234121 - Change wording of "Mark message read..." pref

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Karthik]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: 

I donot want my mails to become READ when I click the mail record.  Even though 
the setting "Mark as Read after _ seconds" is OFF, when i click on a mail and 
go to next mail, my previous mail gets READ.  This should not happen.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Mark Peek]

This as bugging me as well. Here is a patch which will not mark messages as Read in the preview pane. 
To minimize backward compatibility complaints, this uses the "Mark message read after displaying for 
X seconds" checkbox checked with 0 seconds as a way to invoke this behavior. In other words:

If "Mark message read" is unchecked, it will immediately mark the message as read.
If "Mark message read" is checked and the number of seconds is 0, do not mark the message as read.
If "Mark message read" is checked and the number of seconds is >0, mark the message read after that 
many seconds.

Index: mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.js
===============================================================
====
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.js,v
retrieving revision 1.56
diff -u -r1.56 mailWindowOverlay.js
--- mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.js      26 May 2004 06:31:46 -0000     1.56
+++ mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.js      6 Jun 2004 20:49:32 -0000
@@ -2090,9 +2090,11 @@
     if (msgHdr && !msgHdr.isRead)
     {
       var wintype = document.firstChild.getAttribute('windowtype');
-      if (markReadOnADelay && wintype == "mail:3pane") // only use the timer if viewing using the 3-
pane preview pane and the user has set the pref
-        gMarkViewedMessageAsReadTimer = setTimeout(MarkCurrentMessageAsRead, 
gPrefBranch.getIntPref("mailnews.mark_message_read.delay.interval") * 1000);
-      else
+      if (markReadOnADelay && wintype == "mail:3pane") { // only use the timer if viewing using the 3-
pane preview pane and the user has set the pref
+        var interval = gPrefBranch.getIntPref("mailnews.mark_message_read.delay.interval");
+        if (interval)
+          gMarkViewedMessageAsReadTimer = setTimeout(MarkCurrentMessageAsRead, interval * 1000);
+      } else
         MarkCurrentMessageAsRead();
     }

Comment 2

[Patrick]

This might be a duplicate of bug 75866 but then the latter should be reopened as
it doesn't work as intended.

(In reply to comment #1)
> If "Mark message read" is unchecked, it will immediately mark the message as read.
> If "Mark message read" is checked and the number of seconds is 0, do not mark
the message as read.

Well the actions for the two options should be reversed shouldn't they? It's not
logical to me to say that an when option called "Mark message read" is not
requested, it will actually mark the messages as read.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Bug 75866 comment 87 implies that using "0" to turn it off was not implemented 
even before this UI was available.

I agree with Patrick, reversing the sense of the unchecked box would make a lot 
more sense from UI standpoint.

Comment 4

[Mark Peek]

Attachment: Patch to reverse the sense of "Mark Message Read..." checkbox

I agree. I actually re-coded the change and have been running this in my tree
for a while. It will "break" some people on upgrade but I'd rather do it right
before 1.0.

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Reopening -- the WorksForMe was accidental.  Sorry!

Mark, if you're going to submit a patch for review, it should include the entire 
delta -- both what you have in comment 1 and this new bit of code.

> It will "break" some people on upgrade but I'd rather do it right
> before 1.0.

Which people exactly will that break for?  I assume it would be possible to 
leave the sense of the preferences as they are, but tweak the UI to reflect the 
different meaning of the checkbox, but that's a lot more work.

Comment 6

[Mark Peek]

Attachment: Updated Mark Message Read patch to include correct defaults.

The current default behavior in Thunderbird is:
    If "Mark message read" is unchecked, immediately mark the message read.
    If "Mark message read" is checked, mark the message read after that many
seconds.

My comments in #1 above only hold for the patch in #1. However, as stated in
comments #2 and #3, this is not intuitive. I came to the same conclusion and
reworked the patch in #4. That patch will have this behavior:

    If "Mark message read" is unchecked, do not mark the message as read.
    If "Mark message read" is checked, mark the message read after that many
seconds. If seconds is 0, it will be marked as read immediately.

Please note that patch #4 is the entire patch and is independent of the patch
in #1. However, I did forget to include a change to the defaults to be
compatible with the existing default behavior (Mark message read immediately).
A new patch is attached.

As to your last question, if people have not changed their defaults they will
have "Mark message read" unchecked. Their behavior will change from having
messages marked as read immediately to not having them marked as read at all. I
agree that changing the sense of the UI is too much work (especially for a
pre-1.0 product). Applying the latest patch will make it much more
maintainable.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

First, I don't think you're going to get approval for a change that reverses the 
behavior in existing profiles, especially for people who are running with the 
defaults.  You're going to have either reverse the behavior of the UI, or 
provide new code on installation to examine the preferences and change them to 
provide the same behavior as for earlier builds, for *all* users -- which I 
think is even harder to do.

Second, it is not clear to me that the simple logic change has no side effects, 
nor that it even works for all cases.  (1) A message in the standalone window is 
supposed to be marked as read immediately, but it looks like you're always 
leaving it unread.  (2) Does setting a timeout of 0 really prevent the message 
from being read?  I'd rather see an explicit check for 0 in the code, and never 
set up a timer with zero.

Comment 8

[Genady]

On my installation, if the checkbox is cleared the message is marked as read
when shown in preview. If the checkbox is set, and I enter some very large value,
eventually the messages is marked read (about after few hours, disregarding the
number of seconds I have entered).

This  is really annoying.

Comment 9

[Genady]

I forgot to mention that I'm using Thunderbird 0.9

Comment 10

[Rusty]

(In reply to comment #0) by----> Rusty ([e-mail])

I am using Version 1.0 and it is performing the same way.  If I set the timer 
to 0, it still marks it as read???  Is there a fix for this?  I would like 
to 'preview' a message without it marking it as read.

> I donot want my mails to become READ when I click the mail record.  Even 
though 
> the setting "Mark as Read after _ seconds" is OFF, when i click on a mail and 
> go to next mail, my previous mail gets READ.  This should not happen.

Comment 11

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

No, there has been no change.

The workaround is to check the box and put a large number in the field.

Comment 12

[Doug Wright]

*** Bug 262252 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Doug Wright]

*** Bug 273688 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Doug Wright]

*** Bug 267813 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Bug 231428 implemented (in the suite) a tweak to the UI for this feature -- the 
checkbox function has not changed, but the label now more accurately reads:
  [] Delay marking message read for [nnn] seconds

Stefan, could you port that tweak to TB?

Comment 16

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #15)
> Stefan, could you port that tweak to TB?

Sure.

Comment 17

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Attachment: Patch

Port of the patch for Bug 231428 to TB. I also removed the full stops at the
end of all checkbox labels (in other dialogs of TB and the Suite there are none
after checkbox- or radiobutton-labels either except for those multiple-sentence
long labels of some i18n options).

Comment 18

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 175031 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

thank you Stefan.

Comment 19

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Patch checked in. This change should make it clear that you need to enable this
option and enter a high number of seconds (not 0) to prevent TB to mark messages
as read automatically.

Marking FIXED.

Comment 20

[Genady]

What is the max number of seconds that can be entered?

Comment 21

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #20)
> What is the max number of seconds that can be entered?

2147483647 (~ 68 years)

Comment 22

[Genady]

No matter how large is the value I enter, the message becomes marked as read 
after less than a day (never tried to measure exact time). I use TB 1.0.

(In reply to comment #21)
> (In reply to comment #20)
> > What is the max number of seconds that can be entered?
> 2147483647 (~ 68 years)

Comment 23

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #22)
> No matter how large is the value I enter, the message becomes marked as read 
> after less than a day (never tried to measure exact time). I use TB 1.0.


Probably this is because the int pref value is multiplied with 1000 here:

http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/mailnews/base/resources/content/mailWindowOverlay.js#2145

So the number I told you causes an overflow. If I'm correct this time 2147483
should be the largest possible number of seconds you can use (~24 days). Can you
test this again? Thanks! :-)

Perhaps we should add a test before the multiplication with 1000 to avoid the
overflow.

Comment 24

[Genady]

I will try it for several days.

Comment 25

[Roland]

Hrmm... as far as I can tell - this bug is not fixed either way (my Thunderbird
version is 1.0.2)

If I set the amout of time to 0, it marks the message immediately read on preview.
If I uncheck the setting in the preferences, it still marks the message as
unread immediately.

As an enduser I'd expect that whenever I uncheck the setting that says "Mark
messages read...", it should no more mark messages as read.
When checked, the number of seconds should govern the delay of marking messages
as read (0 intuitively translating to "immediately")

I'd ask to reopen the bug and rename it to reflect the issue more apropriately
(eg."Allow disabling of automatically marking messages as read on preview").

Comment 26

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #25)
> Hrmm... as far as I can tell - this bug is not fixed either way (my Thunderbird
> version is 1.0.2)

This bug was only fixed on the trunk (what will become Thunderbird 1.1). The
1.0-branch only gets fixes for critical bugs (e.g. security bugs).

Comment 27

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #23)
> (In reply to comment #22)
> > No matter how large is the value I enter, the message becomes marked as read 
> > after less than a day (never tried to measure exact time). I use TB 1.0.
> 
> Probably this is because the int pref value is multiplied with 1000 here:
> 
> So the number I told you causes an overflow. If I'm correct this time 2147483
> should be the largest possible number of seconds you can use (~24 days). Can
> you test this again? Thanks! :-)
> 
> Perhaps we should add a test before the multiplication with 1000 to avoid the
> overflow.

xref bug 226551.

Comment 28

[Ekhart]

"Wait 88888 seconds before marking a message as read" marks it as read after 2-3 seconds.

Entering 77777 seconds leaves it unread for a long time, presumably for the correct equivalent of 21.6 hours. 
1.5 (20051201)

Comment 29

[Ekhart]

forgot to add:
Used to have 999999 or larger (7 or 8 digits), and today TB suddenly (again) forgot and refused to remember the setting. When this problem occurred in the past (often), restarting TB helped, but not anymore.

Now even 99999 and 88888 (5 digits) are too large. Largest value that consistently works is 77777 (5 digits).

Comment 30

[Pete Riley]

I've given up trying to find a magic number for the mark-as-read timeout value because I no longer think that there is one that always works.

Instead, I now manually comment out the following lines in mailWindowOverlay.js (it's in messenger.jar/content/messenger) every time that I install a new version of Thunderbird:

1) Search for these comments:
        // we just finished loading a message. set a timer to
           actually mark the message as read after n seconds
2) Comment out everything up to (but not including) the next
   commented section (which is in regard to MDN)


It's a little painful but it's 100% reliable!  :-)

Also, the new version of WinZip makes it relatively easy to edit the file inside the JAR file without the need to manually unzip and re-zip anything.  Nice.

Comment 31

[Ilya Konstantinov]

Changing summary to indicate what this bug finally achieved. If you're like me and like to mark your messages as read manually, watch bug 297534.

Comment 32

[Genady]

(In reply to comment #30)
the problem is that the .js file uses unix encoding.
it's a little painful to edit it on windows, but the proposed solution 100% works.
I can't really understand why there is no option that would fix this problem
once and for good. :(