271509 - Thunderbird needs shortcuts for Folder, Thread, and Message panes

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 311239

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Alan Tam]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

We can use F6 and Shift-F6 to move around the 4 panes, but this isn't enough. My
most frequent navigations are between the Folder and Thread panes, which is
exactly 2 keys away.

Quick search bar has Ctrl-K, so why not others?

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

The only real issue with this is that hotkeys are in short supply.  Which keys 
do you suggest?

xref bug 203386.

Comment 2

[Alan Tam]

I don't have much preference on what key combinations to use.

Imagine the following solution:
1. Add an accel key (say D) for the "Folder" word above the Folder pane.
2. Add a title for the Thread pane (say Messages) to the left of "View" and give
it an accel key (say S).
3. Optionally, remove the menulist and textbox in QuickSearch bar from the focus
ring.

Then it would have become more usable, maybe better than Ctrl- shortcuts, which
are more difficult to be discovered.

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Imagine the following solution:
> 1. Add an accel key (say D) for the "Folder" word above the Folder pane.

The 'd' above the folder pane doesn't exist if you're using the "expanded 
columns" option.


> 2. Add a title for the Thread pane (say Messages) to the left of "View"

That eats up real estate and people will complain about it.


> 3. Optionally, remove the menulist and textbox in QuickSearch bar from the
> focus ring.

That is my preference, which is why I opened bug 203386.

Comment 4

[Alan Tam]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > 1. Add an accel key (say D) for the "Folder" word above the Folder pane.
> The 'd' above the folder pane doesn't exist if you're using the "expanded 
> columns" option.
It has been my wonder for long why it doesn't exist. Just another inconsistency
in the interface.

> > 2. Add a title for the Thread pane (say Messages) to the left of "View"
> That eats up real estate and people will complain about it.
There are quite some screen space there anyway. We can move the "View" menulist
to the center, so that the left side can be left for something else.

If this proposal are not ok, we can, of course, safely just assign Ctrl- type
shortcuts for them. Just a random search for unused shortcuts shows a possible
assignment:
- Fol_d_er
- T_h_read

Btw, do we call the lower right pane in classic view "Message" pane or "Preview"
pane? I saw both words in many places. It seems that M, e, s, a, g, p, r, v, w
are all used. So Prev_i_ew is the only choice.

This is the result for Windows only. I don't know about other platforms, and
especially I wonder why shortcuts are different in different platforms!

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 6

[Alan Tam]

This is a feature request.
Comment 1 claimed that the "only" issue is choice of keys.
I provided suggestion accordingly, but w/o further followup from developers.
So what can I do further?

May anyone with sufficient privilege mark the bug "confirmed", since another
user has also voted for the bug.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Bug 311239 has been fixed on the trunk and the 1.8 (preliminary TB 2.0) branch, which implements for TB the same thing that bug 203386 did for the suite.
While it doesn't exactly fulfill this request, it does provide a bit of streamlining for shifting among panes.

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 311239 addresses the desire for fewer key presses, so duping.