234690 - Need UI for the hidden preference "mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads"

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[Nikunj Bansal]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040207 Firefox/0.8

Refer Bug 20385:

The resolution for this has introduced the preference
"mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads". Currently, there is no UI to set/unset
this preference.

According to me, this is important functionality as it allows to sort threads
based on the date of the newest message received. A lot of people do not know
that this feature exists in Mozilla now and hence do not switch from Outlook
which clearly has equivalent functionality.

Please make this obvious to potential and current users by adding suitable UI
that controls this preference.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Confirming. See http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=219787#c39

Comment 2

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Attachment: Patch

Adds the pref to the General section of the main MailNews pane in Preferences.
The patch also removes a separator from the groupbox that only makes the
appearance of this groupbox inconsistent with others (übertrivial bug, not
worth its own report, so included here ;-) ).

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 152240 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch

>+<!ENTITY keepThreading.label              "Keep threading when sorting messages">
How about "Preserve threading when changing sort order"? (In which case you'll
need to update your ids etc...)

Comment 4

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (From update of attachment 152240 [details] [diff] [review])
> >+<!ENTITY keepThreading.label              "Keep threading when sorting
messages">
> How about "Preserve threading when changing sort order"? (In which case you'll
> need to update your ids etc...)

Hmm, but with this wording you don't know what is sorted.

"Preserve threading when changing sort order of messages"
"Preserve threading when sorting messages"

Which is best? I like the last one most, but I'm not a native speaker.

Comment 5

[timeless]

the latter seems fine at 12:50am after riding some 8 hours starting in san
francisco. good night.

Comment 6

[timeless]

for fun, someone should decide why to use 'when' v. 'while' :)

Comment 7

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Attachment: Patch V1.1

Now using "Preserve threading when sorting messages".

Comment 8

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Comment on attachment 152449 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch V1.1

Neil: are you fine with the new wording?

Comment 9

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Comment on attachment 152449 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch V1.1

David: I was about to create a patch which adds this option to Thunderbird too,
but I wasn't sure where it should go (there is General|General Settings and
Advanced|General Settings). What do you think?

Comment 10

[Nikunj Bansal]

My personal opinion would be to put this under Advanced|General Settings in
Thunderbird.

Comment 11

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Comment on attachment 152449 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch V1.1

Seth, could you sr this? Thanks! :-)

Comment 12

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Fix checked in.

Comment 13

[Worcester12345]

(In reply to comment #6)
> for fun, someone should decide why to use 'when' v. 'while' :)

How about "after"?

"Preserve threading after sorting messages"

Comment 14

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I was about to create a patch which adds this option to Thunderbird
> too, but I wasn't sure where it should go
> (there is General|General Settings and Advanced|General Settings).

If the default is left in its current, unintuitive and arguably broken state, 
then it should go in General so it can be easy to set the CORRECT value.  :)

If the default is changed to True (checked), then it could go under Advanced; 
or, even better, it simply would become unnecessary to provide a UI.  The only 
people who want the current default behavior are those who are used to it from 
"the old days" and who care about the difference -- all of whom (I posit) are 
capable of setting an advanced preference by editing the file.

Changing the default could be a TB-only fix, too, as it's geared for the less 
technically inclined.


Incidentally, one minor nitpick about the wording of this preference: when 
unchecked, threading is not preserved only when sorting using the column 
headers.  If the   View | SortBy   menu is used, it *always* preserves the 
threading state.

Also, note there is a request to abide by this setting when resorting in Grouped 
view (bug 263571).  If/when this is done, it complicates the meaning of this 
preference even more; it would technically be
  [] Do not reset to Unthreaded when sorting messages by column-header click