218498 - Compose window's menus confusing with two unrelated "Options" items and two unrelated "Format" items

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[Scott Brawner]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030516 Mozilla Firebird/0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030516 Mozilla Firebird/0.6

I'm just going to quote a Mozillazine forum post about this, as it explains it well:
"It is confusing to have an 'Options' menu and a 'Tools > Options...' item. They
do entirely different things but share a name. And calling a menu 'Options'
doesn't tell the user very much about what it does. All menus are full of
'options,' not just this one."

"Secondly, the items in the 'Options' menu don't seem terribly related (with the
possible exception of 'Send a Copy To' and 'Return Receipt'). I'm not sure where
these items should be placed, but they don't seems to fit together very coherently."

I will add that the same thing applies to the top-level "Format" menu and
"Options > Format". The do completely different things yet share the same name.
This is very confusing. Overall, I think the menu structure in the Compose
window is horrible and should be completely revamped.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:



Expected Results:  
The top-level Options menu should be renamed or the individual items in this
menu should be placed elsewhere and the top-level Options menu removed.

Comment 1

[Hiro]

This problem still remains.

Windows XP
version 0.9 (20041103)

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> "It is confusing to have an 'Options' menu and a 'Tools > Options...' item.
> They do entirely different things but share a name. 

This is a valid criticism.  It didn't exist under Moz because Tools|Options used 
to be Edit|Preferences (and I think still is for Linux builds of TB).


> And calling a menu 'Options'
> doesn't tell the user very much about what it does. All menus are full of
> 'options,' not just this one."

A top-level menu called "Options" in a compose window indicates to me that the 
menu contains various options about mail composition.  I don't think this is a 
problem itself, but a nonconflicting name would be better.

However, to remove the conflict, I would argue to remove the  Tools|Options  
menu.  I say the Options dialog is not necessary from the compose window, since 
once the window is open, changes to many (most? all?) of the composition 
preferences will have no effect on that window.


> "Secondly, the items in the 'Options' menu don't seem terribly related

Except for the first two, they are related -- each is a setting for the 
particular message being composed.  (I would like to see Check Spelling moved 
under the Edit menu, or Tools; and I'd like to see Quote Message removed, it's 
an obscure function whose exact operation depends on which message is selected 
in the main window -- even more confusing when there are multiple main windows.)

I would move Format to the bottom of the list; and I would change Security from 
a flyout submenu into two items on the Options menu itself:
  [ ] Return receipt
  -----
  [ ] Encrypt message
  [ ] Digitally sign message
  -----
  Priority  >
  Character encoding >
  SAVE a copy in  >          [not "send"]
  Outgoing format  >         [see below]
  

> I will add that the same thing applies to the top-level "Format" menu and
> "Options > Format". The do completely different things yet share the same
> name. This is very confusing.

Options | Format (HTML composition  only) also exists under Mozilla MailNews.  
It could be renamed to "Outgoing Format" or something; the option itself is 
confusing.



(In reply to comment #1)
> This problem still remains.

That comment is nothing but noise.  Please don't do that.
  http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/etiquette.html

Comment 3

[Matt Shook]

I agree that the menu structure is confusing, especially Options>Format.

I was looking to change the format of my e-mail from HTML to text. I naturally
looked under the menu "Format" and searched around in vain, until I found it was
under "Options>Format"

At the very least, "Options>Format" should be moved.

And the placing of "Tools>Options" makes no sense.