44668 - Confusion as to how to edit/send a Draft message

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect, P2)

Description

[jglick]

Observed during recent Multiple Mail Accounts Usability testing:

When the Drafts folder is selected (and drafts are displayed in the thread 
pane), users are confused as to how to continue working on a draft message or 
Send a draft message.
Its not clear to users that they need to double click on a draft message in 
order to be able to further edit or send a message.
Some users expected to be able to edit the draft in the message pane.

Proposed Solutions. Change the Toolbar (and corresponding menus) when the Draft 
folder is selected in 3 Pane Mail View:

1. Add an "Edit" button between the New Msg and Reply buttons. This button is 
only visible if the Drafts folder is selected. (Priority 1)
2. Add an "Edit Draft" item to the "Edit menu. (P3)
3. Remove additional buttons and only show a small subset of buttons when the 
Draft folder is selected. Send | Edit | Print | Delete. (P5)

Comment 1

[jglick]

Nominate as nsbeta 3 per UE Review

Comment 2

[scottputterman]

Mail Triage is marking [nsbeta3-]

Comment 3

[jglick]

Adding [usability] in status whiteboard per mail leads.

Three users of seven were observed to have this issue.

Comment 4

[jglick]

Add mail3 keyword so bug considered for 6.5

Comment 5

[scottputterman]

reassigning to sspitzer

Comment 6

[scottputterman]

marking nsbeta1+ and moving to mozilla0.8

Comment 7

[scottputterman]

this is just to do #1 and #2.

Comment 8

[scottputterman]

reassigning to chuang

Comment 9

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

> Some users expected to be able to edit the draft in the message pane.

I suggest adding a button reading `Continue editing this message' (or something 
similar) to the top right corner of the message pane. This would be more obvious 
than adding a toolbar button (since the user is looking at the message pane, and 
expecting to be able to edit their message there), and would avoid ugly jumping 
around of toolbar buttons when a draft message was selected/deselected.

As for (2), `Edit Message as New' should be present in the menus whether or not 
the selected message is a draft.

Comment 10

[jglick]

>I suggest adding a button reading `Continue editing this message' (or something 
>similar) to the top right corner of the message pane.

I think thats a good idea. I don't know how hard it would be to implement 
though. And the wording would probably need to be a bit shorter if its a button.

Comment 11

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Maybe just `Edit Message'? That way (a) it would be more obviously the same 
command as `Edit Message as New' in the menus, and (b) you could use the same 
wording for the same button for messages in the Templates folder as you do for 
messages in the Drafts folder.

Comment 12

[chuang]

Jennifer, can you make a screen shot for the proposed fix and we need a new gif 
file for the button?  Thanks.

Comment 13

[chuang]

Actually should be 4 gif files for different button states.   I think putting 
button in the envelope is not as easy as in the toolbar.  I'm still checking.

Comment 14

[jglick]

Attachment: Screen shot example

Comment 15

[jglick]

See attached screen shot example. Example one is mpt's suggestion.  I think this 
is the better solution.  Example two shows adding an "Edit" button to the 
toolbar.  I don't like this as much. It gets lost there.  Would prefer mpt's 
suggestion if possible.  Which also means we don't need to create additional 
graphics.

Comment 16

[chuang]

I got mpt's suggestion working, still need to work on the button layout.  
There's one problem I saw when working on it.  Sometimes when the window size is 
smaller, you can't see the button.  But this is the same problem for Attachment 
button.   If a draft contains attachment, this button will be under the 
attachment button.

Comment 17

[jglick]

Great!  Thanks for investigating this one.

Comment 18

[chuang]

I made some change.  If a draft contains attachment, the Edit Draft button will 
be on the left of the attachment button.  I can't get the box working right on 
my previous plan.  Hope this is fine with everyone.

Comment 19

[chuang]

Attachment: Patch for the fix

Comment 20

[timeless]

typo s/edi/edit/
+    msgPaneData.EditMessageButton = 
document.getElementById("ediMessageButton");

Comment 21

[chuang]

Attachment: Patch for typo in msgHdrViewOverlay.js

Comment 22

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

your implementation of isDraftMessage(): all that string parsing, on *every*
message we display, just to create a folder uri...that's not good.

this feature, which only shows up for drafts messages, should be written in a
way that doesn't slows us down in the common case.  (the common case is we
aren't in a drafts folder.)

off the top of my head, I'd suggest this:

find the code for where we load folders.  check there (once per, folder loading)
if the folder is a "drafts" folder.  if so, set a hidden input attribute (or
global variable) that you can quickly check to determine if you need to hide or
show the "Edit" ui elements.

you'll also need to figure out an efficient way to make this work with the stand
alone message window.

no go on that patch.

Comment 23

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

silly me.  chuang is right, you can't get to the stand alone message window for
a draft message, since double clicking it will take you to the message compose
window.

Comment 24

[Scott MacGregor]

Instead of passing in the msg URI on the OnEndHeaders call and then parsing out
the folder name from the URI, you can just call the following:
GetSelectedFolderResource

this is defined in commandglue.js which you should be able to reach from
msgHdrViewOverlay.js

Comment 25

[chuang]

I took Seth's suggestion, checking the folder type in OnFolderLoaded and set it 
to a global var.  I'll use this var for Unsent folder too (per Jean-Francois's 
suggestion).  I'm testing it right now.

Comment 26

[chuang]

Attachment: New Patch with better folder checking

Comment 27

[Scott MacGregor]

this looks great to me. sr=mscott unless seth has more comments.

Comment 28

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

comments:

+ if (msgFolder)
+   gIsEditableMsgFolder = IsSpecialFolder(msgFolder, [ "Drafts" ]);

should be 

+   gIsEditableMsgFolder = IsSpecialFolder(msgFolder, [ "Drafts" ]);

there is already a check (a few lines above) to make sure msgFolder is non null.

other than that, it looks as performant as the other code. 

make that fix, then sr=sspitzer

Comment 29

[chuang]

Attachment: Patch for removing the if statement

Comment 30

[chuang]

Fix checked in

Comment 31

[laurel]

OK using feb19 commercial trunk build, linux rh6.0, mac OS 9.0, win98.
1.  Edit Draft button appears on message envelope when draft selected.
2.  Edit Draft button moves to the left when attachment button present. (this
alignment is off in linux, will log a separate bug).
3.  Menu item Edit|Edit Draft is enabled when single or multiple drafts selected
in thread pane of Drafts folder.
4.  Menu item Message|Edit Message as New is enabled when in any folder when a
single or multiple message selection is made in thread pane.
5.  Edit Draft button is functioning, opens draft contents to compose window.
6.  Edit Message as New is functioning, opens message contents to compose window.

Comment 32

[jglick]

Reopening bug.

"Edit Draft..." button is no longer appearing in the envelope area.  Using 
windows build 2001041004.  It actually hasn't worked for a week or so (that 
i've noticed), but with all the weirdness in recent builds, I decided to watch 
it for a while first to verify.

Comment 33

[scottputterman]

reassigning to mscott

Comment 34

[scottputterman]

*** Bug 75242 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 35

[Scott MacGregor]

I re-implemented this with the new message display and it's in my tree. It'll
land when I finally get code reviews for the new attachment display. 

One thing though, it looks pretty weird having this button next to the
attachment tree widget now. I'll let jennifer take a look after I check this
back in but we'll probably need to tweak it a bit to make it look right....

Comment 36

[Scott MacGregor]

I've fixed this and the patch is in Bug #75691

Comment 37

[Scott MacGregor]

the edit drafts button is back. 

Comment 38

[esther]

using build 2001-05-08 on win, mac and linux the button is there and works. 
Verified