23H2. The results are still the same.
I'm a big Thunderbird fan, but I can't get over this bug. So I am still using TB 102.15.1 where this bug is not present.
Time and again I turn down the offer to update TB.

Comment 12

[crimle]

I just re-tested this using TB 128.4.2esr (64-Bit) on Windows 11 23H2. The results are still the same.
I'm a big Thunderbird fan, but I can't get over this bug. So I am still using TB 102.15.1 where this bug is not present.
Time and again I turn down the offer to update TB.

Comment 13

[crimle]

I am happy to report, that this issue seems to be resolved. I do not know with which version the fix has been implemented. But I am on Thunderbird 143.0.1 (64-Bit) and it works.

Comment 14

[Alex Schmitz]

crimle, Thank you for the update im going to close this as fixed

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks for the updates.

We use WORKSFORME when the source of the fix is not known. FIXED is used when the patch is in the bug or the bug# which fixed it is known.