1899653 - Adjust account settings screen for Exchange Web Services

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, task)

Description

[Sean Burke [:leftmostcat]]

Account Settings currently assumes that all incoming mail accounts are associated with an SMTP account for outgoing mail. Accounts configured with EWS do not have any association with an SMTP account (or any separate outgoing mail account). As a result, the "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" field (see attached settings.png) on the main settings screen is invalid and has no effect. At present, the settings editor for SMTP accounts does not expose any configuration which would need additional accommodation when configuring an EWS account.

Additionally, EWS uses a complete HTTP(S) URL for accessing the remote server, while all other protocols use a hostname/port pair. As such, the hostname/port fields in the "Server Settings" page have no effect (see attached server.png) and the remote server for EWS cannot be configured from the account settings screen.

Comment 1

[Sean Burke [:leftmostcat]]

Attachment: settings.png

Comment 2

[Sean Burke [:leftmostcat]]

Attachment: server.png

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Right, it really should be an "use incoming server details as outgoing" kind of configuration.
But, OTOH, the account should allow selecting an SMTP server on the list for outgoing as well. I don't think it's unusual for companies to have a separate SMTP server even if they use Exchange for incoming.

Comment 5

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Exchange Account Settings.png

Something like this could be added for more specific exchange settings.

• make out going server settings less specific to SMTP
• Add exchange server settings.

Comment 6

[Brendan Abolivier [:babolivier]]

(In reply to [e-mail] from comment #5)

Created attachment 9441995 [details]
Exchange Account Settings.png

Something like this could be added for more specific exchange settings.

• make out going server settings less specific to SMTP
• Add exchange server settings.

I think featuring the Exchange server this way is a good idea. Regarding the outgoing server, considering EWS uses the same config for incoming and outgoing messages, I would (for EWS account specifically):

• hide the outgoing server config by default
• add a checkbox with a label like "Use a different server for sending messages"
• when the user ticks the checkbox, we show the outgoing server settings (and hide them when the checkbox isn't ticked)

How does this sound?