310527 - Option for other field to follow first "To:" field

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[Tudor Holton]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

There should be an option, let's call it "defaultSecondRecipientType", which
specifies the default recipient type that follows the initial "To:" type.
The default should be "To:" to behave as it currently does. However, in
organisations such as mine, we all use "CC:" as the second option.  It's a pain
to chage it every time, so this is a bug report to house the patches I have devised.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open New Compose window
2.Enter email address in address following "To:" field 
3.Move to next field


Actual Results:  
Next recipient type is "To:"

Expected Results:  
Next recipient type should have been something I specified as my
defaultSecondRecipientType, e.g. "CC:" or "BCC:"

Comment 1

[Tudor Holton]

Attachment: A temporary patch to change it to CC

This patch is for the file:
mail/components/compose/content/addressingWidgetOverlay.js

This is only a temporary patch.  It has a variable for the field to change it
to.
I need to learn how to get this from a prefs.js file.

Comment 2

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

It's not for me to decide if this is something wanted, but I doubt there are
enough people that would want this. It would be simple to implement it as an
extension though.

Comment 3

[Tudor Holton]

(In reply to comment #2)
> It's not for me to decide if this is something wanted, but I doubt there are
> enough people that would want this. It would be simple to implement it as an
> extension though.

True.  However I feel this switch should be more than an extension because it
makes it operationally compatible with other mail clients.   My employer's
previous mail client ONLY operated this way and I needed to convince them
quickly that it was easy enough to change.   So, IMHO, a switch in th prefs file
linked to a dropdown box in the preferences with "Second recipient type defaults
to:" and the options To (default), CC, BCC, and possibly Reply-To is a nice
trade-off in relation to clutter vs functionality and would make a nice selling
point.

I will be working towards this as I learn more about how Thunderbird interacts
with the prefs file, and how to add features to the config box, but I've spent
all of about 2 hours on it so far and this is the first time I've touched the
Thunderbird source.

While this new employer is particularly tolerant to me having to change and
compile things, I have had experiences where people respond with "What?  It
doesn't work like blah?  My previous mail client did it that way, we'll just use
that."   It would be nice to help pro-OS tech support people with little
programming knowledge by giving them options that enable them to sell the
product better to their employers without having to get dirty.

Incidentally, am I able to assign this bug to myself?  Or does it have to be
assigned to an official TB developer?

Comment 4

[Tudor Holton]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > It's not for me to decide if this is something wanted, but I doubt there are
> > enough people that would want this. It would be simple to implement it as an
> > extension though.
>

----snip ---- 
Sorry for the rant.  I just now realised you said "extension" when I read
"optional extension".  Yes, I suppose I could find a place in the extensions
section for it. :-)

Cheers,
Tudor.

Comment 5

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

->WONTFIX per previous discussion