395985 - ability to specify multiple tags as view criteria

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[bo.johnson]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.6 (20070728)

The feature I think could be developed would be an enhancement/re-work of the current <i>"View:" pull-down menu</i> available for the <i>3-pane window toolbar</i>.

Currently, the user is able to select a tag, and all messages that have been assigned the selected tag are shown, all messages that do not contain that tag are  ignored.

However, I believe this could be enhanced in order to allow more than 1 tag to be selected.

The purpose for this feature would be (for example) to allow me to find all things left to do on Project Blank. By specifying both my "To Do" tag and my "Project Blank" tag I find all messages necessary without having to sort though all messages tagged "To Do" looking for all things also tagged "Project Blank".

This can currently be accomplished in a workaround fashion in the following ways:
1. Search type:"entire message" for all tags needed.
Cons: must type all tags, slow search due to search of all message content, results based on entire message content instead of tag matches only.

2. Create saved searches for certain tags, and then use the "View:" toolbar button pulldown to further refine the results.
Cons: 2 completely separate steps, limited to 2 variables (saved searches + 1 tag), must manually update saved searches with new tags.

Potential solutions:

1. Add additional search type (Subject, Sender, Subject or Sender, To or Cc, Entire Message) of "Tags".
Cons: Additional searches after tag search complicated.

2. Allow more than one tag to be checked on <i>3-pane window toolbar "View:" pulldown</i>.
Cons: Must re-navigate sub-menus to add/change view criteria.

3. Change <i>3-pane window toolbar "View:" pulldown</i> to be a constantly open pane all its own. All tags available would be listed, and could be selected. Selected tags would be the criteria for what is viewable in the messages window.
Cons: Would take additional work in order to differentiate between assigning tags and searching for tags. This would make it a 4-pane window.

I believe 3 to be the best solution, but it would take additional thought and development. Some ideas:
Eliminate the tag pulldown, and allow users to assign tags using this same pane. The pane could be 3 column, the first two columns would be button icons or radio buttons or checkboxes or similar. One column for writing a tag to a message (pencil icon?) and the second column for searching for that tag (magnifying glass icon?). The third column would have the name of the tag in the color the user had assigned. If I have the top message in my inbox selected and I click the assign checkbox next to my "To Do" tag, the "To Do" tag is assigned to the selected message. Or if I click the search checkbox next to "projectGreen", all messages that aren't tagged "projectGreen" are removed from the message list.

Another idea would make it easily scalable. Just as the "Folders" pane of the 3-pane window can be switched between <i>All Folders, Unread Folders, Favorite Folders</i> and <i>Recent Folders</i>, the Tags pane could also be made to switch between (for example) <i>All Tags, Favorite Tags</i> and <i>Recent Tags</i>. This way, users with excess tags could set their most used tags as <i>Favorites<i> and they would be easily accessible without having to sort through all the tags created.

In order to accommodate the preferences of the varying user tastes, it would be nice if the pane could "dock" in different locations. For example, it could (1) be set as its own column between the folders pane and the message list and message view panes, (2) its own column at the right of the message list and message view panes, or (3) it could dock in the space above or below the <i>Folders</i> pane sharing the same vertical space.
For users that don't like, don't need, or don't want to use tagging features, this pane could be shut off, restoring the window back to the existing 3-pane setup.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Isn't that the Custom views feature already available there already? Choose Customize... to add the criteria of your choice.

Comment 2

[bo.johnson]

Technically yes, this could be done within customized views (and also under saved search folders), but I would then have to create a custom view/saved search for every possible tag combination I would ever wish to refine my message window to, which would in turn be essentially useless as the list of custom views/saved searches would be only slightly less overwhelming than the message list itself. In addition, whenever a new tag is created, new customized views/saved searches would need to be created.

What I mean for this feature to provide is a simple way to immediately eliminate unnecessary items in the message list by working only with tags, and without having to deal with sorting through a number of similar, yet varying premanufactured (even if I am the one manufacturing them) customized views/saved searches that may or may not be exactly the solution I am wanting at a specific moment.

Comment 3

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Hmm, yeah, the UI might be a bit tricky to get right, but I like the idea. Could be very useful. 

Maybe it should be

View
  Tag > [select just one]
  Tags > [check many]
  Custom Views >

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #2)
>...
> What I mean for this feature to provide is a simple way to immediately
> eliminate unnecessary items in the message list by working only with tags, and
> without having to deal with sorting through a number of similar, yet varying
> premanufactured (even if I am the one manufacturing them) customized
> views/saved searches that may or may not be exactly the solution I am wanting
> at a specific moment.

I think what you mean is have tags be a seperate, different selection choice right on the toolbar.  This would reduce by an order of magnitued the number of custom views to match many combination possibilities, and this idea is part of what attracted me to this bug.

Magnus, your interpretation is part of what is needed to get reasonable productivity out of tags, without time consuming UI.  But that idea needs also to be extended to custom view, i.e. a "Tags many" so that one doesn't need a filter line item for every tag.  

The whole area needs some modeling as there are probably more, possibly better, possibilities to make the UI better.

Comment 5

[bo.johnson]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: An image of a potential interface idea

Pencil icon represents whether or not a tag has been written to whatever messages are selected.
Magnifying glass icon represents what tags must be assigned in order for a message  to be listed in the message list.
The image demonstrates what the window would look like if no messages were being filtered from the message list (read: "View: All") and the selected message has the tag "Purchases" assigned to it.
I can make some new images as well to show what effects I have in mind for the different buttons. If anything is specifically unclear, let me know and I'll see if I can verbally or graphically answer any questions.

Comment 6

[bo.johnson]

Attachment: Screenshot 2: More images for potential UI

This image shows what the window would look like after clicking on the magnifying glass next to "Project3". The message list is restricted only to items tagged "Project3".
It also shows one of those messages selected, and subject to selection, the pencil column displays (and allows the user to edit) the tags that are applied to the selected item(s).

Comment 7

[bo.johnson]

Attachment: Screenshot 3: Image for potential UI (2 tags selected)

This image shows the message list restricted to only items with both the "Project3" tag and the "ToDoList" tag applied.
The result (in this case) is only one message. The tags applied to this item (Project3, ToDoList, IntraOffice) can be seen or edited under the pencil column.

Comment 8

[bo.johnson]

I would love to hear anyone's feedback regarding my UI images. Like it, hate it, don't understand it... 
If anyone has any questions about something I didn't make clear, or especially if anyone has any suggestions.
I'm not a programmer, so I don't know how difficult it would be to turn any of this into something that actually works. If anyone has additional information I should know regarding this kind of thing, please fill me in.

Comment 9

[ovidiu]

In a way this approach is not only about tags, but other selectors too. So I indicate the Seek extension as doing this in a smart way (also combining tags with other stuff). It does not provide today precisely what op askes for here, dunno about the future of it. 

(I mean if you select 2 tags it works with addition, while using sender+tag intersects them ... OP is asking for intersecting tags ..)

Comment 10

[David :Bienvenu]

This is definitely something that wants to start off as an extension to test and prove the UI ideas out.

Comment 11

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Does 3.1 filter bar solve this problem? Maybe yes, but I hesitate to close this because filter bar tags filter isn't scalable, and we should consider the value of the Mockup UI Screenshots 1-3 (attachment 282793 [details], attachment 284481 [details], attachment 284483 [details]).

Furthermore, I'd like to point out/preserve comment 4's suggested enhancement, related to advanced search:

> But that idea also needs to be extended to custom view, i.e. a "Tags many" so
> that one doesn't need a filter line item for every tag.

We should be able to define one-line searches for multiple tags, something like:

Tags CONTAINS tagfoo, tagbar, tagbaz (find messages that have all three tags and may or may not have other tags)
Tags IS tagfoo, tagbar, tagbaz (find messages that have exactly all three tags, regardless of order, and no other tags)

Related bugs are bug 577819, and bug 379465.
Bug 577819 comment 4 can be a starting point for anaylsing the current UI/behaviour shortcomings.

Comment 12

[Dominik]

I would suggest that comments/suggestion regarding the ability to 

   concatenate multiple tags (in a way that it is an AND operation) 

should only be reported starting from now on bug 765637.


So this bug report would be only for 

* the UI design of the tags as an extra subwindow and
* the search for multiple tags.