530558 - Alt+Home and "Go > Mail start page" should work from all tabs (faceted search results, thread pane results, Lightning etc.)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

STR

1a open lightning's today tab
1b open faceted search visual result tab
1c open "show as list" thread pane list search result tab
2 press alt+home
3 try Go > Mail start page

actual

2 nothing
3 menu disabled

expect

2 should always open tb mail start page (in a new tab, bug 530553)
3 menu should be enabled

no reason for the bird to hide, let it be proud and omnipresent... 8)

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Doh does it happen if you don't start by opening lightning ?

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Doh does it happen if you don't start by opening lightning ?

"It" happens even without lightning installed, where "it" is just that the alt+home key doesn't work and the "Mail start page" menu is disabled.
Yes, it's kinda sad for those who happen to know about that page and actually feel the need to go there from wherever they are. For all others, it probably doesn't hurt. Compared to FF, we are not very cooperative in showing our start page...

(In reply to comment #0)
> STR
> 1a open lightning's today tab 
> 1b open faceted search visual result tab
> 1c open "show as list" thread pane list search result tab

Where these should really be (1a) OR (1b) OR (1c) as different examples where you can meet this bug, which is basically ANY tab except for the main mail tab.

> actual
> 2 nothing
> 3 menu disabled

Which is the "Mail start menu" only.

Comment 3

[JG Berson]

Alt-Home still does not work in TB V-3.1.2
It times out with a "Connection Reset" message.

Comment 4

[JG Berson]

It works now.  TB Ver 31.1.1
IMHO this bug is closed.  Thanks.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to JG Berson from comment #4)
> It works now.  TB Ver 31.1.1
> IMHO this bug is closed.  Thanks.

Thomas do you agree?

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to JG Berson from comment #4)
> It works now.  TB Ver 31.1.1
> IMHO this bug is closed.  Thanks.

JG Berson, before commenting that a bug can be closed, please ensure following the steps to reproduce (STR, from comment 0) exactly and understanding the current bug summary.

Your network issue might be solved, but none of the scenarios of this bug succeed.

But while you're here, could you comment for which scenarios you're using the Alt+Home keyboard shortcut, and why it's useful for you?

Another point in favor of this bug is that e.g. corporate users can easily use Tools > Options to set the mail start page URL to some other start page which is useful for their business. For such scenarios, more as TB doesn't support pinned app tabs yet, it certainly makes sense that the command for opening that start page should not be randomly restricted to the main mail tab, where the actual viewing area for the start page is pretty small (hence this bug is best combined with bug 530553).

This is certainly minor and so far we haven't seen too many users missing this; which I think is also a self-fulfilling prophecy thing because currently this command is all but useless, no longer found in FF UI (but Alt+Home still working), and also quite tucked away in TB as we don't show menu bar by default. Which to me looks rather like another reason to not needlessly limit the applicability of this time-honored keyboard shortcut.

Comment 7

[JG Berson]

Thomas

Thanks for an expanded reply.  

I have/had no network issues, just a PC and a modem.  My start page is a local news RSS feed, and I have several tabs open in TB.

Consistently then and still now, when my inbox page fully loads my mail, the news page disappears, while I am reading an article.  And if I go to another tab, the news page almost always disappears as well.  This is well noted in another bugzilla but seems to be non reproducible (consistently) hence, unsolvable to date.

To compensate I would then Alt+Home to reload the news feed.  That stopped working as well, so I mentioned it 4 YEARS ago above.  Now it works.  I'm happy.  So as far as I am concerned, this thread can be closed.  I'm not the one to close it, as I was not the OP.

If others still have a problem, say so.