376804 - "Get All New Messages" does not get news [File > Get New Messages for > All Accounts]

Status: REOPENED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Ray Kiddy]

I am tempted to re-open https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=320110 but I will leave this decision to you.

TB has to decide something. Are newsgroup messages the same as mail messages, or not? I actually might argue that one can split TB into a mail reader and a news reader, but I see this would not be a popular suggestion. So, it seems clear that TB wants to use the same UI for mail messages and news messages.

If this is true, then mail messages and news messages should be handled in a consistent manner. If there is a 'Get All New Messages' option, it should get all new messages, for all active mail accounts and all active news servers.

Is it ok for news to be only easily fetchable at launch? Well, is it ok for mail? It should be the same answer.

Comment 1

[Marco De Vitis]

Although I don't feel the need for such a change, I agree with you from a GUI consistency point of view.
Maybe this could be easily fixed by adding two new items in the "Get new messages for" submenu: "Get all mail messages" and "Get all newsgroup messages". You will still be able to use the old "Get all new messages" item if you want to get both.

Comment 2

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

If the decision is made to support news servers, here's why it currently doesn't work and how it can be implemented: protocolinfo.canGetMessages [1][2] always returns FALSE for NNTP servers [3]. One could check for currentServer.type == "nntp" and then call currentServer.performExpand(msgWindow) in consistency with GetFolderMessages() [4]. That would do the same as calling Get New Messages on each news account (or collapsing and expanding it).

If this is wanted for both TB and SM I guess we could do both here. Otherwise let me know.

[1] GetMessagesForAllAuthenticatedAccounts() in mailWindowOverlay.js for TB
[2] MailTasksGetMessagesForAllServers() in mailTasksOverlay.js for SM
[3] <http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mailnews/news/src/nsNntpService.cpp#1502>
[4] in mailWindowOverlay.js for TB and SM

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

xref bug 281417

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

for performance reasons, I'm not sure I would want this if it implies that every get new mail updates news. Joshua?

Comment 5

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

News' get news doesn't actually get news, which is what bug 311774 will fix.

Comment 6

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #5)
> News' get news doesn't actually get news, which is what bug 311774 will fix.
> 
> *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 311774 ***

Bug 311774 didn't fix this bug (how could it ever?), reopening.

As I said in comment 2 this could be done for both TB and SM at the same time. If that is not wanted please let me know so I can open an SM bug for this.

I like the idea from comment 1. In any case IMO Get All New Messages (which has a shortcut) should be able get messages for all accounts. If there are concerns that this could affect performance (which is quite probable for people with many news subscriptions) then the behavior should depend on a pref. It can be hidden (or just without UI) and default to off; as long as there's a way to behave like I expect it to I'm fine with it.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

The main problem is that the UI makes no obvious distinction between mail and news accounts in the account lists for "Get messages", so the UI misleads users to assume news downloading will be included (and we don't have "Get new mail messages" vs. "Get new News messages", which might be an idea to consider).

But even the per-account "Get new messages for > News account" does not seem to do anything on my TB12 on WinXP:

- File > Get new messages for > news.mozilla.org (with mdat newsgroub subscribed) does *not* get new messages for that newsgroup
- while pressing F5 with focus on "news.mozilla.org" in folder list works

Comment 10

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Thomas D. from comment #8)

> The main problem is that the UI makes no obvious distinction between mail
> and news accounts in the account lists for "Get messages", so the UI
> misleads users to assume news downloading will be included (and we don't
> have "Get new mail messages" vs. "Get new News messages", which might be an
> idea to consider).

In terms of UX, at present this is a bug rather than enhancement, e.g. it's violating ux-natural-mapping:

> controls should be placed in the correct location relative to the effect that they will have.

> But even the per-account "Get new messages for > News account" does not seem
> to do anything on my TB12 on WinXP:

Does that need a new bug? Probably yes (sigh)...

Comment 12

[:aceman]

Guys, can we get any decision here so we can move forward?

I would vote for Get all messages to also fetch News as I do not expect people to click on it often. I'd hope people have their POP3 and News accounts set to check on some interval. So there is no need to click Get all messages. Only in case user wants to check msgs quicker. In that case he has probably nothing to do so any incoming msgs (even from news) is good for him :)