360030 - Ability to customize new mail alert information

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Scott MacGregor]

Based on feedback from mcow and others, we should make it easy for a user to choose which pieces of information to show in the new mail alerts. In particular, this would allow users to turn off the preview text if they are worried about folks seeing message subjects on their machine.

For now a simple list box with 3 options for customization:

Show the following fields in the mail alert:

[ ] Subject
[ ] Sender 
[ ] Preview

By default all three options would be enabled (like it is today) and a user can choose which of these fields (if any) to show.

Comment 1

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: back end implementation

This patch adds prefs for controlling which of the 3 fields we show in the alert notification dialog. 

I still need to write a customize dialog which lets users set these prefs. This dialog would be opened from Tools / Options / General.

Comment 2

[Scott MacGregor]

I was going to add a new dialog to the General options panel for customizing the new mail notification alert, reachable by a Customize button for showing an alert. Something like:

[ ] Show an Alert         [Customize...]
[ ] Play a Sound          [Advanced]

That might still be the best way to go. But we could also try to fold it into the existing Advanced dialog for configuring the sound that plays when new mail arrives. Sort of a single advanced dialog for configuring advanced notification options. I wonder what mcow thinks..

Comment 3

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

The current Advanced dialog isn't too busy, so combining both sets of options in the one dialog and leaving the button as "Advanced" would probably work.

If you end up going with two separate dialogs, then you'd probably want to address bug 354160 at the same time.

Comment 4

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 350791 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[hansen]

Since mcow marked bug 350791 as dupe of this, will there be an option (in Advanced?) to disable preview/hover text on folders?

Comment 6

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: screen shot of the advanced new mail customizations dialog

here's a screen shot of the new dialog

Comment 7

[Scott MacGregor]

Not sure if I like the dialog title as:

New Mail Customizations
or
Customize New Mail Notifications

Comment 8

[Scott MacGregor]

Attachment: the fix

Both the back end implementation and the expanded advanced dialog for new mail notification customizations.

We default to using the subject, sender and preview text.

Comment 9

[Scott MacGregor]

If you show just the Sender we insert a - before the sender name. We might need to filter that out. 

Comment 10

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Something's wrong with the XUL, the 1110 nightly is showing a big red
   <button id="soundButton" ...
----^

Comment 11

[Scott MacGregor]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Something's wrong with the XUL, the 1110 nightly is showing a big red
>    <button id="soundButton" ...
> ----^
> 

It helps if the XUL part of the patch actually gets checked in! Should be fixed with tomorrow's build.

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 350791 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

OK, I've had a chance to run this with TB 2b1-1111.  Feature works pretty much as advertised for the alert.  As might be expected, my first test was to turn off all the display modes.  In this case, the notification alert simply displays "<account> has <n> new messages" with the icon and an empty area below where the other display information might have gone.  This is OK, altho ideally, I'd like bug 145982 and bug 138631 to be addressed and get information for *all* the accounts with new mail, updated to show current totals.

The configuration options also apply to the folder pop-up.  Generally, I think this is OK -- if I want information displayed for the folder, it's probably the same information I want in the alert.  (What I actually want is to turn off the folder pop-up while allowing an alert -- bug 360472.)  However, that if you turn all of the display options off, you still get a popup appearing: a tiny, empty box that's barely visible.  This is a workaround for turning off the folder, but it's also a distraction, and doesn't help people who want information appearing in the alert.

Comment 14

[Ton [:Tonnes]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Not sure if I like the dialog title as:
> 
> New Mail Customizations
> or
> Customize New Mail Notifications

Shouldn't the current line (Customize New Mail Notifications) read 'Notification' (singular)? After all this is about customizing a single notification, containing several fields.

Also noticed there's still an end dot in proxiesInfo.label (general.dtd), unlike FF/Calendar/other labels. Maybe this could ride along, if anything needs to change? (If not, please keep it in mind.)

Comment 15

[Jean-Jacques Moreau]

This is cool, but it should also run the Junk Mail Control before displaying the panel. Most of my email is spam and it ends up being displayed in the Alert Panel. This rather annoying.

Comment 16

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #15)
> This is cool, but it should also run the Junk Mail Control before displaying
> the panel. Most of my email is spam and it ends up being displayed in the
> Alert Panel. This rather annoying.

For junk that's detected in the Inbox and automatically moved to the Junk folder, there is no alert.

If you either don't automatically move detected junk to the Junk folder 
(bug  233929) or have mail filtered out of the Inbox (bug 233930) then you'll get the alert.  Neither problem is related to this; both predate the verbose alert dialog by years.

Comment 17

[Shaya Potter]

If one is using this feature w/ imap, it seems to notify about ALL of one's folders.  Which is relatively annoying for me, due to the way I have my mail setup (various folders for mailing lists that I don't want to be notified about).  

There should be a way to define which folders you are notified about, and ignore the ones that you don't want to be notified about.

Comment 18

[Barry Zubel]

To echo comments made by [e-mail], when using Thunderbird with IMAP, you receive notifications on every folder.

We use an IMAP folder system, with sieve running server-side to provide filtering.  Often, notifications are not required on certain folders and subfolders.  If you were to provide a way of disabling notifications on the arrival of new messages in certain folders, then this would be.. well.. great!

Comment 19

[Jared]

(In reply to comment #17)
> If one is using this feature w/ imap, it seems to notify about ALL of one's
> folders.  Which is relatively annoying for me, due to the way I have my mail
> setup (various folders for mailing lists that I don't want to be notified
> about).  
> 
> There should be a way to define which folders you are notified about, and
> ignore the ones that you don't want to be notified about.

Agreed.  This is a nuisance for me as well.  Thunderbird currently provides the ability to choose which folders are automatically polled ("Check this folder for new messages" in the Folder Properties dialog).  How about adding a "Notify on new mail" option right below it?

I generally leave notification completely disabled as I really don't need to nor even want to know when most of the e-mail that I receive (mailing lists, RSS feed, etc.) arrives.  Being able to specify that I just want to be alerted on new inbox mail (for example), however, would be fantastic.

Comment 20

[Matt Klich]

Attachment: Popup location screenshot

I would like the ability to specify the location of the notification popup. I have a dual monitor setup and currently the notification shows up on the right hand screen. I would prefer it show on the left hand screen.

Inspiration for this can be found in the gmail-notifier tool (). In its configuration dialog are options for vertical and horizontal offsets. See the attached screen shot for examples of the dialog and the location of the popup.

Comment 21

[payton]

(In reply to comment #19)
> (In reply to comment #17)
> > If one is using this feature w/ imap, it seems to notify about ALL of one's
> > folders.  Which is relatively annoying for me, due to the way I have my mail
> > setup (various folders for mailing lists that I don't want to be notified
> > about).  
> > 
> > There should be a way to define which folders you are notified about, and
> > ignore the ones that you don't want to be notified about.
> 
> Agreed.  This is a nuisance for me as well.  Thunderbird currently provides the
> ability to choose which folders are automatically polled ("Check this folder
> for new messages" in the Folder Properties dialog).  How about adding a "Notify
> on new mail" option right below it?
> 
> I generally leave notification completely disabled as I really don't need to
> nor even want to know when most of the e-mail that I receive (mailing lists,
> RSS feed, etc.) arrives.  Being able to specify that I just want to be alerted
> on new inbox mail (for example), however, would be fantastic.

I'll add a third to this request.  There's an implication that "Check this folder for new messages" being unchecked would prevent the alert from telling me I have new messages in those folders.  Eg: I don't need to see new messages arriving in my "Junk" folder (which is filtered-to on the server-side).

Comment 22

[Shaya Potter]

(In reply to comment #21)
> 
> I'll add a third to this request.  There's an implication that "Check this
> folder for new messages" being unchecked would prevent the alert from telling
> me I have new messages in those folders.  Eg: I don't need to see new messages
> arriving in my "Junk" folder (which is filtered-to on the server-side).

Though there is a slight difference, there are folders I want thunderbird to check and download (say filtered mailing lists), but that I don't want to be notified about each time a message comes in.