1894591 - Improve the UI of the Grouped by sort rows in cards view

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Attachment: Screenshot 2024-05-01 173905.png

The new Group By Sort rows in Cards View have now a better visual separation from the rest of the data but a bit of extra polish is needed.

The problem shown in the attached image can be reproduced when clicking on one of that rows and then moving the focus to another area, for example the message pane.
That grey background shows a selection state that it shouldn't exist.

Proposal:

• Make those rows clickable which it should trigger the expand/collapse of that group. The chevron to the right is too much of a small clickable area for comfort.
• This will enable also the Enter keyboard shortcut to expand and collapse the child elements when the focus is on that row.
• Implement hover effect for those rows.
• Remove the selection state.

Comment 1

[fedetx]

Attachment: FT-S1

Comment 2

[fedetx]

Attachment: FT-S2

Comment 3

[fedetx]

Attachment: FT-S3

Comment 4

[fedetx]

Dear :aleca

I would upvote your proposal!

By the way, I am unable to find anything on this, but I think that your proposal could be more general all over the UI. I'll try to explain.

• Let's suppose I'm using Cards View and with threads enabled (actually my preferred view, but at least imho the most "modern" and effective one), and let's focus on the first screenshot (FT-S1).
• I now click on the card relevant to the thread (FT-S2)
• the thread gets highlighted (with a very pleasant animation now), and in the right panel I can see a preview of the list of messages (looking at FT-S2 in the right, you can see 5 rows, that is one original message plus 4 replies)

However:

1. when I click on the thread it does not get expanded automatically: should I want expand it, I have to click on the (small) "4 replies >" button!
2. also in the right panel, if I want to open a message, the only clickable area is the "sender" field, that extends from left to just before the date on the right (but it is not highlighted by any indicator, see FT-S3)

My suggestion is hence to have:

• threads that auto-expand when clicked on the originating message
• message preview on the left more "informative"

I hope my suggestion could be considered (if not yet in the backlog)

Cheers
Federico

Comment 5

[Alex Schmitz]

Attachment: Bug 1894591 - Update styling of grouped sort by headers. r=#thunderbird-front-end-reviewers

Comment 6

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

If bug 1902255 lands first, then we should add a test for this cards view layout in the new browser_dummyRow.js file.

Comment 7

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/c8905b53c97b
Update styling of grouped sort by headers. r=aleca