348350 - "sort by flag (star)" should sort in a different order

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Backend, enhancement)

Description

[Becky]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Ubuntu/dapper-security Firefox/1.5.0.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060731 Ubuntu/dapper-security Firefox/1.5.0.5

This is a problem in all versions of Thunderbird and all releases. 

In newsgroup views if I sort by flag ascending it changes my date descending order (order received) to ascending order.  It is impossible to have flag ascending (at the top of pane) and order received descending.  This causes problems as I can see flagged threads at the top but have to scroll all the way down a long list of messages to see new threads.  
Should be allowed both flag and date descending for a natural view of seeing both flagged threads and new threads at the top together. 


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. click on view->sort by->order received *descending (this puts newer threads at the top)
2. Click on view->sort by->flag *ascending (this puts flagged threads at top)
3. Clicking on flag ascending puts order received ascending and starting from the bottom, I need them at the top with the flags. 




Not sure if I have explained myself well, this is the first reported I have submitted.  Its basically about not having the ability to sort by two different categories like you can with oe6. 
I am not even sure if it is a bug, its probably not considered a bug and more of an incomplete feature.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

See bug 238631, especially bug 238631 comment 3 & 6.

That bug is marked fixed, but it wasn't really, so I'm confirming this.
However, the patch for that bug did provide a workaround of sorts -- if you run TB 2a1/3a1 (any build since early June), you can use "Group By Sort" when sorting by flag.

I tried to convince David that the original request in that bug was the right thing to do, but so far he's either unconvinced of my argument or unable to devote any time to making the change.

Comment 2

[Becky]

(In reply to comment #1)
> See bug 238631, especially bug 238631 comment 3 & 6.
> 
> That bug is marked fixed, but it wasn't really, so I'm confirming this.
> However, the patch for that bug did provide a workaround of sorts -- if you run
> TB 2a1/3a1 (any build since early June), you can use "Group By Sort" when
> sorting by flag.
> 
> I tried to convince David that the original request in that bug was the right
> thing to do, but so far he's either unconvinced of my argument or unable to
> devote any time to making the change.
> 

(In reply to comment #1)
> See bug 238631, especially bug 238631 comment 3 & 6.
> 
> That bug is marked fixed, but it wasn't really, so I'm confirming this.
> However, the patch for that bug did provide a workaround of sorts -- if you run
> TB 2a1/3a1 (any build since early June), you can use "Group By Sort" when
> sorting by flag.
> 
> I tried to convince David that the original request in that bug was the right
> thing to do, but so far he's either unconvinced of my argument or unable to
> devote any time to making the change.
> 

(in reply to above)
Thankyou for trying. Group by sort is not useful for me as none of the threads are threaded and are laid out each post singularly. Also in group by sort the starred threads only show the first post of the thread, not the whole thread. The problem here is that thunderbird is unable to sort in two ways, unlike OE. If they would open up the sorting to allow the user to sort in two different ways then it would be fine - sort by flag ascending and then sort by order received descending. 

Comment 3

[Becky]

I have found a better workaround than this and its not really a workaround.
If you see for yourself, instead of using stars (flag) to sort, if I use tags instead and use for example *important* to mark the threads I want they will actually place ascending and have the new threads directly below them in descending order just as I wished. Its perfect.  I don't have to use flag, tagging is just as good.  
Interesting though that tagging sorts correctly but flagging does not.  Must be a bug after all. 
Even though the bug is not fixed, this is something which can be used instead.  Thankyou for leading me in the right direction to this. I will not mark this bug closed or fixed, I will leave it to you guys to decide what happens next with it the issue. Thankyou. 

Comment 4

[Becky]

Sorry to make this look a mess but I forgot to add that the workaround I have found with the tagging only works with Thunderbird version 3 alpha 1.  It is not present in earlier versions.  Please can we keep this feature for proper future releases?

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Sorry to make this look a mess but I forgot to add that the workaround I have
> found with the tagging only works with Thunderbird version 3 alpha 1.  It is
> not present in earlier versions.  Please can we keep this feature for proper
> future releases?

Tagging is also in the 2a1 builds, and is only going to get better; it's a feature replacing the "Label" feature from earlier versions.

Comment 6

[Becky]

I have just gone back to check on Thunderbird 2&3 to find that where I thought tagging had done the job, it actually has not.  
I can sort it so tags are at the top and new threads are directly below it that works fine, but as soon as new threads appear they go above the tagged order.
I am assume this is actually now a bug.  The order still states view-tags but new threads override this setting. :-(

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #6)
> I can sort it so tags are at the top and new threads are directly below it
> that works fine, but as soon as new threads appear they go above the tagged
> order.
> I am assume this is actually now a bug.  The order still states view-tags but
> new threads override this setting. :-( 

Bug 262319?

Comment 8

[Becky]

Yes that is the one, thankyou.  I shall comment further on that bug. 

Comment 9

[Becky]

Just reinstalled Thunderbird (TB2alpha) and it appears the tag sort is working now and new threads going below the tag sort.  So an intermittent bug. 
Do I need to submit a new bug report or leave this one as it is? 

Comment 10

[Adam Shand]

I just wanted to add a "me too".

Having this functionality allows a similar functionality to the much requested Outlook "Follow Up" feature (where you can flag a message and have it stay at the top of your folder until you remove the flag).

For people with large inboxes (as I'm sure most of you have) this can be a real life saver when it comes to trying not to forget things.

Ideally what I want is the ability to sort by multiple colums so that folders would be sorted like this:

Flagged messages (in date decending order)
Unread messages (in date decending order)
Read messages (in date decending order)

Many thanks,
Adam.

Comment 11

[Jimisola Laursen]

+1

I'm a former Outlook Express user and the ability to flag messages and have the most recent messages is crucial for usability (since I have ~6000 messages in the Inbox).

Comment 12

[Mark van Beek]

+1 me too!

Exact same motivation as the two comments above! Would be very nice if this could be fixed.

Comment 13

[Mark van Beek]

Looks like it has a strong relationship to bug 57898:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57898

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

is bug 363991 a duplicate?

Comment 15

[Mark van Beek]

What a silence on this bug :)

I just had another look at the sort behavior on the non-flagged messages and it's (still ;)) just exactly the opposite of what I would expect/like (which is: Get the newest messages at the same side of the list as where the flagged messages are when sorting on 'flagged'). Imho. it shouldn't be to hard to solve this, because in programming it normally isn't to hard to get the inverse of something. Now I'm no expert at programming and not at all of the Thunderbird project, but if anyone is willing to have a look at the code and possibly has a fix, I'm very willing to check a nightly build to check out how it worked out.