45695 - Account Settings:Identity:UI clean up

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Account Configuration, defect, P3)

Description

[jglick]

Minor UI fixes recommended based on UE Mail review.

1. Signature File: Clicking the "Choose" button and selecting a sig file should 
cause the signature file checkbox to be checked. (P3)
2. Identity: Reply to Address. Would be nice to have ghost text in the text 
field that says "Only needed if different from your email address".  If that is 
not possible, a tooltip with the text would be helpful. (P5)
3. Advanced dialog. Very cramped. Can it be a touch larger? (P4)
4. "Account Name:" Indent a few spaces. (P5)
5. Add a Group box around Identity items. (P3)
6. Indicate which account is the default. Parenthesis around the word 'default 
following the account, "(Default)" following account name. If that is not 
possible, bold the account name of the default account. (P2).

Comment 1

[jglick]

nominate as b3mail

Comment 2

[selmer (gone)]

change b3mail to nsbeta3.

Comment 3

[Alec Flett]

I've got fixes for some of these in hand.
After they've been checked in, I'll move this past beta3

Comment 4

[Alec Flett]

#5 is done (ooohh... ahhhh)

Comment 5

[selmer (gone)]

Adding mail4 triage nomination keyword.

Comment 6

[lchiang]

+ per mail triage for jennifer's P3 or higher items.

Comment 7

[robinf]

Adding myself to cc: list.

Comment 8

[Alec Flett]

ok, this has been cleaned up a fair bit. Now that it's been cleaned up, I'm
going to remove all the nsbeta3 statuses and future it.
If anyone objects, say so now!

Comment 9

[Alec Flett]

massive reassign of account manager bugs -> sspitzer
please feel free to put me back on the CC if you have any questions/comments

Comment 10

[Ninoschka Baca]

Marking nsbeta1 to atleast get "Default" to appear next to the default name in
Account Settings. 

Comment 11

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

mass re-assign of account manager bugs to racham.

Comment 12

[esther]

Per mail triage, I'm going to log a separate bug for #6 so it can be considered
for earlier fixing (new bug is 64230). This bug can be minused 

Comment 13

[scottputterman]

marking nsbeta1-

Comment 14

[Håkan Waara]

Mass assigning all racham's UI clean up bugs to me, with permission. Sorry for
the spam.

Comment 15

[Håkan Waara]

Allright, some comments on the things jglick suggests we should change:

#2 I talked to mpt about this, and I don't think we should have some "ghosted
text" in the textfield. The user could get confused. And we can't add the text
besides, so I have no clue how we should fix this.

#3 Huh? In what way is this dialog small? How much larger do you think it should be?

#5 Already fixed.

#6 Racham, how do I, in code tell what account is default?

So left we have #1 and #4 . Which both are fairly easy to fix.

OS -> All
Platform -> All

Comment 16

[jglick]

#2 People will feel they are supposed to enter text into blank text fields. If 
they enter their existing email address into the "Reply to" field, every time 
they do a new Message, "Reply to" appears the Addressing area.  I was worried 
that might throw some folks off.  But I don't know the best answer. 4.x left the 
New Message Addressing area blank even if you entered a "Reply to" in the Prefs.

#3  Much better than it used to be.

Comment 17

[Håkan Waara]

*** Bug 57038 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Håkan Waara]

We have #1, #2, #4 and #6 left.

mpt and jglick: perhaps we could show some kind of "[i]" info button besides the
Reply-to textfield, to show that we need to tell the user something about this
field?

Otherwise I have no idea..

Comment 19

[jglick]

I guess its a separate bug, but we should probably not show the "Reply to" in 
the Addressing area for each new message if the user didn't manually enter it 
for this particular message. 4.x behavior.

Comment 20

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

[changing URL to one that works]

> #2 People will feel they are supposed to enter text into blank text fields.

The appropriate fix for this is to use a checkbox which is off by default, and 
disable the text field if the checkbox is unchecked:

[ ] Use reply-to address (only needed if different from e-mail address)
    [                                                                 ]

4.x for Mac OS doesn't have extra text for reply-to at all (which is probably a 
bad idea). 4.x for Windows has the label for each field above (rather than to the 
left of) the field itself, which means that it has room to say `Reply-to address 
(only needed if different from e-mail address)'. In Seamonkey we don't really 
have room to do this, for a variety of reasons -- unnecessary text at the top of 
the pane, poor arrangement of buttons at the bottom of the pane, and a rich text 
composition checkbox which should really be in another pane (like it was in 4.x). 

Ultimately the Account Manager should probably be reworked to use a popup menu 
(listing accounts) followed by tabs (listing aspects of the selected account), 
rather than a tree widget -- the eye-watering repetition of `Server' and `Copies 
and Folders' is a classic symptom of a GUI using the wrong widget, and using both 
branches *and* leaves of the tree to show panels of options repeats one of the 
worst problems with the main preferences dialog. Using a popup menu and tabs 
instead would give us quite a bit more room for things like the checkbox I 
described above, too. But that belongs in a different bug.

Comment 21

[jglick]

>The appropriate fix for this is to use a checkbox which is off by default, and 
>disable the text field if the checkbox is unchecked:
I like that.

>Ultimately the Account Manager should probably be reworked to use a popup menu.
Sounds like a good idea. I'd like to see that happen eventually.

Comment 22

[Ninoschka Baca]

FYI

Bug # 14059 has an entry which states:
"Account Settings and Address Book UE spec changed based on decisions made in
Mail Issues Meeting 10/14/99.

Account Settings Identity Dialog:  2 Radio Buttons

"Compose messages using:"
 - "Plain text"  - Default for News accounts
 - "Rich text (html)" - Default for Mail accounts

Address Book - Card Edit dialog:  Checkbox
"Prefers to receive rich text (html) mail"  - Default is unchecked."

I just want to verify whether this option will have one checkbox or 2 radio
buttons. This would also effect bug# 68194 which is is suggesting word changes.

Comment 23

[Ninoschka Baca]

*** Bug 14059 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 24

[jglick]

nbaca, in the bug you referenced, robin suggested a checkbox: "Compose messages 
in HTML format" for account settings.  Lets go with that.

Comment 25

[Håkan Waara]

I don't have enough time to promise I'll fix this, thus I'm reassigning to the
default owner of this component. Who knows, maybe I'll get around and fix it
after all - but I can't promise it. Sorry :(

Comment 26

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

mass re-assign.

Comment 27

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #18)
> We have #1, #2, #4 and #6 left.

(In reply to comment #0)
> 1. Signature File: Clicking the "Choose" button and selecting a sig file
> should  cause the signature file checkbox to be checked. (P3)

The Choose button is disabled unless the checkbox is checked, which is a more typical dependency anyway.


> 2. Identity: Reply to Address. Would be nice to have ghost text in the text 
> field that says "Only needed if different from your email address".  If that
> is not possible, a tooltip with the text would be helpful. (P5)

This is argued at comment 15 & 16, and an alternate approach is suggested at 
comment 20.  It's been five years and I haven't seen this issue pop up anywhere, even in the newsgroups.


> 4. "Account Name:" Indent a few spaces. (P5)

WHO CARES?  It looks fine the way it is.


> 6. Indicate which account is the default.

This was handled separately by bolding the default account name.


=> WFM  --  if someone feels items #2 or #4 really need to be addressed, go ahead and reopen or create new bugs.