476822 - Navigation through folders by typing in start of folder name

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 226874

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[owen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.19 (20081209)

One of my main likes in Outlook express is the ability to go to my folders and jump to a folder by typing in the first letter/number of the folder name just as one can navigate Windows explorer in the same way. With over 500 folders this is a major time/finger saving feature. Thunderbird cannot do this. I would switch tomorrow if that facility was enabled.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open folders
2. Type I , it doesn't jump to the inbox
3.
Actual Results:  
as in 2. nothing happens

Expected Results:  
Jump to inbox, type in I, expect it to go to inbox

Same when I expand Outlook Express Mail.
First folder is named 1_Todo.
By just hitting the 1 key I would expect it jump to the folder, then opening the folder with the right arrow key I would then expect to be able to navigate through the sub folders by hitting the key corresponding to the first character of the folder name.

Comment 1

[Valery Kondakoff]

I'm sure this is not a bug, but request for enhancement. However I strongly support this request: I'm really missing the keyboard navigating through folders in the Folder Pane.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20090204 Shredder/3.0b2pre

Comment 2

[Jelle de Jong]

bug:
 make it possible to use keys to navigate directly to the name of a mail folder

please set the platform to all.

using icedove under Debian GNU/Linux (Thunderbird/2.0.0.19)

please see the screenshots.

This enhancement will increase the productivity of the workflow when using larger email systems.

Comment 3

[Jelle de Jong]

Attachment: sceenshots of list of folders that would be nice to navigate by pressing the first character as key

Comment 4

[Valery Kondakoff]

Note, please, that this request can conflict with TB existing one-key keyboard hotkeys, like 'J' for marking message as Junk, 'A' to arhieve mail etc.

Comment 5

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Note, please, that this request can conflict with TB existing one-key keyboard
> hotkeys
One way of getting around this issue would be to allow those hotkeys in the message list, but not in the folder list. This makes sense to me anyway, as you can't mark a folder as junk, etc.

Comment 6

[James Teh [:Jamie]]

I would argue this relates to accessibility. (I'd add the access keyword myself, but I don't have access to do that.) It is relatively easy for a sighted person to quickly jump to a folder with the mouse, but moving folder by folder with the keyboard is a bit tedious at best.

Also note that Thunderbird's behaviour of opening a folder as soon as it is focused may cause problems with this idea, as it will constantly be opening intermediate folders as you type multiple characters. From memory, Outlook doesn't do this - I think you have to press enter on the folder. Can someone confirm or refute this?

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

i second all comments: its a quite annoing accessibility issue for screen reader users

Comment 8

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Confirming RFE. (I have a feeling there might be a dupe but couldn't find it.)

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bleh, they are different