370682 - Virtual folders should allow selecting all subfolders with one click

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 271249

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Guido Carl]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061204 Firefox/2.0.0.1
Build Identifier: Virtual folders should allow selecting all subfolders with one click

When defining the folders to be searched for a virtual folder, every single folder has to be selected. How annoying when you have a complex folder tree and have to select a bunch of em.
Would be much easier to select one folder and all of its subfolders with just one click. Of course, deselecting should work as well.

Nevertheless, selecting singled folders must still be possible. My idea would be to have an adiitional checkbox in the "select folder" window which says "select all subfolders". With the checkbox active, a click on a folder will select all subfolders as well (no limit of depth). If not active, you select single folders one by one.

Sorry, if this was reported before, but I didn't find it in the bug list.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Confirming.
I would suggest that all subfolders are automatically checked if the folder is not expanded (the + is showing). 

Comment 2

[Joe]

I would add to this that any folders added to a structure so selected should automatically be added to a virtual folder.  I.E.

Folder structure

TOP FOLDER
  |- SUB 1
  |- SUB 2
      |- SUB 2.1
      |- SUB 2.2
  |- SUB 3

If I create a search folder, checking off "add subfolders" (as described above) and choose, e.g., SUB 2, SUB 2.1 and 2.2 should be added.  A week later if I add a SUB 2.3 folder (below SUB 2), I want that 2.3 should be included in that saved search, w/o me manually updated that saved search folder.

This seems to me a natural extension of functionality and is surprising to me that it lacks.
Just my 2c.

Comment 3

[Bill M]

I strongly agree that TB needs this feature.  It is very important to keep adding features like this that make it easier to organize the huge amounts of email we all use as part of our To Do lists.

As Joe mentions above, this feature needs to be dynamic so that you don't have to remember to check newly-added folders.

I prefer an implementation with an extra checkbox to "select all subfolders", so it is obvious what's going on, instead of assuming people know what it means to check a non-expanded folder.  Besides, that would conflict with the current usage.

I would go further, and ask that each subfolder in an "auto search tree" have an additional checkbox that would say "don't search this folder".  That would allow exceptions to the rule.  I currently have subfolders in my autosearch trees like Temp_Workarea and Hold_a_while, that I don't want automatically searched.  But, if this extra feature would delay the implementation, then the heck with it.  The basic functionality is what I'm looking for.

Thanks,
Bill.

Comment 4

[hansen]

Does this bug depend on Bug 271249 ?

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

let's just dupe, as was done to  Bug 272776