306551 - popuplist is too small in filter manager dialog - usability blocker

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-DE; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050717 Firefox/1.0.6
Build Identifier: Version 1.0+ (20050825) - Mozilla1.8 branch and trunk

The account/folder popuplist in the filter editor dialog is too small. From the
first folders level on the names are croped. If you've to choose a folder in a
deeper level, it could become impossible to do so.

This should be be fixed in trunk AND branch Mozilla1.8

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Tools > Filter...
2. Create a new filter
3. As action choose to copy or move the messages
4. Open the popuplist to choose an account/folder to move/copy the messages in

You'll see, the list is too small.

To increase the dialogs size has no effect on this popuplist.
Actual Results:  
We get a too small account/folder popuplist.

Expected Results:  
Maybe we should get a list with submenus for each level (e.g. have a look into
the new folders dialog).

The list must not be too small.

Comment 1

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

BTW: this is a regression introduced by the new filter editor UI. 

Thundebird 1.0.x used submenus in the popup for the account/folder tree.

Comment 2

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

Attachment: screenshot showing too small popuplist

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

This is controlled by the .ruleactionitem { min-width: 15px; } in the themes.
You could bump it up to 20em, but that would make the other lists silly.
Or you could just hardcode a larger width for that list in searchWidgets.xml

Comment 4

[Scott MacGregor]

we'll figure something out for the 1.5 release here.

I'm in favor of either hard coding a wider width for just this list box.

Comment 5

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

I'm working on this.

At this moment I've been creating a new class in the related CSS for this
menulist. I've been able to increase the size.

But I don't understand, why "min-width" seems to work like max-width???

Comment 6

[[e-mail]]

That particular widget doesn't have a preferred width, which is why we have to
give it a minimum width for it to have any sort of width at all.

Comment 7

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

Patch v1 is only a workaround. It adds a new id="FoldersList" for the
folderstree menulist. For both themes (qute + pinstripe) the related CSS
increase the min-width from 15em up to 35em.

I don't understand, why the min-width style sets the maximum size for this item?
Using the patch, the menulist has a minimum size of 15em up to the maximum size
of 35 em. We could increase the size to more than 35em - what do you think mscott?

Using this patch, it's possible to have 10 levels visible in the popuplist (the
folder icons are visible - not the complete folder names).

Later we should have a more flexible popuplist or the old submenu foldertree
(see Thunderbird 1.0.x).

---
BugZilla doesn't recognize my attached patch file - it tells there wouldn't be a
file?! So here is the patch:
---

Index: mail/themes/qute/mail/filterDialog.css
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/mail/themes/qute/mail/filterDialog.css,v
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -r1.4 filterDialog.css
--- mail/themes/qute/mail/filterDialog.css	11 Aug 2005 18:51:12 -0000	1.4
+++ mail/themes/qute/mail/filterDialog.css	31 Aug 2005 21:18:09 -0000
@@ -83,3 +83,7 @@
 .ruleactionitem {
   min-width: 15em;
 }
+
+#FoldersList {
+  min-width: 35em !important;
+}
Index: mail/themes/pinstripe/mail/filterDialog.css
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/mail/themes/pinstripe/mail/filterDialog.css,v
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -r1.4 filterDialog.css
--- mail/themes/pinstripe/mail/filterDialog.css	11 Aug 2005 18:51:12 -0000	1.4
+++ mail/themes/pinstripe/mail/filterDialog.css	31 Aug 2005 21:18:50 -0000
@@ -93,3 +93,7 @@
 .ruleactionitem {
   min-width: 13em;
 }
+
+#FoldersList {
+  min-width: 35em !important;
+}
Index: mailnews/base/search/resources/content/searchWidgets.xml
===================================================================
RCS file:
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/search/resources/content/searchWidgets.xml,v
retrieving revision 1.4
diff -u -r1.4 searchWidgets.xml
--- mailnews/base/search/resources/content/searchWidgets.xml	16 Aug 2005
17:42:07 -0000	1.4
+++ mailnews/base/search/resources/content/searchWidgets.xml	1 Sep 2005 04:52:53
-0000
@@ -497,7 +497,7 @@
 
   <binding id="ruleactiontarget-folder"
extends="chrome://messenger/content/searchWidgets.xml#ruleactiontarget-base">
     <content>
-      <xul:menulist class="ruleactionitem">
+      <xul:menulist id="FoldersList" class="ruleactionitem">
         <xul:menupopup class="folderTargetPopup"
oncommand="SetFolderPickerElement(this.getAttribute('uri'), this.parentNode);"/>
       </xul:menulist>
     </content>

Comment 8

[[e-mail]]

(In reply to comment #7)
>I don't understand, why the min-width style sets the maximum size for this item?
You're probably used to setting a max-width on a DIV in the HTML block model.
The XUL box model is completely different and not always obvious!

>   <binding id="ruleactiontarget-folder"
extends="chrome://messenger/content/searchWidgets.xml#ruleactiontarget-base">
>     <content>
>-      <xul:menulist class="ruleactionitem">
>+      <xul:menulist id="FoldersList" class="ruleactionitem">
In XBL files, only bindings should have ids. Change the class name instead.

Comment 9

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

Attachment: Patch - version 2

Patch v2 uses a new CSS class instead of a new ID and it includes the CSS for
Seamonkey.

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 194650 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch - version 2

Given the default size of the filter dialog it might possibly make sense to use
a smaller width say 25em; also it's not my best ever favourite class name ;-)

Comment 11

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Given the default size of the filter dialog it might possibly make sense to use
> a smaller width say 25em; 

The 35em are used as a MAX width not a fix width. The menupopup is scaled
between 15 and 35em. We should not use a smaller width.

>also it's not my best ever favourite class name ;-)

Propose a favourite class name - I'm a user, not a software engineer...

Comment 12

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: screen shot on Windows XP without the patch

this widget already looks wide enough to me on Windows XP. Is this a font or a
platform specific issue that makes it look like you have less width?

Comment 13

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> this widget already looks wide enough to me on Windows XP. Is this a font or a
> platform specific issue that makes it look like you have less width?

I'm using Win XP Pro SP-2. Standard font, Standard font size, Standard silver
skin, NO skin tool. Thunderbird is using the default theme. Don't know why it is
too small, but I believe I'm not the only one having this problem.

Using KDE 3.3 in SUSE Linux 9.2, the widget shows more levels.

There is no obvious regression using my patch, so we should check it in?

Comment 14

[Scott MacGregor]

I see this same problem on the Mac. The widget is too small.

I think this new size is too big though. I'll figure out the right size to use
once beta 1 is wrapped up. 

Comment 15

[Alex Ihrig [:Thunderbird_Mail_DE]]

Scott, why shouldn't we give users the possibility to have 35 em? It is used as
a max-width.

I can't understand your concerns.

Comment 16

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: better fix

I like this fix more. It keeps all of the filter action target elements with
the same width (now 20 ems) intead of having the folder picker using a
different width than the rest of the elements.

I then made a new style rule for the filter action type menu list as it doesn't
need to be as wide.

Comment 17

[Scott MacGregor]

Comment on attachment 197103 [details] [diff] [review]
better fix

approving for the branch. no impact to firefox.

low risk for seamonkey mail and thunderbird.