524314 - Double Clicking Status Message Should Show the Activity Manager

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[[e-mail]]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5pre) Gecko/20091009 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.5.2
Build Identifier: 

If the status bar is enabled, the same messages that show up in the activity manager show up in the status bar. 

One would think that clicking (or double-clicking) these messages would show more detail about them, or perhaps bring up the activity manager. Sadly, it does not. 

This seems like a useful feature to me, even if it meant adding a small button to the status bar that brings up the activity manager.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[sbastig]

I think this is a good idea and would like to add the following suggestion:
Thunderbird sometimes shows a loading bar moving (in the bottom right) but its not clear what it is doing or how long it will take. Have you considered to add an indication of download sizes to the bottom bar? For example: "Downloading 672 of 676 in MyMailFolder (1.67/1.8MB, 23KiB/s)". This could also be as a hint that only shows when you move the mouse over, or you could make it possible to click on the Downloading x of Y in Folder text. Sometimes I also saw the progress bar moving but there was no status text about what it was doing, maybe you could let the activity manager open if one double clicks on the status bar in the bottom (text and progress bar).

Comment 2

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Clicking on the throbber in the upper right corner should open the activity manager window as well.  Not sure if that's closely enough related to this to go into the same bug or if I should file a separate bug for that...

Comment 5

[anubhav.worklinux]

Hey! I would like to do this bug. Can you just give me some pointers on how to start.
Thanks!

Comment 6

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

function openActivityMgr() - https://dxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/content/mailCore.js#474

<statusbar class="chromeclass-status" id="status-bar"> - https://dxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.xul#3393

Comment 7

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

Attachment: Diff file

Created a patch to display Activity Manager when statusTextBox is clicked

Comment 8

[:aceman]

(In reply to sbastig from comment #1)
> Have you considered
> to add an indication of download sizes to the bottom bar? For example:
> "Downloading 672 of 676 in MyMailFolder (1.67/1.8MB, 23KiB/s)".

Please file this as a new bug, it is completely unrelated here.

(In reply to [e-mail] from comment #0)
> If the status bar is enabled, the same messages that show up in the activity
> manager show up in the status bar. 

The activity manager shows different messages than the status bar, only some are common.

Comment 9

[:aceman]

Comment on attachment 8814455 [details] [diff] [review]
Diff file

Sorry, it seems something went wrong with your hg qref and this patch does not contain any code resembling your work. It only picked up some unrelated blocklist.xml changes.

Comment 10

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

Attachment: Patch file

Comment 11

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

Uploaded the proper patch file

Comment 12

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 8814549 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch file

Review of attachment 8814549 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

::: mail/base/content/mailWindowOverlay.xul
@@ +3397,4 @@
>  </toolbox>
>  
>  <statusbar class="chromeclass-status" id="status-bar">
> +  <hbox insertbefore="unreadMessageCount"  id="statusTextBox" onclick="openActivityMgr();" flex="1">

Hmm, the bug description says, "Double click". So this opens the activity manager with a single click, right?

Comment 13

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

The bug title says "Clicking or Double Clicking...". But I'm more for only show on double click because a single click can also happen accidentally when the user wants to resize the window and this could irritate him. Double click is a intended action.

Comment 14

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Right.

Mayank, can you please try with ondblclick="openActivityMgr();".

Comment 15

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

Attachment: DblClick Patch

Changed the execution of openActivityMgr() from single click to dblclick

Comment 16

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 8814549 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch file

Please mark unwanted patches as obsolete.

Comment 17

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Comment on attachment 8814556 [details] [diff] [review]
DblClick Patch

This patch works, but is this really useful?

I find it 100% unintuitive to double-click onto the status bar to open the Activity Manager (which I personally have always open in a tab). How would the user ever know? We don't really want a tooltip to say: Double-click here to open the Activity Manager.

For me this bug is a WONTFIX and it's a real pity that is was marked [good first bug] and some aspiring new contributor spend time on it since I think it's just not worth having.

Oh, I see Magnus is the mentor, so let's NI him.

Comment 18

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

> How would the user ever know?

Either they find out, or then they don't. There's little harm done if someone doesn't find out, likely they didn't miss the feature in the first place then. I think semi-hidden features that help is actually a large part of what makes a product nice. And they are also great it you want to get the tech-press something to write about ;)

Comment 19

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

Comment on attachment 8814556 [details] [diff] [review]
DblClick Patch

Like Magnus wrote, it doesn't harm when this feature exists and it's not obvious. I think a normal user never uses the Activity Manager neither knows it ever exists.

Comment 20

[KitchM]

I agree that being able to see what is actually happening in more detail would be a beneficial feature.  Further, I have found that the information on the status bar goes by too quickly to see exactly what transpired.  One way to handle that would be to allow the information to scroll upward across the screen as more lines are loaded from the bottom, with the top ones fading away as they scroll.  This information would then be more easily read, and should also be duplicated in detail within the activity manager if one needed to go back and see it.  This way the need for the manager to pop up by clicking might be eliminated.

Comment 21

[:aceman]

Yes, I agree with comment 20, but that is bug 1051901.

It's fine that the bug here opens the activity manager on double click. With a single click we may open some history of messages that were displayed in the status bar in the past (bug 1051901 comment 4).

Comment 22

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Comment on attachment 8814556 [details] [diff] [review]
DblClick Patch

Review of attachment 8814556 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Great, thx for the patch Mayank! r=mkmelin

Please add a commit message to the patch though. Something like:
"Bug 524314 - make Double Clicking Status Message Show the Activity Manager. ui-r=Paenglab, r=mkmelin"

After you uploaded the patch, please add the "checkin-needed" keyword and someone will check it in for you.

Comment 23

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

What Magnus was saying in comment #22 is that need to upload a new patch with commit message
Bug 524314 - Make double clicking status bar show the Activity Manager. ui-r=Paenglab, r=mkmelin
(let's make it lower case and call it status bar).

On the new patch you can set r+ and ui-r+ yourself and say
Carrying forward r+ and ui-r+.

Then you set the checkin-needed keyword. It's all a bit complicated and long-winded. Of course the person doing the check-in can change the commit message for you, but since this is all educational so far, we get you to go through the proper process.

Comment 24

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

Attachment: dblclick.patch

Comment 25

[Mayank Madan [:mayankmadan]]

The New Patch should be good enough

Comment 26

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/4576016be15abdda88c6bd66ef337f29c39969f2
(I changed the commit message to what I said in comment #23)