493753 - back and forward buttons should be based on the folder you are on not the message you had selected

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[Carl]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.9) Gecko/2009040821 Firefox/3.0.9 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: version 2.0.0.21 (20090302)

If I go to one folder without selecting a message, then go to another folder without selecting a message, the back and forward buttons are not active.  They only become active if you had selected at least one message in each folder you go to.  This behavior differs from when I used outlook where it's back and forward buttons based it on the folder you had gone into rather then the message you had clicked on in each folder.  And this was outlook 2000, so it's not like it's a new feature.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Open thunderbird
2.  Make sure you're already in the inbox folder and don't click on any messages in there.
3.  Then click on the sent folder and don't click on any messages in there.
4.  Then click on the trash folder and don't click on any messages in there.
Actual Results:  
The back and forward buttons don't become active at all.

Expected Results:  
The back button should become active after clicking on the sent folder and if I click on it, it should send me back to the previous folder I was in, which is the inbox folder.  And if you had clicked on the trash folder after the sent folder, then the back button should already be active and if I pressed it, I would be sent to the sent folder and if I pressed it again, I would be sent to the inbox folder.  At this point the forward button would become active and if I pressed that when I was back on the inbox folder, I would be sent to the sent folder and if I pressed it again, I would be sent to the trash folder.

I don't know of any other email program that treats the back and forward buttons the way thunderbird does.  Normally it is based on the folder you are in instead of the message you had selected.  Now it would be even better if it combined it with it remembering the last message you were on.  But that should be optional, not a requirement for having the back and forward buttons working.

Comment 1

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

dupe is bug #235666?

Comment 2

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> dupe is bug #235666?

They are very close. Carl(bug opener), what do you think ?

Comment 3

[Carl]

As someone who has tried outlook express, outlook, eudora and now thunderbird; the back and forward buttons were always based on what folder you were in.  The bug #235666 wants these same buttons to have a different function.  Which is to move to the next message in the current folder, not jump between different folders you were just in.

I think for this bug the back and forward buttons should be based upon the folder you were in and if you happen to click on a message in that folder and then go to another folder, then press back, you go to the previous folder and go to that message you had selected but it's not necessary to have selected a message in that folder.  So if you went to the previous folder using back, and you hadn't selected a message, then none would be selected but you would be in that folder.  It's what I found windows does as well when you use it's back and forward buttons in windows explorer and I find that very handy.  And of course these buttons would be grayed out if you double click to open a message since in that case they would have no function.

As for bug #235666, there should be a different set of buttons to do what the bug reporter wants.  Ones that are more clear and say next message and previous message for the current folder would be better served.  It be the equivalent of selecting a message and pressing the up and down arrow keys without selecting any of the body of the message.

Comment 4

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Carl it seems closely dupe of bug #368770.

Feel free to reopen it if I'm wrong.

Comment 5

[Carl]

Actually bug #368770 wants the buttons to not act as navigator buttons, but as next and previous message buttons in the same folder.  That bug wants their function limited to the current folder you are in, say inbox.  And if there is 3 messages and you select the 1st message, pressing next will take you to message 2, next again will take you to message 3, and previous will take you back to message 2.  If you select message 1, then 3, and click on previous, it will take you to message 2 because 2 is before 3.  It's not based on your navigation history at all.

What I want is to just change them slightly to be not based on the message you have selected, but based on the folders you go into.  If you happen to select a message in that folder, then it will also select that message when pressing the back and forward buttons.  But it's optional for remembering the navigation history.  Currently if you don't select a message inside a folder you go to, it's as if you never went to that folder.  An example:

1.  Go to inbox and select message C.
2.  Go to Folder 1.
3.  Go to Folder 2 and select message D.
4.  Press the back button and you go to inbox with message C selected.

What other email clients do:

1.  Go to inbox and select message C.
2.  Go to Folder 1.
3.  Go to Folder 2 and select message D.
4.  Press the back button and you go to folder 1 with no messages selected.
5.  Press the back button again and you go to inbox with message C selected.
6.  Press the forward button and you go to folder 1 with no messages selected.
7.  Press the forward button again and you go to folder 2 with message D selected.

Comment 6

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

This is an enhancement request.