267006 - UI: should not be possible to CMD/select or SHIFT/select folders in Virtual Folder picker

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Eliot Lear]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041021 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 0.8+ (20041030)

When one goes to select folders one can instead use the command key to select a
group of folders to no effect.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. File/New/Saved Search
2. Choose Folder
3. Use Command or Shift to select folders

Actual Results:  
Folders are selected in the UI but the boxes are not checked.

Expected Results:  
One of two things:  either multiple selection should not be allowed or the boxes
should be checked.

Comment 1

[Marcia Knous [:marcia]]

We reviewed this during our bug triage. This occurs in other subscription
dialogs for IMAP and news, might be expected behavior.  This would have to be
changed in several places, might be an RFE to consider down the road.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Gary, see this?

Comment 3

[Gary Kwong [:gkw] [:nth10sd] (NOT official MoCo now)]

I'm not sure this would be considered a bug; when I accessed saved search's "Choose Folder" option, I have to click the dots individually to add a tick.

If one has a small number of folders, this can be easily overlooked by ticking all the boxes individually. However, the issue comes with having large numbers of folders, and the reporter presumably doesn't want to individually press the dots on hundreds/thousands of boxes just to tick them, and instead wants to use Shift to mass-select-and-tick the folders.

Perhaps expected behaviour, should be enhancement if users are to be able to "use Shift to mass-select-and-tick" the desired folders.

Comment 4

[Eliot Lear]

In response to Comment #3, there is an actual bug.  The problem is that you aren't actually selecting ANYTHING when the folders themselves are highlighted.  One still has to check the boxes associated with each folder.  So either select them by highlighting them, or select them by checking the box, but don't give a false indication that they are selected simply because they are highlighted.

Does that make sense?

Comment 5

[:aceman]

You can select many folders (via shift/ctrl+mouse) and then press Space to tick them. Is that enough of a solution?

Comment 6

[Eliot Lear]

Sorry, :aceman, while I'm not claiming this is the most important bug, it's a bug.  EITHER you highlight or you checkbox, but don't do both.  That should be in a UI guide somewhere, and quite frankly it's pretty basic.

Comment 7

[:aceman]

I think it is better to tick checkbox explicitly because selection (highlight) is much easier to loose. If you have non-consecutive rows selected, you may accidentally click wrong and loose all your selection.

But if you suggest to only ADD ticks to rows that you select, and never REMOVE ticks when selection is removed, then I could like that.

But let's see what our UI expert says.

Comment 8

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

I think I disagree with Eliot, since selecting multiple items and letting you select or deselect them is a valuable technique for quickly changing a number of things, and in places where they don't allow you to do that, I'm frequently annoyed at the number of clicks I need to do.

(As a couple of examples, on Mac, iTunes lets you pick multiple songs, but then forces you to use the context menu to select or deselect them, whereas Finder's sidebar preferences offers no easy way to remove all the things from your sidebar.)

I would be fine with adding a context-menu to that list.  I think it would also be nice if clicking a checkmark (with multiple things selected) checked (or unchecked) all the selected things.

Comment 9

[Eliot Lear]

:bwinton, re Comment 8, my point is NOT that we shouldn't have multiple selections.  I absolutely agree that we should.  The problem here is that you can have multiple elements highlighted but not in fact checked, which leads to confusion on the part of the user. IMHO the simple solution is to get rid of the checkboxes and just use selection itself as, well, SELECTION.   Ping me directly if you want to talk so I can take you through it.

Comment 10

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Eliot: I understand, I just disagree, since it's far easier to lose selection than it should be to unsubscribe from folders.  Also, selection is more of a transitory state than subscription.  (i.e. If I select some folders in Finder, then close the window, and re-open it, the folders aren't still selected…)

I agree that the division between selecting things and acting upon them is less pronounced here than in other places, but it still exists, and has a purpose.

How do you feel about checking all the selected items when you check one of them?

Thanks,
Blake.

Comment 11

[Eliot Lear]

Blake, I agree with you that selection is more transitory, and so I could buy part of your logic.  But then in this case, selection has absolutely no impact.  I think we agree that's a bug.  As to your question, then at the end of Comment 10, it would be an improvement, but I don't think it's quite the right model.  The example I *think* we're talking about from Apple is Time Machine's exclusion list (Pref->Time Machine->Options).  Here, instead of bringing up a directory list you want a folder list.  You can use selection to add or delete (add with a directory list, delete with selection and then "-".

How does that sound?

Comment 12

[Eliot Lear]

Sorry- I meant to say "it's NOT quite the right model."

Comment 13

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

That's not entirely true.  Selection allows you to easily toggle multiple checkboxes (currently by hitting the space bar; in the proposed alternative, by clicking the checkmark).  Given that, I don't think that it's a bug, per se, although I do agree that it could be made more useful.

The example I was talking about was "Finder » Preferences » Sidebar", but I think iTunes offers a better model.  Time Machine's exclusion list is an interesting suggestion, and I think I would be up for using something like it…  (Subscribe to all folders by default, and choose the ones you unsubscribe from, to make the common case take fewer clicks, I think.)  My one remaining concern is that I can't find a similar construct on Windows (where >80% of Thunderbird's users are), so I worry that it would be unfamiliar to them.

Comment 14

[Eliot Lear]

Blake, at least now I see where you got the behavior from.  Seems like it's in the Rules configuration of Exchange.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that you actually use an exclusion model, but just to demonstrate the graphical selection box in that particular tool.  I have no opinion on that point (a rarity).  I understand your concern about Windows and the desire for cross-platform consistency.  I think you should still do this, however.  At least you'll be consistent across platforms.  Choose the best approach and move forward (he says not able to commit to coding it up).

And again, this is not my highest priority bug.  It's a nit.  A totally ANNOYING bug is 210388.