323411 - [RFE] Provide "Save Attachments" option even when "Display Attachments Inline" is enabled

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Dwaine Gonyier]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5
Build Identifier: http://ftp-mozilla.netscape.com/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/1.5/win32/en-US/Thunderbird%20Setup%201.5.exe

If the "Display Attachments Inline" option is enabled, there doesn't seem to be a way to save attachments from an email message other than turning this option off. I prefer to see most attachments inline, but it is annoying to have to turn this option off if I want to save any or all attachments from message and then have to turn it back on when I am done saving.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Turn on "Display Attachments Inline"
2. View a message with attachments
3. Try to save any or all attachments from the message

Actual Results:  
Unable to locate menu or option to save attachments while "Display Attachments Inline" option is enabled.

Expected Results:  
It would be preferrable to provide a means for the user to save any or all attachments from a message regardless of the settting of the "Display Attachments Inline" option

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Is this related to your bug 323414?  If the attachment in question for this 
bug is not a vCard (which is a special case), then we need a sample message.
Save it as a .EML file and attach to the bug using the Create New Attachment link above.

Comment 2

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

xref bug 269273

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Oops -- also, xref bug 302864.

Comment 4

[Dwaine Gonyier]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Is this related to your bug 323414?  If the attachment in question for this 
> bug is not a vCard (which is a special case), then we need a sample message.
> Save it as a .EML file and attach to the bug using the Create New Attachment
> link above.
> 

I didn't make this connection earlier. Yes, the message in question was the same one with vCard attachments. I just checked other messages with an attachment (PDF or JPEG) and the detach ability is present regardless of the setting of "Display Attachments Inline".

Of course now I am confused because turning on "Display Attachments Inline" seems to only matter for vCard attachments. None of the other attachment types I have in my current pile of email seem to do anything different when this option is enabled. Perhaps I am missing something?

Either way, I apologize for not being clear about the message that spawned this bug report was in fact one that had vCards as the attachments in question.

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Of course now I am confused because turning on "Display Attachments Inline"
> seems to only matter for vCard attachments. None of the other attachment
> types I have in my current pile of email seem to do anything different when
> this option is enabled. Perhaps I am missing something?

Display Attachments Inline will show/hide attachments that can be shown 
natively -- images, text/plain and text/html, message/rfc822, vCards, and 
maybe a few others.  Any MIME part besides the message body in a 
multipart/mixed message will be listed in the attachment panel, except a 
vCard when Display Attachments Inline is turned on.

In addition, HTML messages with embedded images, when viewed as plain text, 
will show those images as attachments, but won't show them inline.

I guess the question is, do you really want to be saving the vCard as a file?
See bug 257116; I would say the vCard should always be displayed inline, 
never as an attachment, and clicking on the address-card icon (allowing 
creation of a new card in the address book) should be all you'd want to do 
with it.  But maybe not -- maybe there is a useful application for saving it 
as a file.

Comment 6

[Dwaine Gonyier]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > Of course now I am confused because turning on "Display Attachments Inline"
> > seems to only matter for vCard attachments. None of the other attachment
> > types I have in my current pile of email seem to do anything different when
> > this option is enabled. Perhaps I am missing something?
> 
> Display Attachments Inline will show/hide attachments that can be shown 
> natively -- images, text/plain and text/html, message/rfc822, vCards, and 
> maybe a few others.  Any MIME part besides the message body in a 
> multipart/mixed message will be listed in the attachment panel, except a 
> vCard when Display Attachments Inline is turned on.
> 
> In addition, HTML messages with embedded images, when viewed as plain text, 
> will show those images as attachments, but won't show them inline.
> 
> I guess the question is, do you really want to be saving the vCard as a file?
> See bug 257116; I would say the vCard should always be displayed inline, 
> never as an attachment, and clicking on the address-card icon (allowing 
> creation of a new card in the address book) should be all you'd want to do 
> with it.  But maybe not -- maybe there is a useful application for saving it 
> as a file.
> 


My situation may have been a bit unusual. I had some contact information sent to me (vCards) on behalf of someone else. I needed to import that information to an address book on another computer. I suppose I could have had them emailed straight to the destination or forwarded them, but I guess I was in the mood to copy files that day. :)

On the other hand, I could see the need to import vCards into another address book for other software, such as the desktop software for a Palm Pilot where a direct address book import is not otherwise provided that needs to be able to read Thunderbird's address book to import the contacts.

Comment 7

[Sirog]

The problem seems to have reappeared in T/B 9.0.1.
Attachmenrs in line are either not shown or are not there.Worked OK in T/B 8.
Thunderbird 9.0.1
Firefox 9.0.1
Windows Vista (sp2)

Comment 8

[Emanuele Bellini]

Same with Thunderbird 11.

Comment 9

[Emanuele Bellini]

I would even move this one as a normal priority bug, as long as it could seem Thunderbird is not working to a normal user. I'm going to do it.

Comment 10

[Emanuele Bellini]

Dwaine, are you there? If yes, it's better you to change the priority. If I don't hear from you, I'll clone the bug.

Comment 11

[Emanuele Bellini]

Thank you. I repeat, for the definition of attachment, one should be able to save it anyway, this is a malfunction affecting the many users. It was even better to keep the option disabled by default!

(I had to save a license file, so I decided to use the webmail... I don't think this to be so smart!)

Comment 12

[Emanuele Bellini]

Oops! Sorry, I made a mistake. I had the bug only with one e-mail message, in which the attachment isn't recognized. So I've to deal with another bug, but at least this is solved in version 11, as long as the "Save attachments" option is provided with the inline preview. Dwaine, I think you can close this thread. Thanks for your patience.

Comment 13

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Emanuele Bellini from comment #12)
> Dwaine, I think you can close this thread. Thanks for your patience.

With "Display attachments inline" enabled, there are many ways to "Save attachments", all of them working perfectly even for those attachments that are shown inline, with the exception of vcards (bug 323414).

So this is perfectly worksforme; for any unlikely remaining issues please file a new bug with details.

Comment 14

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #13)
> With "Display attachments inline" enabled, there are many ways to "Save
> attachments", all of them working perfectly even for those attachments that
> are shown inline, with the exception of vcards (bug 323414).

Hmm, Bug 323414 seems to be about a minor UI glitch only that sometimes shows paperclip icon for vcard attachments in the message list and sometimes not.

I agree with reporter that for vcard attachments (*.vcf) only(!), it is somewhat unexpected that we prevent the user from saving these as a file unless "Display attachments inline" is switched off, whereas for all other types of attachments, we allow saving them regardless if shown inline or not. I mentioned that problem in related Bug 707427 Comment 5. Because of how we treat all other attachments, it is not very discoverable that if you want to save one or more attached *vcards*, you have to turn "display attachments inline" off (I would never have guessed that to this day). I think this particular problem was the reason for this bug. Notwithstanding, it's better to file that cleanly as a new bug if need is, as opposed to morphing this bug.