518411 - [autoconfiguration] Manual configuration should be possible before checks

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, enhancement)

Description

[Kent James (:rkent)]

I see this when I am doing testing, but it could easily affect admins that want to do a lot of account creation, or instructions that might be written to configure unusual setups.

If you know that the automatic account setup is not optimal for you, it would be good to be able to bypass it before it kills all of that time scanning for servers. In my case, I am creating new accounts for testing purposes, and the autoconfig is not optimal for me. But the same issue would exist for anyone who finds the autoconfig suboptimal.

All I want is a "Manual Configuration" button on the initial page where I enter my name, email address, and password.

Comment 1

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

Hey Kent, I just updated this page with some new ideas: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Autoconfiguration:UI

This initial page might be of most interest to you.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:Thunderbird-Autoconfiguration-Initial_View.png

I added a "skip to manual configuration" link at the beginning so you could jump right to the end.

Manual configuration would look something like this:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/File:Thunderbird-Autoconfiguration-Sport_Configuring.png

From there you could test configuration and create the account in the Account Settings window or Create it via the Auto-Config dialog.

Comment 2

[Le Gluon du Net]

Great ideas Bryan!

Comment 3

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

This is available since 68.