270227 - Three Thunderbird REALLY neds, solves oversights...

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Joe Rotello]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; Maxthon; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: version 0.9 (20041103)

Tue Nov 16, 2004
11:12 AM MST
 
Thunderbird (TB) Email .9 report....
Build: version 0.9 (20041103)
 
I am going to replace Outlook Express 6 with this product...HOWEVER...
 
1. Thunderbird .9 has a terrible, terrible mistake / feature totally 
overlooked that WILL cost users of all levels perhaps hours of wasted time 
on "big Email files.'
 
TB has NO idea of how to RE-READ Email left on the server...making it 
currently impossible to (example situation) download all the Headers (as in 
account settings, Fetch Headers only) from the Email server, THEN go back and 
RE-DOWNLOAD any or all the Email in full(!)
 
Yes, you can click on EACH header'ed Email and complete the download for a 
full version of THAT PARTICULAR one, but you can't re-download any or all of 
the Email again from the server...this process is usually called Re-Retrieve 
Mail or Re-Get Item, etc.
 
Apparently, presuming you option to "Leave Mail on Server...," TB .9 feels 
that once you download headers, you can't easily and simply re-download any or 
all of the Email over again, in the same software session or in a new session, 
etc.
 
Those users with large Email lists on the server will waste hours doing this 
by hand, and this definite-need is rather frequently seen.
 
ALSO, Fetch Headers Only, Fetch New Headers Only / Etc. NEEDS to be an upfront 
icon or tool that is easily accomplished. Why it's buried so deeply right now 
makes little sense.
 
2. The download Email option needs to add one more target for the incoming 
Email, something like "Send incoming mail to folder of your choice..." an 
option that's more than the nice-but-limited list of choice targets already 
given. At times, users need to direct incoming Email to THEIR choice of 
folders.
 
3. TB needs to add a display field (under Select Columns to Display button) 
of "Item Count" as doing so is very handy at times. Many other Email tools 
show this column with a simple "#" as a sortable by header.
 
Of course, the above fixes / ideas need to be reflected in the Mozilla 
combined product as well.

== end ===

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.




Would sincerely appreciate establishing a dialog with a Mozilla / Thunderbird 
decision maker. I have been and am in the computer / technology / writing 
industry for 34 years.

Joe Rotello
Voice: 520.747.8901 (Tucson, AZ)
EMail: [e-mail]

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

First stop:
  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/bugwritinghelp.html

Note in particular the part that reads "One bug per report."


(In reply to comment #0)
> 1. [...] TB has NO idea of how to RE-READ Email left on the server...making it 
> currently impossible to ... download all the Headers ... THEN go back and 
> RE-DOWNLOAD any or all the Email in full(!)
>  
> Yes, you can click on EACH header'ed Email and complete the download for a 
> full version of THAT PARTICULAR one,

Multiple header-only messages can be retrieved by selecting the messages you 
want to fetch, then:
  File | Offline | Get Selected Messages
No, that isn't very visible.  In the Mozilla suite, that same option is also 
available in the Thread Pane context menu.


> but you can't re-download any or all of the Email again from the server...

Do you mean "re-download" mail where only the headers have been downloaded, or 
re-download mail that's already been *fully* downloaded?  If the former, see 
above.  If the latter, why would you need to?


> Apparently, presuming you option to "Leave Mail on Server...," TB .9 feels 
> that once you download headers, you can't easily and simply re-download any or 
> all of the Email over again, in the same software session or in a new session, 
> etc.

"Leave mail on server" is separate from and orthogonal to "Download headers 
only".  The latter option is used for cases where you're accessing the account 
with multiple clients.


> ALSO, Fetch Headers Only, Fetch New Headers Only / Etc. NEEDS to be an upfront 
> icon or tool that is easily accomplished. Why it's buried so deeply right now 
> makes little sense.

It's buried because it's somewhat of an expert option.

 
> 2. At times, users need to direct incoming Email to THEIR choice of 
> folders.

That's what message filters are for.  It's true that you can't simply create 
filter for *all* messages coming in from an account -- bug 66771 -- but there 
are simple workarounds for that.


> 3. TB needs to add a display field (under Select Columns to Display button) 
> of "Item Count" as doing so is very handy at times. Many other Email tools 
> show this column with a simple "#" as a sortable by header.

"Item count"?  In the Folder pane, there *is* a Total count column (as well as 
an Unread count column) which shows the number of items in the folder.  In the 
Thread pane, there is a Total column which shows the number of items in a 
thread, when thread or group views are used.