229130 - Want option to suppress Unread count in single-column Folder pane.

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[Rolf Sponsel]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

In the Sidebar of the Main Mail Window the number of Unread Mails in the folder
are always shown within parentheses after the folder Name, i.e. 'Folder name
(###)', unless one has enabled the sidebar's 'Unread' column. In other words
'Unread' doesn't honor the enable/disable of 'Unread' information displayed.

If one doesn't want this functionality it should be possible to turn it off.
Actually it seems that that has been the intention as there is a 'Unread' entry
(also for 'Total' and 'Size') that one can enable to add a 'Unread' column in
the Sidebar. The problem is that when disabling this column, the 'Unread' items
count is appended to the Folder Name within parenthesis. This clutters the
'Name' column and leaves less "width/estate" for the Folder Names (or requires
the use of a wider sidebar, which in turn leaves less ..., etc).

One more thing. If the allocated width for the sidebar is too narrow for long
Folder Names they are "truncated" in the middle, which is okay. Now, to read the
full Folder Name one can hold the pointer over the Folder Name and the name will
show up in a "Tool tip" like pop-up. But that Pop-Up is shown relative to where
your pointer entered the "Folder Name" text area, and about two lines lower.

From a usability point of view this very unfortunate, as this requires the user
to move his eyes and refocus before (s)he can read the full Folder Name. The
full Folder Name should instead expand on top of the truncated name. That, which
was a very unintrusive, was how it used to work in Netscape Communicator.
Actually this is not a particular Sidebar issue but a more general issue with
Mozilla Mail texts when the text doesn't fit in the assigned space, e.g. Mail
Subjects, etc (in which case they also must honor 'Label' colors).
Although this is trivial, I think it is very important from a usability point of
view.

I guess this should have been a separate bug report. ;-)



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Place some unread mails in a Mail Folder/Sub-Folder with a long Name.
2. Make the Sidebar "too" narrow, and enable/disable the 'Unread' column via the
drop-down menu at the upper right of the Folder Navigation Sidebar.
3. Move your pointer over the folder name and observe that the "expanded" folder
name does NOT overwrite the "truncated" folder name.

Actual Results:  
Please see details above.

Expected Results:  
Please see details above.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Yes, that second part *should* have been a separate bug report -- and in fact, 
it is:  bug 75698.  You are asking for "title tips" instead of "tool tips" for 
the folder names.

For the first part of the bug, you are asking for a change to the program as 
designed, so this is a request for enhancement.  I am updating the summary and 
severity for that.

That region in the window with the mail accounts and folders, and newsgroup 
servers and groups, is the "Folder Pane" -- the sidebar is something quite 
specific and quite different (there used to be a sidebar in Mail/News, but now 
it only exists in the browser window).

Comment 2

[Rolf Sponsel]

Thank you Mike for unwinding my "messy" use of terminology here.

It would be very useful for people who need to file bug reports if there was
something like a image map of the GUI which explained the projects standardised
terminology, e.g. via a "Tool Tip" on mouse over or on a click, on the object
who one would like to know the common name of. And a link to that GUI
Terminology page from Bug Report pages that cover "Products/Components" that
implement/make use of a GUI. Every project seems to have it's own terminology. 

Anyway.

IMHO I still think this should be considered a bug, though let it be in the
design of the UI then. Mozilla is the successor to Netscape 4.x which makes
Netscape the reference. In Netscape one has the option to enable columns for
'Unread' and 'Total' in the Folder Pane, like in Mozilla, but if one chose to
opted out the 'Unread' information it wasn't forced upon you like Mozilla does.
If it was not a bug, then the "design flaw" here would be to assume that users
are more interested in knowing the number of unread items than the size of the
folder, etc. And such an assumtion should not be made. Actually the column
feature of the Folder Pane is obviously the explicitly chosen design for
presenting 'Unread' information to the user. And the current implementatino is
neither stringent, nor inobtrusive from a user's point of view.

I've found a *temporary* work around though until this gets fixed, by enabling
the 'Unread' column and assigning minimum with to it which makes me lose only
about 2 chars.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
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If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
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Thank you for your help in this matter.

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Comment 4

[Rolf Sponsel]

Just a "ping" to let you know that this still is valid and easy to reproduce and
thus to confirm in Mozilla Application Suite 1.7.12. Most likely on any
platform. Should you need more information, feel free to ask. I'm happy to help.