302102 - can't select to/cc/bcc/reply to/etc with single-key alpha keystroke from keyboard

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, defect)

Description

[philiptdotcom]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

Can't select to/cc/bcc/reply to/etc with single-key alpha keystroke from
keyboard!!  ARGH!!

Once again, go back to Netscape 4.76 to see how this should be done correctly...

(P.S. -- see various other details that came to light during writing of "steps
to reproduce")

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Thunderbird

2. File | New | Message

3. type a "to" address

4. hit the down-arrow key (OOPS! here's another issue: <tab> or <enter>
should--but doesn't--take you to the next address line!!  ONCE AGAIN, SEE NS4.76
for the way this should be done!!  (Too bad many of the excellent features of
that product have been lost in recent "upgrades"!)  "Down-arrow" is a pain in
the butt, because it's not a "natural" keystroke, AND the down-arrow button is
NOT in a standard place on all keyboards).

5. hit <shift><tab> (which, BTW, does NOT--and should!--highlight the "To:" field)

6. hit <c> (for cc:) or <r> (for reply to:) or <b> (for bcc:)/etc.: nothing
happens.  Again, you MUST use the down arrow key various numbers of time, and
you must visually pay attention to the info on the screen in order to select an
option; this is a real pain because it diverts one's attention from the issue at
hand (typing) and is difficult-at-best to "learn"; allowing a SINGLE ALPHA
keystroke to do this function is much more intuitive and efficient.

PLEASE HELP!
Actual Results:  
nothing (see detailed comments)

Expected Results:  
automatically taken user to oft-used/expected logical next location, then
allowed single alpha keystroke to select appropriate option

Thanks for your consideration of this.  This kind of thing is why I have used
NS4.76 mail up to this point (and why I'm considering going back to it!!).

Comment 1

[philiptdotcom]

Oh, BTW, another thing:  if you DO click down-arrow and select one of the
to/cc/bcc/etc. options, then hit the TAB key, it does NOT save your selection! 
This just makes a bad thing worse; it forces the user to add yet another
extraneous and non-intuitive keystroke to a process that is already cumbersome.

Comment 2

[zug_treno]

Related to/duplicate of Core bug 119192?

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

While I appreciate the frustration of the UI not working as expected, the rule 
is:  ONE PROBLEM PER BUG.  
And the other rule is: SPECIFY WHICH BUILD YOU'RE USING.

> 4. hit the down-arrow key (OOPS! here's another issue: <tab> or <enter>
> should--but doesn't--take you to the next address line!!

<enter> *does* move the focus to the next address line; <tab> moves the focus to 
Subject.  I have not encountered any problem with this in dozens of different TB 
builds.  If these aren't working for you, my first suspicion would be that 
you've got some sort of extension installed that's interfering with the normal 
behavior; try Safe Mode and see if the problem still persists.

The arrow-keys, on the other hand, behave inconsistently; see bug 244512.

> 5. hit <shift><tab> (which, BTW, does NOT--and should!--highlight the "To:"
> field)

This is known; see bug 301465, and see bug 184811 comment 5: if you add those 
CSS rules to userChrome.css, you'll get a better, focus-indicating appearance 
of the dropdown widget.

> 6. hit <c> (for cc:) or <r> (for reply to:) or <b> (for bcc:)/etc.:
> nothing happens.

I'm guessing, from this report, that the bug is filed against a 1.0.x build. 
This problem has been fixed, but you'll need to use a nightly build, or wait for 
TB 1.5 to be released.  That problem was actually a core issue -- it was a 
problem in Firefox dropdowns, too.  Somewhere there is a TB bug that was filed 
aginst this problem, which I think was duped to a Firefox bug.


(In reply to comment #2)
> Related to/duplicate of Core bug 119192?

Related but I think not a dupe -- as I recall, the problem persisted in Fx/Tb 
after 119192 was fixed.  I could be wrong about that... and it could be that the 
fix for 119192 in fact also fixed the Firefox bug.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

No response from reporter => Invalid