296781 - "delete" attachment should be "remove attachment"

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[Mr. Moose]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511

When you have an attachment and you right click that attachement, you have a
"Delete" option.  This can confuse a user in that they might think they are
deleting the file itself rather than the attachment (there are file dialog boxes
where you can delete the files themselves, not merely choose them).

Perhaps it should read "Remove Attachment", this way there is no doubt that you
aren't going to be deleting the actual file.  Someone I know complained about
this and I have to say that I was hesitated myself.

I don't know if there are any issues with style or consistency that would
require this to be "delete", but if not, "Remove attachment" or other similar
wording would probably be clearer to a person using this for the first time.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

you really are deleting the attachment from the mail message...

Comment 2

[Mr. Moose]

I know that you are deleting it as an attachment, but to some users, this might
not be clear.  That is why I'm saying use "remove attachment" or "delete attachment"

It's not a question of whether delete is accurate, but can a reasonable user be
confused by this or not.  In my opinion, they could.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

I understand your point. I'd prefer that the user be more scared rather than
less scared. If they haven't saved the attachment (and we have no way of knowing
if they have or not), when they delete the attachment from the message, it's
gone for good. (assuming this isn't a message they sent themselves, so they have
the original file)

Comment 4

[Aaron Lawrence]

This is a dupe of Bug 143415, yes? (which is confirmed)
Perhaps there is a difference between an attachment on a received message, vs a
sent one...
In any case I think it is too small an issue to worry about... 

Comment 5

[Jo Hermans]

bug 143415 is for Seamonkey, not T-bird.

Anyway, I support the change to remove, because it would make T-bird easier to
use for common users. Just like Firefox is easier than Seamonkey. It's already
difficult enough to explain the difference between 'delete' and 'detach'.

Comment 6

[gaele]

See bug 320040 point 8. Both "Delete" and "Detach" are confusing from a user perspective. I'd suggest using Remove and Move instead of Delete and Detach.

Comment 7

[Mr. Moose]

I just realized that some are referring to  a received mail.  My original descirption was not clear that the bug was only referring to  email that I was in the process of composing.

Yes, when receiving, you are truly deleting it.  When composing, you aren't deleting, you are removing it from the composition and not actually deleting the file from you hard drive.

Aaron in comment 4 was getting at this and it only refers to composition.

Comment 8

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

This is still the case on 3.0pre3. Brian thoughts ?

Comment 9

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

yeah, that makes sense for the compose window.  we shouldn't be scary in that case at all since we aren't touching the actual file; but un-attaching it.  "Remove attachment" seems like a decent phrase for this.  This should be a really easy patch to create, perfect for someone looking to get a little dirty in Thunderbird work.

Comment 10

[Jae-Seong Lee-Russo]

Attachment: Change "Delete" to "Remove attachment"

Tested on Win XP.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4pre) Gecko/20090925 Shredder/3.0pre

Comment 11

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

You need to bump the localication key too. (Make delete.label removeAttachment.label etc) Otherwise localizers can't keep up.

Comment 12

[Jae-Seong Lee-Russo]

Attachment: Change "Delete" to "Remove Attachment"

What should I do with deleteCmd.label (Edit->Delete when the attachment file is selected)?

Comment 13

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Simon ^^^ ?

Comment 14

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Ideally that should rephrase as appropriate, but i wouldn't say it's a must.

I think the label shouldn't include the word "Attachment". "Remove" is consistent with the other options, and works also when it's multi-select.

Comment 15

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

Comment on attachment 403431 [details] [diff] [review]
Change "Delete" to "Remove Attachment"

r=sipaq, but only with the obsolete entities delete.label and delete.accesskey removed as well.

Comment 16

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

The patch in this bug has a very low risk. It's a small string change (one label entity and one acesskey entity) in the message compose window that are affected here.

Comment 17

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (From update of attachment 403431 [details] [diff] [review])
> r=sipaq, but only with the obsolete entities delete.label and delete.accesskey
> removed as well.

Forget the second part. Those two entities are not unused and must remain.

Comment 18

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 403431 [details] [diff] [review]
Change "Delete" to "Remove Attachment"

a=Standard8

Comment 19

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Checked in: http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/d30d29e0cec6

Thanks to Jae-Seong Lee for the patch.