Closed Bug 253964 Opened 20 years ago Closed 3 years ago

need GUI improvement for the file/copy to/move to/recent folder for selected message feature

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 350661

People

(Reporter: mkrisch, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: dupeme?)

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040706 Firefox/0.9.1
Build Identifier: Thunderbird/version 0.7.1 (20040626)

for large mail folder hierarchies, the current implementation for the file
selected message toolbar button (or the move/copy message dialog from the menu)
can be quite cumbersome, requiring the user to navigate through several layers
of menus.

evolution provides a directory tree dialog, and automatically highlights the
last folder selected.

outlook uses a similar pull down menu structure as mozilla/thunderbird, but
provides a "recently selected folders list" at the top which works also works well.

personally, i have no particular preference for the option selected, but i do
think that we need something to improve ease of use beyond the current
implementation.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.select message
2.choose the file selected message button, or
3.choose the move/copy message menu option
4.select a folder deep within a mailbox folder hierarchy
5.rinse and repeat

Actual Results:  
i got RSI

Expected Results:  
provided an easier interface to simplify access within a folder hierarchy, or
provide shortcuts to recently used folders
See also: a simple suggestion which would help in bug 249836.

Since we already have a very good GUI interface for filing messages (drag and
drop) I suggest work needs to be done on a good keyboard interface.

What I feel would help the most is somsething similar to what elm / pine / mutt
do. I used pine for many years and it is much faster for filing mail than
anything GUI I have seen. In pine I would do this:

1. Select a range of messages:

1.1. the current message selects a single message
1.2. use search to select a range of messages
1.3. indivudally select messages

2. Press S for save.

3. Type the name of the folder to save to. Tab completion works, or you can jump
to a full folder list with Ctrl-T.

I think if Thunderbird could be improved to have fast and reliable message
filing, it would be a major win for heavy email users.

Thunderbird already has many of the ingredients. 1.1, 1.2 work fine. 1.3 has no
keyboard equivalent, although Mark - Flag is almost there if there could be some
keyboard shortcut for it, or you could use a label, and then view only messages
with that label, and then select all.

Thunderbird is missing a keyboard shortcut for Move message or Copy message. It
is also missing a way to unambiguously specify a destination folder using the
keyboard. Which means to file mail using the keyboard you have to press:

Menu (key next to right hand side Windows key)
M (move)
use arrows to choose from my accounts
use arrows letters to choose mail folder folder (it's not top level in IMAP)
use arrows / letters to chose destination folder

It's fiddly and slow.

What I suggest is new keyboard shortcuts for Move and Copy message. (Move is
more important.) When pressed the user can then *type* the name of the
destination folder. Tab auto-complete should be available, as should some GUI
display. A bit like the firefox location bar. I guess a separate field should
provide a way to change accounts or move within the folder tree. Or just use
good old "/", and provide the current folder posiiton in the tree as the
starting point.

I file a lot of mail, so I have given my folders short names. I don't want a
crop down list box because it's very fiddly to use with the mouse and fiddly
with the keyboard if more than one folder starts with the same letter. I want to
be able to do:

Ctrl-S (or similar)
work

or

Ctrl-S (or similar)
personal

Thanks for your work on free software.
See also the Thunderbird Extension MailConsole for one attempt to fix the
problem. It's not been updated since release, alas. 

http://percro.sssup.it/~pit/mozilla/mailconsole/
*** Bug 223341 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
From the duplicate bug 223341:
==============================
Elderly users or people new to using a mouse are going to
find it very difficult to move a message because the command
for that is buried in submenus. It would make more sense to
have a separate menu entirely, called "Xfer". Then you
would click on Xfer->, and possibly the top level mailboxes
of the currently selected email account
could be in the menu that appeared after that, making it
much easier for people who do not find using a mouse
second-nature. This is similar to what Eudora has done, and
it is worth copying. 
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Similar issues apply to the mail folder subscribe dialog box. I have hundreds of
IMAP mail folders. I don't want to subscribe to them all in thunderbird, at
least not until the mail folder interface improves. And picking individual
folders to subscribe to is very tedious. As far as I can tell the keyboard is
completely ignored.
This is a simple solution that might help.

I just thought to try and use cut/copy/paste to transfer messages between
folders. I found though that cut/copy/paste are disabled when selecting messages.

What I suggest is something like this:

1. Select messages in the message list pane.
2. Select Cut or Copy to put the messages on the clipboard.
3. Select the destination folder.
4. Select Paste to move/copy the messages in to the destination folder.

There are a couple of snags:

* there needs to be a way to select multiple messages within a folder using the
keyboard only (at the moment you have to Ctrl-click or Shift-click)

* the general ambiguity created by the default 3 pane layout: what is "selected"
when both the folder and message line are highlighted?

* there still needs to be a fast way to move from folder to folder

Even despite those snags, it would still be much easier to move messages using
cut/copt/paste this way when using a laptop trackpad. The current drag-and-drop
or endless-cascading-context-menu methods of moving messages are very fiddly
with any serious number of messages and folders.

OS: Linux → All
Hardware: PC → All
QA Contact: front-end
Assignee: mscott → nobody
(lost for a long time I think due to inexact summary)
Summary: need GUI improvement for the file/copy/move selected message feature → need GUI improvement for the file/copy to/move to/recent folder for selected message feature
I'm inclined to say this is delivered - "provide shortcuts to recently used folders" - via bug 350661.  Do you see it differently?
Whiteboard: dupeme?
(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #10)
> I'm inclined to say this is delivered - "provide shortcuts to recently used
> folders" - via bug 350661.  Do you see it differently?

do you agree?
Yes, that was one of the alternative options in the original report. And there is also bug 546722 that would complement this.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 3 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
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