470472 - Message Reader: Left-Clicking on contact doesn't move focus indicator (double focus)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20081219 Shredder/3.0b2pre

When you use TAB to move focus to some contact (say to the *3rd* to-address) in message reader header pane, after that use mouse to click on another contact (say *1st* to-address), the focus indicator doesn't move to the mouse click position. It surely should. We can't have double focus.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. see above
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
focus indicator stays whereever it was before

Expected Results:  
focus indicator should move and be on the contact that I just clicked on

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Furthermore, after clicking on a contact to open its actions menu, you need *two* single clicks to open the actions menu of another contact, which appears like one click too much. Maybe you can fix this, too, when fixing this bug.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

desired behavior?

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

I just realized that this bug only occurs when left-clicking on a contact.
Right-clicking does move the focus indicator as it should.

Wayne, I'm not sure what your question refers to and/or if it is a question to me or TB devs.
- desired behaviour as requested by this bug (s.a.) is that whenever the user touches a contact, this contact must get the visual focus indicator that you can move with TAB (dotted line)- regardless if touching via mouse click or TAB.
Right now, only right-clicking a contact moves the focus indicator correctly, but left-clicking doesn't. Steps to reproduce: see initial bug post, but you must use *left*-click to see the bug.
- certainly your question can't mean that the current double focus behaviour might be desired/intended? "Focus follows mouse click" is among the most basic UI interaction patterns and surely shouldn't be violated for no reason.
- With respect to my comment #1, desired behaviour IMO should be that after left-clicking on one contact (which opens popup context menu), left-clicking on another contact without closing the first contact's menu should bring up the other contact's popup straight away on first left-click (as opposed to the additional click on the second contact required right now).
Again, *right*-click has the desired behaviour.

I hope this helps to confirm the bug.

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Confirming based on the current right-click behaviour, which is correct and desired behaviour (and thus should be used for left-click, too).