491055 - Improve UX of spell check language switching (redesign spell check button, e.g. bigger click target for language switching, show current language, add menus)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Message Compose Window, enhancement)

Description

[Christian Hudon]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042513 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.10
Build Identifier: 

Since Thunderbird has added spellcheck-as-you-time, the main remaining use of the spellcheck button is now to switch between dictionaries (at least for multilingual users). However size of the target areas for the features accessed through that button hasn't changed: the largest target area (quicker access) brings up the spellcheck dialog box (which I personally never use now with the spellcheck-as-you-type feature), while the really narrow target area of the arrow to switch dictionaries (which I use every 2-3 messages) is now the most-used feature for that button I expect.

It'd be nice if that was reworked to take into account that when the spell-as-you-type feature is enabled, most people (I expect) don't use the spellcheck dialog box. Having a "Document language" dropbox that I could drag from the "Customize" dialog box onto the toolbar would be nice too.

Thanks for listening.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Christian, what version are you using? Are you referring to the dropdown arrow next to "Spell"?

Comment 2

[Christian Hudon]

I'm using the latest release (2.0.0.21). Yes, I'm referring to the dropdown arrow that's a narrow vertical band at the right of the "Spell" button.

Comment 3

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Oh I see, cool request.  That makes a lot of sense to me.  

There will likely be odd platform issues to deal with since Window, OS X, and Linux all deal with that menu button in a different way.

I wonder if we should just have a different button for this and make the spell check button not a menu button.

Comment 4

[Christian Hudon]

Yeah, that would be my take too. "Spell as you type" is so much better from an interface point of view that I don't think too many people are still using the traditional Spellcheck dialog box. 

A "switch language" button by default on the toolbar (replacing the spellcheck button) would be great. You might want to leave the current spellcheck button in the set of additional buttons available with the "customize toolbar" popup, so people who prefer the old dialog box can install the button. (Or not.) And unilingual users can remove the "switch language button" if they need more space on the toolbar.

Also, I guess the "switch language" button doesn't have to be a combo box (which would display the currently selected language, but take a lot of room on a toolbar). It's usually pretty obvious when the wrong language is set, because over half the text has red squiggles under it (instead of just a few words).

The other thing that would help a lot with usability is to have the languages I've used in the past at the top of the list, followed by a separator and then the other languages. People will use at most a couple of different dictionaries frequently, but on my Ubuntu install, I select languages I want to enable and then all the corresponding dictionaries are install. So for English, I have en_US, en_GB and en_ZA even though the vast majority of the time I use only one of those. Same for French and German. Having the dictionaries I've used at the top of the list would save a fair bit of time too switching between spellcheck dictionaries.

As it is right now, unless I'm writing an important email, I mostly don't bother switching to the correct dictionary because hitting the narrow target area on the button and then finding the right dictionary in the list of 12 (or more) takes too much time compared to the benefits (I'm a decent speller), especially for short emails. Defeats a bit the purpose of "spellcheck as you type", though. (At least for multilingual users.)

Thanks for listening.

Comment 5

[Christian Hudon]

Could one of the commenters please mark this bug as "confirmed"? (Assuming someone has that authorization.)

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Christian, do these issues still exist for you in version 5?  From what I see in the compose window, the button is not too small. But I'm not sure what I am comparing this to without a screen shot of what you saw in version 2.


does https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quick-locale-switcher/ help in any way?

Comment 7

[Christian Hudon]

Yes, nothing has changed regarding that in Thunberbird 5. And repeating myself somewhat, the issue is not that the "spellcheck" button it too small. The issues are:

1. Spellcheck button itself is just about useless when "check spelling as you type" feature is being used (and my guess is the vast majority of people leave that feature on and use that instead of the spellcheck dialog box)

2. The only useful feature is said button is the down arrow on the right that allows to switch spellcheck languages. Sadly, said down arrow is quite narrow and slow to hit. That's my complain.

In my mind, the spellcheck button should be replaced by a "current spellcheck language" picklist or drop-down menu when "check spelling as you type" is enabled. It would should the language currently used for spellcheck, and allow quickly switching spellcheck language when activated. The other spellcheck languages that I've used would be grouped at the top, then all the remaining spellcheck languages would be listed. (Maybe with a menu item that activates the spellcheck dialog box too? Then we might be able to get rid of the current spellcheck button.)

Can someone please again mark the bug as "confirmed", at least (assuming you think it is a valid bug)? Thanks.



Yes, that quick locale switcher addon does help, thanks. But I still think this should be solved in Thunderbird itself, not in an addon. (For one, I found said addon a bit over-engineered... I personally don't think people should have to configure a spellcheck language switcher, although I get that this addon does more than that.)

Comment 8

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Bryan Clark [:clarkbw] from comment #3)
> Oh I see, cool request.  That makes a lot of sense to me.  
>... 
> I wonder if we should just have a different button for this and make the
> spell check button not a menu button.

also, language choice is not shown on any menu, for example under Options where spell choices are listed.

xref Bug 408207 - Check spelling button should display selected dictionary language

Comment 9

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

In bug 368915 a new "language" button was proposed to allow easy language switching and to show the currently selected language. This is how it looks: attachment 8625069 [details].
If the reporter of this bug here is still interested in the feature, he should lobby it over in the other bug.

Comment 10

[Christian Hudon]

The design from bug 368915 looks great to me and addresses all my problems with the current design.

Comment 11

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Thanks. Please leave a comment in bug 368915, since it's meeting a lot of resistance to the point where it's not being approved.

Comment 12

[Christian Hudon]

Ugh. Done. Hope it gets approved. I've been waiting for a fix for this bug for a long time. Thanks for working on it (through a related bug).

Comment 14

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Given the discussion in bug 368915, this bug won't be fixed.

Comment 15

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Sorry, there was a hot discussion in bug 368915 and the dynamic button just didn't find consensus. I hope that the status bar display is workable. Sadly the click target to change the language stays the same. There's of course always the context menu in subject and body.