262128 - Folder pane lacks minimum width, can be made invisible

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 214361

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Hal Pawlowski]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/1.0PR

Unlike the compose screen where the left pane has a set minimum width, the
folder pane can be completely hidden by sizing to the extreme left. Just spent
two days talking a client through "finding" his folder pane because of the
difference in treatment between the two screens. Should be handled consistently.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click on the Folder/Message pane barrier, hold and move to the extreme left
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
The folder pane is gone from view and, in the case of my client, existence.

Expected Results:  
Stopped the pane resizing with some minimum visible like the Compose screen.

Comment 1

[Frank]

This can actually be a feature in some cases..

For example, in my 'Folders dropdown' extension, users 'hide' the folderpane
using the method you describe and instead, use a folder dropdown widget that the
extension puts in the toolbar ( or menubar )

IMHO, a better 'fix' would be to FORCE a grippy icon to be displayed on the
sizer bar ONLY IF the folderpane is 'hidden'.  This way, the user's eye will be
drawn to the fact that the sizer bar is click-n-dragable

Just my 0.02

Comment 2

[Galen Swint]

I just wasted four hours trying to find my folder pane, too. Can't we use F9
like MozMail apparently does (see bug <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=257001">257001</a>)?

Comment 3

[James William Cook, Jr.]

I concur.  This is a useful feature.  The pane does in fact have a minimum size; 
it's about an inch or a little more on my screen (zero not really being a width 
at all).  However, it would seem absolutely appropriate to see that little bumpy 
area and the small arrow/triangle that tells the user they can make it return by 
clicking there (or some other such method, like a Pane option under the View 
menu that would return any missing pane to its minimum size).

I guess this makes four cents.


James


(In reply to comment #1)
> This can actually be a feature in some cases..
> 
> For example, in my 'Folders dropdown' extension, users 'hide' the folderpane
> using the method you describe and instead, use a folder dropdown widget that 
the
> extension puts in the toolbar ( or menubar )
> 
> IMHO, a better 'fix' would be to FORCE a grippy icon to be displayed on the
> sizer bar ONLY IF the folderpane is 'hidden'.  This way, the user's eye will 
be
> drawn to the fact that the sizer bar is click-n-dragable
> 
> Just my 0.02

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 214361 ***