273997 - Document Thunderbird Help menus (for all types of windows)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 374257

(Thunderbird :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

Thunderbird menus are completely undocumented right now.  This needs to be
rectified, because it's perhaps the biggest absence right now (which is really
saying a lot as we have close to no docs right now).

Comment 1

[Daniel Wang]

Jeff, we could also use a dictionary-like mail setting reference, where user can
look up a keyword like "send mail" and "format" to see where preferences are
hidden (options/account settings/advanced dialogs)

Comment 2

[Daniel Wang]

Attachment: menu_reference.xhtml (partial)

partial doc, taken from Firefox Help

Comment 3

[Daniel Wang]

finish the tutorial, then port it over to Thunderbird Help...

Comment 4

[Daniel Wang]

oops, wrong browser tab. never mind what I said

Comment 5

[Jeff Walden (gone starting June 8)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Created an attachment (id=168447) [edit]
> menu_reference.xhtml (partial)
> 
> partial doc, taken from Firefox Help

Let's transfer it over into
<http://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Base>.  Take
note of the issues mentioned in the source for the page, but if it's too big a
problem, just add a note to the page somewhere where it'll be seen by other
people who modify it.

Comment 6

[David E. Ross]

Thunderbird 1.5 (20051201)

This is still a significant problem.  

When I go to the Thunderbird menu bar and select [Help > Mozilla Thunderbird Help], I get <http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/>.  This is not at all as helpful or comprehensive as the Help information I used to get with Mozilla Suite or get now with SeaMonkey.

Placing Help information on the Web rather than in the installed software is not a problem for me.  The problems are the lack of a table of contents or index, the inability to do a global search within Help, and the absence of information on all the standard menu bar and toolbar capabilities.

For example, while viewing newsgroups, the menu bar has 12 items, 9 of which are submenus.  Some of those submenus have more than 10 items.  At least one submenu itself has submenus.  This array of choices is very confusing.  I cannot locate anything at all at <http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/> regarding the View menu.  

While the Wiki at <http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Menu_Reference#Threads> is a good outline, it too lacks sufficient "meat".  If this is how this bug will be fixed, please change the link for [Help > Mozilla Thunderbird Help].  On the other hand, is this really how Help should work for an operational product in a business environment?  Or is Thunderbird only for personal, home use?  

Comment 7

[David E. Ross]

Oops!  In my comment immediately above, I meant to say (paragraph 5, sentence 1): 

"For example, while viewing newsgroups, the menu bar item View has 12 items, 9 of which are submenus."  

Comment 8

[David E. Ross]

It was recently pointed out in the mozilla.support.thunderbird newsgroup that no help is available when using Thunderbird offline.  I take back my comment "Placing Help information on the Web rather than in the installed software is
not a problem for me."  Unless an application is totally broken without an Internet connection, help information should be local to the application's installation and not on the Web.

Comment 9

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I fixed this in bug 374257 for the Thunderbird 2 release.
It has since been migrated to <http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Menu+Reference>

Comment 10

[David E. Ross]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100915 Thunderbird/3.1.4

When I go to the Thunderbird menu bar and select [Help > Help Contents], I see neither the requested documentation nor a link to it.  When I go to <http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/> and navigate to Support at <http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/support/>, I still see neither the requested documentation nor a link to it.  

Since this is an older bug than bug #374257 and since this bug report asks for something more broad than that later bug, I am reopening this one and not 374257.

Comment 11

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

* This bug is about creating documentation, not adding links to it on other pages.

* There is a link to the page on <http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/support/> in the top right corner.

* If you want a link to the menu reference added to the support.mozillamessaging.com homepage, file a bug against support.mozillamessaging.com. However, homepages are not for listing every single article in a KB. That's what <http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Article+List> is for.