511745 - Header pane: Collapsed list of contacts should be expanded when user moves focus past the last visible contact using <tab>

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, enhancement)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Follow-up from  Bug 460648 (message header: Focus disappears when moving through collapsed list of many contacts), Phil Ringnalda's comment #4:
> I'm inclined to think that if I'm tabbing through contacts and I go past the
> last visible one, I'd expect the invisible ones to be unhidden

Current behaviour:
hidden contacts are scrolled into view, one line each - you never know where in the list you are

Expected behaviour:
When user tabs past last visible contact of collapsed list's first row, expand the list and show all addresses of that header (to/CC).

Comment 1

[Pete Riley]

I'd prefer that the list of recipients isn't expanded simply by tabbing past the last one -- what if I don't want to see all the recipients and want to instead tab to the next object in the header pane or to the first link in the email body?

Another way to implement this:  after tabbing past the last visible recipient, focus the "more" button and then the spacebar could expand the list.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Another way to implement this:  after tabbing past the last visible recipient,
> focus the "more" button and then the spacebar could expand the list.

I like Pete's suggestion, as it will shorten the tab sequence a lot. When "more"-button has focus, both spacebar and ENTER should trigger expanding of the list. this is default behaviour in windows: spacebar or enter on focussed command buttons will trigger the action. this would also be consistent with the behaviour that Bug 470659 suggests (make focussed contacts actionable: pressing ENTER on contacts should open context menu...)

Here's another alternative (even shorter tab sequence):

Think of the list of contacts in terms of a horizontal list box (wow, it's a list!). What's OS default behaviour for lists (I'm on windows XP)? <tab> is used to quickly move around between major UI elements (here: from, subject, to, date...), whereas within lists, you need to use cursor keys to move focus around:

- <tab>ing into the list focusses first list item (say you tab from "subject" to "to-header", then the first contact of to-header will be focussed)
- then you can cursor right to the other elements of the list (the other to-recipients) and cursor left to go back
- cursor down expands the list and shifts focus to next row if more than row of contacts is present; cursor up moves focus up one row
- cursor-left beyond the last contact of collapsed list's first row will expand the list
- <tab> will take you fast-track to the next object of the header pane (subject gets focus)

This would significantly shorten / speed up the tab sequence while offering full access to every element. It's also intuitive, OS default behaviour for lists of elements.

Comment 3

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

I like this suggestion a lot. Apple Mail does it, and even Outlook does it in this fashion, allowing cursor left and right to jump from address to address. In the case of Outlook, it even wraps around lines.

Additionally, the APPLICATIONS or context menu key should open the contact's context menu like is currently done already, that shouldn't change.