254738 - [RFE] Allow edit of unsent message (Note: real edit, not "edit as new")

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 40694

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Eyal Zvi]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040626 Firefox/0.9.1
Build Identifier: Thunderbird 0.7 - 0.8

It is sometimes necessary to correct a message which hasn't been sent yet.
Currently the only way is to open the message with "Edit As New", perform the
required modifications, select to "Send Later", and then go back to the original
message and delete it.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Compose a message and "Send Later".
2. Try to edit the message - no way.
3. Forced to "Edit As New" which creates a second message.
4. Need to delete the first message.



Expected Results:  
Allow real editing unsent messages.


The current behavior is unfriendly and counter-productive from user perspective.
Some other mail clients (eg. Outlook) let the user open a message in the outbox
for editing, and when the message is sent again it replaces the original. In
other words the original message can be edited and re-submitted to the outgoing
queue.

This is different from my other report which presents the same need but for ANY
message (which may be considered as more controversial).

Comment 1

[Florian Effenberger]

Any possibility of getting that for 1.0? It would be *MUCH* user friendlier, and
I guess 1.0 should have this!

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 277174 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Doug Wright]

marking duplicate of your more generic bug. (all includes unsent!)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 254739 ***

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I disagree with this duplication, as it is conceivable that editing *any* 
message would be WontFix'd (as Moz's model is to treat mail as an archive) but 
editing of the Unsent messages would be allowed.

Personally, I'd WontFix both RFEs.

Comment 5

[Eyal Zvi]

(In reply to comment #4)

I very much agree that those two RFE's aren't duplicates, and you nailed the
difference between them correctly.

However I think that WontFix'ing either is very wrong:

1. An archive doesn't mean read only. In the physical world you can pull a file
from an archive, add or remove papers, draw on existing papers, and then put the
file back into place.

2. Email archive should - by definition - be even more "live" than a paper
archive. The point of using computers is making information processing more
efficient and more flexible, not more restrictive.

3. On a less hypothtical note, currently there is no way to add important
information to existing emails, to correct errors, etc. This makes Thunderbird a
less effective archive. Power users who were exposed to other email clients,
such as Outlook, expect this very useful functionality.

4. As stated in the other RFE, the need isn't just to edit text, but also to
correct the encoding of messages. It is extremely annoying to have to go through
hoops every time I need to re-read a message in Hebrew.

Although I don't expect the following statement to sway developers' opinions one
way or another, the lack of message editing capabilities is the one thing
stopping me from switching to Thunderbird, despite my desire to do so.

Comment 6

[Riccardo Fusaroli]

I also agree that the two RFEs aren't duplicate.
Moreover I think that a wontfix on editing of unsent messages would be a defeat 
for Thunderbird.
It is OpenSource and Free software that listen to the real needs of users.
Making tricky to edit unsent messages is not considering users' needs.
Scenario:
I have written a message. I have decided not to send yet (i know that I'd have 
used Drafts but many people don't. moreover a problem that stop me to send 
immediatly a message could give me time to think about the message and to want 
to change its content). Now, I make up my mind to change the content of the 
message.
It is so uncommon? I've been segnalled this lack of THunderbird by at least six 
people (to which I've evangelized Mozilla ;) ).
Only my two cents.

Comment 7

[zug_treno]

*** Bug 314384 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Dersou]

So sorry, I couldn’t found this report yesterday so i created a new one...

If you work unconnected (I mostly do with my laptop) and want to change something in a mail in the "to be sent" carpet, the behaviour is very different from Netscape 4.7 and really, I don't understand the logic.

In Netscape, you just have to double click any mail in the "to be sent" carpet
and it is immediately opened in edit mode.
When you have done your modifications, you click on "send it later" and the
modified mail substitute the older one.
In Thunderbird, to do this is very complicated :
1) You have to right click the mail you want to modify and click on "Modify as a new message"
2) After the modification is done, you click on "send it later"
3) You must manually delete the former mail

Just can't understand this logic.
Could anyone help please ?
Thanks

Comment 9

[OstGote!]

For me this looks like a duplicate of the Core bug 40694.

Comment 10

[Ray Booysen]

*** Bug 320991 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 11

[zug_treno]

*** Bug 328147 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Duping to core bug.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 40694 ***