382977 - "Flat" Folder Views (Unread, Favourite, Recent): Multiple folders with same/identical name on same account cannot be distinguished, no way to know/find/tell/show full path hierarchy of containing folder (need to show partial/full path)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Simon Arlott]

User-Agent:       
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.0

I have three folders named "2007-06", they are under different parent folders but all on the same account. When Thunderbird has one of them in a dynamic list (e.g. "Recent Folders", "Unread Folders") it's impossible to tell which it is without changing to it. Even worse, if there is more than one it shows them as "2007-06 - accountname" which just doesn't help at all.

Ideally it should attempt to show folders as "parentfolder/name" or "full/path/to/name" instead when they are all part of the same account (this would compress on the left e.g. "...to/name" when there is a lack of space).

An option to always distinguish folders like this (or only when it would be required because Thunderbird can see more than one folder with the same name) would solve the problem too.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[David :Bienvenu]

confirming.

Comment 2

[stubbsj]

This also occurs when viewing a global search with "open as list".

It should be an option to include the full path or not.  Or to set the number of parent folders do see

Folder<with common name>
Parent1/Folder<with common name>
Parent2/Parent1/Folder<with common name>
etc

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to stubbsj from comment #2)
> This also occurs when viewing a global search with "open as list".
> It should be an option to include the full path or not.

Yes, but let's keep Search results a la "Open as list" out of this bug. That's a different problem, about missing information in the columns of grid-style / tabular search results list (Bug 522768).

This bug here is about folders in the folder pane which do not have any indication of the full path folder hierarchy where they belong, so user has no way of distinguishing different folders with same name on same account (the difference being a different parent folder path).

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Simon (reporter), to avoid further confusion, can you please add a clearly structured description with these subsections:
* STR (Steps to reproduce)
* Actual Results
* Expected Results
It's the prescribed format because it will help other people, including developers or volunteer contributors, to better understand and address the problem reported by you.

Comment 5

[Simon Arlott]

Steps to reproduce:
1. Create folders "Parent1/Child", "Parent2/Child", "Parent3/Child" under an account
2. Have unread email in all three folders named "Child"
3. Observe the unread email in "Unread Folders"

Actual results:
There are three unread folders:
1. Child
2. Child
3. Child

Expected results:
There are three unread folders:
1. Parent1/Child
2. Parent2/Child
3. Parent3/Child

Thunderbird may have to go up more than one parent folder to get a name that is unique:
1. Parent1/Child1/Child2
2. Parent1/Child1/Child2
3. Parent1/Child1/Child2

Also, for some reason Thunderbird 5.0 is still showing the account name as a suffix to every folder in my Unread Folders list even though all the folders are for the same account.

Adding a tooltip is not appropriate.

Comment 6

[:aceman]

I think this could be solved since TB 31 where the folder views were reworked. Now some of the views have a "Compact" option, that behaves as described in this bug. But the non-compact version should also show parents of the folders that were chosen into the view.
Reporter, can you retest this problem, maybe it is already solved?

Comment 7

[Simon Arlott]

This does still exist in compact view, and also in "Move To" -> "Recent" for individual messages which will only add the account name even though this doesn't make two identically named folders unique.