522837 - Double-click on collapsed thread opens many many windows

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Reproduction:
1. Set pref Advanced | Reading & Display | Open messages in:
   (o) A new message window
2. Go to a mail folder, thread pane
3. Switch to threaded mode
  (click on top left header in thread pane, or
  menu View | Sort By | Threaded)
4. Threads are collapsed by default. (Otherwise collapse one)
5. Double-click on the first message in the thread, the one that
   is still visible.

Actual result:
Many standalone msg windows open, one per message in the thread.
Almost a DoS, if there are many mails in the thread.

Expected result:
Only one mail, the one that was clicked on (the first mail in the thread)
is opened in a standalone msg window.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Ben what are the values of :
 * mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads ?
 * mail.warn_on_collapsed_thread_operation ?

Comment 2

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Both are true, the default.

Comment 3

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

And yes, if I change mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads to false, the problem disappears.

I think it's a good idea, though, to mark all msgs as unread when I mark a collapsed thread as unread.
Maybe also for tagging, move/copy, and - with a warning - for delete and print.
I do *not* think this makes sense for starring, mark as Junk, save, opening and reply/forward.

Comment 4

[David Ascher (:davida)]

A nice way out of this would be to open the conversation thread in a window (or tab), now that we have that view (i.e. what happens when you click on a search result in the gloda search results pane).  That way you'd see the thread (in thread view), with the first message selected.

But it'd be a tad confusing as the thread summary only shows the messages in that folder (a bug IMO, but one that was deliberate given the timing of gloda vs. the thread summary view).  Longer term, I think we probably want to move to whole-conversation summaries in this summary view.

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

As nice as a conversation view is, in this case, the expected result is really what's described in comment 0. It would be confusing for the same action to have vastly different results (open in new standalone msg window vs. open a tab with a conversation view) depending on whether the tiny twisty points to the right or down.

Comment 6

[David Ascher (:davida)]

Well, the point of the summary view is to be able to operate on all of the messages in the thread at once (with the prefs set as you have them).  So, we deliberately _do_ want different operations depending on whether we have a collapsed thread or not.  I agree that opening loads of windows is likely not the right outcome, though.  

I don't believe that a user not trained on TB2 would expect a collapsed thread to act like its first message, but I agree that many TB2 users are expecting that, hence the prefs.

Comment 7

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

I think even a user who has never seen TB2 will also be confused when the results are so vastly different depending on such minor variables. If I set the prefs to use the standalone msg window (as is part of this bug's description), I do not expect a tab with a conversation view.

Comment 8

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Considering the cases mentioned in comment 3, esp. given the potentially surprising and destructive consequences (Delete, Junk, Print etc.), I think the pref mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads should default to false, until this is fixed properly.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

if this example is not an improvement, then regression?

IMO mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads conflates some behaviors which are IMO in some cases desirable and in others, not desirable.  But I don't remember them at the moment.

Comment 13

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Hey all,

So I've begun looking at this as part of my UXPrio smash for TB 15 (I know this isn't marked as UXPrio, but it's related to bug 508776 which is).

What bwinton and I have discussed is opening groups of messages in a single "2pane", or "message list" tab.  This is a tab that displays just the thread and message panes.

I've got an early preview available to try here:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/try-builds/[e-mail]-9691c95d47c0/

A major known bug - message list tabs do not default to opening a particular message just yet. This is particularly annoying when opening threads - we should probably display the most recent unread message in the thread.

Anyhow, feedback?

-Mike

Comment 14

[David :Bienvenu]

I think it's an interesting idea - that's the same widget that gloda "show as list" uses, right, so users have a good chance of not being shocked by it.

Comment 15

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Mike, please note:

> 5. Double-click on the first message in the thread, the one that
>    is still visible.
...
> Expected result:
> Only one mail, the one that was clicked on (the first mail in the thread)
> is opened in a standalone msg window.

If I click on a single message, I expect a single message to open, not all msgs in the thread as tab.

Comment 16

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

(In reply to David :Bienvenu from comment #14)
> I think it's an interesting idea - that's the same widget that gloda "show
> as list" uses, right, so users have a good chance of not being shocked by it.

And "Open in Conversation".

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #15)
> If I click on a single message, I expect a single message to open, not all
> msgs in the thread as tab.

Based on discussion in #hometab, I believe the plan is to follow the suggestion in bug 561106, which was duped to this one. We could always reverse the dupe and make that the "real" bug if it makes tracking easier.

Comment 17

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #15)
> Mike, please note:
> 
> > 5. Double-click on the first message in the thread, the one that
> >    is still visible.
> ...
> > Expected result:
> > Only one mail, the one that was clicked on (the first mail in the thread)
> > is opened in a standalone msg window.
> 
> If I click on a single message, I expect a single message to open, not all
> msgs in the thread as tab.

The behaviour when clicking on a single tab has not (or rather, should not) have changed.  Are you experiencing that behaviour in the builds I provided?

-Mike

Comment 18

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> clicking on a single tab

In the reproduction stated here, there are no tabs involved. I'm talking about threadpane and standalone msg window.

All I am saying is that if I click on one message, I want one message to open, not many. The fact that the one message is the first in the thread doesn't change anything about my expectation. As such, I disagree with the suggestion from bug 561106 and would consider that a bug, in case that wasn't clear.

Comment 19

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Attachment: Threadpane

This illustrates the problem. This is my Thunderbird main window. (The whole main window, just folder pane cut for privacy.) I click on the message from "Harvey" "Windows ARM". I expect an email to open, not a whole thread.

It makes no sense to me as a user that this case would act any different than if the same line shows a down-arrow or no arrow. The *only* difference is the arrow, and that's too subtle a UI indication to differentiate between a single message and a whole thread. In general, different kinds of objects (msg vs. thread) should have a completely different UI representation and not only differ in the direction of an arrow, and likewise the result of UI actions shouldn't differ dramatically.

Comment 20

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

squib had some suggestions in IRC that I thought I'd share here:

some suggestions based on the try build: 

1) if you double-click on a thread, it should open up the conversation, not just the received messages in the thread.
2) enable Message -> Open Message and Message -> Open in Conversation when multiple messages are selected; i think the former should only open root messages of collapsed threads, and the latter should open a single 2pane with all the conversations
3) add "Open in Conversation" to the mailContext menu when multiple messages are selected
4) just open the root message of a thread if double-clicking is set to open a standalone window

Comment 21

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> 4) just open the root message of a thread if double-clicking is set to open a standalone window

That would be exactly this bug, yes. This is all I asked for. Thanks.

Other suggestions:
1. The collapsed thread line must be very obviously distinctive, even at first untrained look (!), from a single message. At the minimum, the From column shouldn't show the author of the first message, but e.g. "4 authors". But I think even that is too subtle, we need other differences (not color, please). Suggestions welcome.
2. If a whole thread opens at the same time, open the "Conservation" view, not individual msgs. (This may be your intention, but I haven't noticed that being stated explicitly.)

Comment 22

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

Attachment: WIP Patch 1

This is getting close to usable - just checkpointing my work...

Comment 23

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

So there's a caveat to this patch, in that it assumes:

1)  That the Gloda indexer is enabled
2)  That the messages being opened have been indexed

Are we OK with those assumptions?

-Mike

Comment 24

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) from comment #23)
> So there's a caveat to this patch, in that it assumes:
> 
> 1)  That the Gloda indexer is enabled
> 2)  That the messages being opened have been indexed
> 
> Are we OK with those assumptions?

What's the failure/fallback behavior? An unfortunately significant number of users turn off gloda.

Comment 25

[Mike Conley (:mconley) (:⚙️)]

(In reply to David :Bienvenu from comment #24)
> (In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) from comment #23)
> > So there's a caveat to this patch, in that it assumes:
> > 
> > 1)  That the Gloda indexer is enabled
> > 2)  That the messages being opened have been indexed
> > 
> > Are we OK with those assumptions?
> 
> What's the failure/fallback behavior? An unfortunately significant number of
> users turn off gloda.

Hrm. Not much of a fallback. Right now, this patch will probably just end up opening a 2pane with nothing listed.

Perhaps if Gloda is disabled, we should fallback to the old behaviour of opening up a bunch of tabs?

Comment 26

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to Mike Conley (:mconley) from comment #25)
> 
> Hrm. Not much of a fallback. Right now, this patch will probably just end up
> opening a 2pane with nothing listed.

It's probably more trouble than you care to take, but I don't think there's much that's gloda-specific about opening a 2 pane window with a list of messages in the thread pane. I think the gloda code just stuffs the message headers in a view, as if we'd done a cross-folder search.

> 
> Perhaps if Gloda is disabled, we should fallback to the old behaviour of
> opening up a bunch of tabs?

with a limit to the number of tabs we'll open?

Comment 27

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> Perhaps if Gloda is disabled, we should fallback to the old behaviour of opening up a bunch of tabs?

As bienvenu said, you cannot count on Globa, many users have it disabled, or the indexer is slow.
If the bug still exists in this case, then this bug isn't fixed.

Can you just open the first msg (the one directly clicked on) in this case?

Comment 28

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

STM this should be an easy fix - we just need to agreement as to which behavior.
xref bug 531009