308660 - capability to create a new folder when creating a "move to" filter

Status: ASSIGNED

(MailNews Core :: Filters, enhancement)

Description

[Lapo Luchini]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4
Build Identifier: Tunderbird 1.5 beta1 (20050908)

When creating/editing a filter the "move/copy to" option let the user select
from an existing folder but there is no more the "new folder" button to create a
new subfolder of the existing folder. This interrupts the filter creation and
needs to exit it all, create the folder, then re-enter the filter editor and
select it.
I guess this is a matter of taste (functionality vs complexity of the UI) but I
consider this a small regression in 1.5b1 TB.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #0)
> This interrupts the filter creation and
> needs to exit it all, create the folder, then re-enter the filter editor and
> select it.

Generally speaking, you don't need to exit everything; you can simply switch 
over to the 3pane and create the folder, then switch back to the Filter Rules 
dialog.  However, if you've opened that dialog with "Create Filter From Message" 
that isn't an option, as Filter Rules is modal to its parent -- blocking the 
3pane in the CFfM case, blocking the Message Filters window otherwise.

Comment 2

[Gunnar Liljas]

I believe creating filters through "Create Filter From Message" is very common, so re-enabling this feature would be a very good thing.

Comment 3

[Stephen]

IMHO A UI regression - The UI flow for creating a new (move) filter is now
interrupted. Please restore the "New Folder" button as it made creating a
new filter/folder flow in a much more ordered fashion.

-scf

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

See Bug 294094 Comment 25, item (6).

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 330942 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Adam Guthrie]

*** Bug 348563 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

*** Bug 351180 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Ingemar Nilsson]

This is a really irritating bug. I recall the option to create a new folder directly from the create filter dialog to have been available at some point (I think it was in Thunderbird 1.0), so not having this functionality now is even more irritating than if it had never been there.

Comment 12

[Tim]

Hello,
is there some plan to integrate/re-instatiate this feature?

Comment 13

[Tim]

Hello,
what is happening with this feature request?

Why is it not possible to add this little feature to the convenience of the users?

Regards.

Comment 14

[Kent James (:rkent)]

"what is happening with this feature request?"

There has been no forward progress, and there are no specific plans to move this forward - but also no objections to moving it forward if someone wanted to do so.

aceman, this should be well within your capability. I'm changing the description slightly because when I see it I always think this bug wants a change to the filter action, but the intended change in in the filter editor UI.

Comment 15

[:aceman]

Attachment: patch

Yes, it looks like I could do it, but only because the real code was still left behind by bug 294094. I only needed to add the button again and refresh the code.

Would this work?

Comment 16

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Comment on attachment 723645 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

I don't like the way the button takes up extra space, for something that will be used at most once per action…

How hard would it be to add a menu item at the bottom of the list of folders that said "Add new Folder…"?

Comment 17

[:aceman]

Much harder than it is now. As that folder picker is used at many other places, we would need to distinguish where to allow creation of new folder and where not.

Comment 18

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

And we can't just add more entries to the bottom of it in the surrounding code?  Or somewhere in mailnews/base/search/content/FilterEditor.js?

Comment 19

[:aceman]

A new button somewhere else than the move action row is not that elegant as it does not prefill the move target with the newly created folder.

I'll see if the folder picker could get a "new folder" item.

Comment 20

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

IIRC back when creating a new folder from such menus existed, there were at least a few bugs/usability problems with it. (I believe those bugs where closed wfm after it was removed.)

Comment 22

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

realraven, author of https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quickfilters/ wrote quickfilteres does not support this but ...

"I am considering adding functionality like this though. You can manually create the filter pretty swiftly using quickfilters / quickfolders[1] though. drag to the quickMove icon enter the start of the parent name followed by a slash then start typing the (potentially new) child folder name. This movees and creates the folder in one step. With quickFilters assistant enabled it also creates the filter as well. OF course, creating folders automatically for any incoming email would have to have very stringent configurations (name after what? parent selection?)"

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quickfolders-tabbed-folders/

Comment 23

[Axel Grude [:realRaven]]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #22)
> realraven, author of
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quickfilters/ wrote
> quickfilteres does not support this but ...
> 
> "I am considering adding functionality like this though. You can manually
> create the filter pretty swiftly using quickfilters / quickfolders[1]
> though. drag to the quickMove icon enter the start of the parent name
> followed by a slash then start typing the (potentially new) child folder
> name. This movees and creates the folder in one step. With quickFilters
> assistant enabled it also creates the filter as well. OF course, creating
> folders automatically for any incoming email would have to have very
> stringent configurations (name after what? parent selection?)"
> 
> [1]
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quickfolders-tabbed-
> folders/

My new relevant bug on mozdev.org:

https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=26472

stake holders please add information there.

The original request was "autocreate Folder by sender"
https://www.mozdev.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=26471
but I relocated from QuickFolders to quickFilters because it seems the more appropriate Addon for this type of functionality.