305079 - System menu (the one with "close", "resize", etc) should include a shortcut to compose a mail

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Yann Coupin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; fr-FR; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; fr-FR; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6

I've been using Thunderbird for more than a year now and I still miss a function
I had while using Eudora. The main Eudora window had it's system menu altered to
add a new entry which was "Write new mail". This was great because I'm sure your
Thunderbird window is minimized 99% of the time, so whenever you want to write a
new mail, you have to restore the window, click on "compose" (or something
equivalent like "File"->"New..."->"Message"), switch back from the newly created
window back to the main window, minimize it. In Eudora all I had to do was right
click on the Eudora entry in the task bar and choose "new mail" and I could
start to write my mail. You can't say it's not simpler. Plus it's not as if it
was harder for newbies to use thunderbird with this function. 

Reproducible: Always




http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/CustomWinFormSysMenu.asp

Ok, it's .net but the important part is the API to use. It's not like if it was
hard to do ;-)

Comment 1

[u63580]

This isn't really standard behaviour - most programs leave the system menu
alone.  Wouldn't it also be Windows-specific, and therefore confusing on
switching platforms.

Comment 2

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> This isn't really standard behaviour - most programs leave the system menu
> alone.  Wouldn't it also be Windows-specific, and therefore confusing on
> switching platforms.

Well, the equivalent exists on Linux (at least in the kdm window manager which is part of KDE). I don't know about Mac. But I don't know how much leeway, if any, programs have about that menu's contents: AFAICT that menu is identical for all apps.

If your window is minimized, it's because you want it "out of the way" for the time being. When that time is over, it's easy: To get mail, click its icon to restore the window, then hit Ctrl+T or click the "Get Mail" toolbar icon (or maybe it has already got some while you were busy elsewhere). To write mail (once the window is restored) hit Ctrl+M or click the "Compose new message" icon. And so forth. In most cases, no more actions than with that hypothetic system menu change (which requires two: one to open the menu and one to click a menuitem).

I'm in favour of WONTFIX. What do you "big guys" think?

Comment 3

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

Fairly common on OS X (which would explain why Eudora/Win does it) - the Mail.app Dock menu does Get New, Compose Message, Compose Note, but there are things like NetNewsWire that go all out, letting you read subjects for unread things, mark as read, or unsubscribe from the Dock menu.

Comment 4

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

Given Phil's comment, it seems like it would be a fine thing to have for Mac, at the very least.  Adding clarkbw for his thoughts here...

Comment 5

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

Yeah, sounds like a good thing for the Mac