500229 - "default reply action" needs a keystroke shortcut

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, enhancement)

Description

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

I find myself wanting this many times every single day.  Since I suspect I'm not uncommon in that regard, and since it should be easy, I think it makes sense for this to block.

Perhaps it also wants some sort of visual affordance to aid in discoverability.

I believe davida had suggested "r", which sounds like a fine choice to me.

Comment 1

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

Yes!  I find myself looking at the button, pressing cmd-r and then... big sigh... i don't get the reply I was expecting.  'r' seems like a reasonable second choice.

My ideal case would be that we figure out a way to gracefully swap out the ctrl-r keybinding with our 'default reply' action.  However if we did that and didn't have a fool proof plan I fear the damage we could cause.

Comment 2

[Dan Mosedale (:dmosedale, :dmose)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> 
> My ideal case would be that we figure out a way to gracefully swap out the
> ctrl-r keybinding with our 'default reply' action.  

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

Comment 3

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

I don't think it's going to be possible to do this well, I'm just whining.

But an example of a (not so good) transition could be something like:

- on first use of TB3 -
* person views a message w/ a reply all or reply list default
* person presses cmd-r
* TB shows a dialog saying cmd-r now chooses the 'default reply'
** The dialog gives an option for the person to continue with this or revert back to the old behavior

Comment 4

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

Ok, so this morning I created an extension to do this.

Source Code:
http://hg.mozilla.org/users/clarkbw_gnome.org/the-real-reply

Here is the released extension for download.
http://hg.mozilla.org/users/clarkbw_gnome.org/the-real-reply/raw-file/tip/release/therealreply.xpi

Here is your pseudo code for what this does.

init() {
  document.getElement("reply_key").setAttribute("oncommand", "myReply");
}
myReply() {
  for each ( reply_button in buttonbox ) {
    if ( ! reply_button.hidden )
      reply_button.click();
  }
}

In other words, I hijack the reply key code and stuff in my own function.  In my own function I find the reply button that isn't hidden and send it the click event.

Comment 5

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

I'm going to submit that extension for review in the add-ons.

I don't think this should block 3.0 as we can easily work around the solution for people who want this change.

I don't like giving this the single 'r' key as it is already used (mark thread read) and doesn't feel like a good solution.  'Shift-r' was proposed as an alternative but we've been generally using the shift version as a reverse of the original key command (started by the 'j' junk command); also "shift-r" feels like a hack to grab a button and not a solution.

Comment 6

[Andrew Buehler]

Is this extension, or a change incorporating it, going to be in the 3.0 release?

I do very much like the behavior you described in comment 155 on bug 45715, although I disagree with at least one of the defaults, but I don't want to have to use the mouse to get the reply behavior I expect. This extension, or a comparable change, looks like it would fix that issue. (However, I can't presently test the extension to confirm that, as I'm running a 2.0 version of Thunderbird.)

Comment 7

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

With a little more tweaking I was able to finish my add-on against the new header buttons.  I've put it up in the AMO site now for others to use.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/15029

Currently the add-on is in experimental mode so you'll need to log-in to download it.  Once this add-on goes public you should be able to search for it and install it from the Add-on manager via Tools -> Add-ons.

There is very little UI to this add-on it simple alters the (Ctrl-R or Cmd-R) keyboard shortcut to activate the reply button you are seeing in the header instead of the (possibly) hidden reply to sender button.

Comment 8

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

I shouldn't be the assignee for these bugs.  Filter against clarkbfilter to delete all these from your emails.