534853 - Add preference for mark the message as read after replying to an unread mail

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, enhancement)

Description

[Kedar P Bhise]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Lightning/1.0b2pre Thunderbird/3.0

I use a POP3 server account inside Thunderbird.

In Tools > Options > Advanced > Reading & Display, I have
"Automatically mark messages as read" disabled. Thus, messages remain as read even when browsing via message pane. This is OK behaviour.

However, when I pick any of the unread messages and use the context menu to reply to that message, the message status does not change to "Read". The message remains highlighted in bold, and the folder pane unread count remains at previous value. I have to press "M" to mark it as read.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Uncheck "Automatically mark messages as read" in:
Tools > Options > Advanced > Reading & Display
2. Download new mail from POP3 account.
3. Browse to any unread mail in Messages pane.
4. Right click on the message and choose "Reply to Sender" or "Reply to all"
5. Compose and send reply.
Actual Results:  
Mail is sent successfully.
However, the message status does not change to "Read."

Expected Results:  
On Reply, the unread message should be marked as Read.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

This might be the desired behaviour, asking our Interaction guru.

Comment 2

[Kedar P Bhise]

I am contrasting this with other mail clients where the behaviour is as "Expected Results" described in the bug.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

Yeah, I agree that it should. The place where we mark it replied, we could also easily mark it read.

Comment 4

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

Seems like an obvious behavior.  Though I reply to things all the time without reading them :)

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I'm not so sure. It may seem obviously wanted by some. However, this is longstanding behavior,  I'm not sure everyone would welcome this, and people have come to accept the existing preference of "automark unread when read" as meaning status changes only on some manual event. Which to me means you'd need to add a new preference of "Mark read when replied to" with the default set to disabled for existing users, or change the definition of the existing preference.

Suggest this idea be posted in a newsgroup for feedback. Regardless, this would be an enhancement.

Comment 6

[Omar]

Attachment: Replying to an unread mail does not mark mail as read

Comment 7

[Jason Lingohr]

I agree here -- I think it's silly that when I've replied to, or forwarded a mail, that in order to see the flags/icons indicating such, I have to hit "m" and mark it as read...

In addition to this, replying or forwarding (or other potential actions), should inherently mark it as read.

Comment 8

[Jason Lingohr]

Hrm... interestingly, I just noticed that if I move off to another folder, and back, the icons/flags show correctly.

So it would seem this IS a bug, because the code appears to be there to do the right thing -- it just doesn't work ;)

Comment 9

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 422033 [details] [diff] [review]
Replying to an unread mail does not mark mail as read

This is a change in UI behaviour - so Bryan should confirm this is what is wanted.

Comment 10

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

Comment on attachment 422033 [details] [diff] [review]
Replying to an unread mail does not mark mail as read

My only concern here was for people who are using the read/unread state for todo management of their folder and this change might be unexpected to them.  However in the more general case I think this will be a good thing.

Comment 11

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

bienvenu ping for review.

Comment 12

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

What's the relnote here? This isn't a regression, and I doubt I'd want to put it into a known issues as a feature change.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

bug 239782 has many comments - I haven't read them. It'd probably be wise to read it before proceeding further with this bug. Surprised this bug wasn't duped to it, but no point now, as this bug has patch and approvals.

Comment 15

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

(In reply to comment #12)
> What's the relnote here? This isn't a regression, and I doubt I'd want to put
> it into a known issues as a feature change.

That's because I forgot about feature changes. And I'd be sure to point this one out when we release.

Comment 16

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 422033 [details] [diff] [review]
Replying to an unread mail does not mark mail as read

with this patch, if I reply to a read message, it marks it unread.

Comment 17

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

(In reply to comment #16)
> Comment on attachment 422033 [details] [diff] [review]
> Replying to an unread mail does not mark mail as read
> 
> with this patch, if I reply to a read message, it marks it unread.

That does not sound like a behavior we intended :)

Comment 18

[freedman]

my suggestion is to add an redio button option "Mark as read when replying" to Advanced->Reading 
although I might want to use this in combination with one of the other choices (in addition to mark as read after x seconds for example).

Comment 19

[stricte]

(In reply to freedman from comment #18)
> my suggestion is to add an redio button option "Mark as read when replying"
> to Advanced->Reading 
> although I might want to use this in combination with one of the other
> choices (in addition to mark as read after x seconds for example).

Sounds very reasonably. The question is how long we will need to wait for this, thought, simply change.

Comment 21

[M Lopez-Ibanez]

There is an old add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/mark-read-on-reply-and-repl/
but it doesn't work. It relies on overlaying the reply buttons, which is very fragile (specially, it doesn't seem to work with Conversations, which is probably the most popular add-on out there).

Comment 22

[M Lopez-Ibanez]

Another broken add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/thunderbird/addon/mark-read-on-reply/

I didn't even try this one, but it also overrides buttons and it seems to break reply-all.

Comment 23

[Ron Higgins]

Anyone know of a working add-on, or patch, or setting to get this fix into Thunderbird? Thanks.

Comment 24

[quixand]

how do I up-vote comments?

Comment 25

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to quixand from comment #24)
> how do I up-vote comments?

There isn't.  And FWIW comments requesting what has been reported by the original author is discouraged. 

(In reply to Ron Higgins from comment #23)
> Anyone know of a working add-on, or patch, or setting to get this fix into
> Thunderbird? Thanks.

None AFAIK. 

The best hope forward is someone adopt and fix up the addon https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/mark-read-on-reply/

Comment 26

[quixand]

So how does the user community articulate the importance of an issue to the development community?

Comment 27

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to quixand from comment #26)
> So how does the user community articulate the importance of an issue to the
> development community?

An issue is assumed to be important unless stated otherwise.  But a bug being "important" doesn't mean that it's near the top of any list of a very long list of things to be done (there are over 3,000 enhancement requests https://mzl.la/2r39qOH plus far more bug reports), or that there are people available to fix it.  In such a situation, one has these choices - have the patience of a saint, help get it fixed yourself, or hire someone to do it (yes, people/companies have done this).

Comment 28

[quixand]

It sounds like there is no way for the community to vote for issues. That sounds like a major issue. It also probably explains why this issue is 9 years old.

Comment 29

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

"there is no way for the community to vote for issues" is a fact as I already said, but does not explain why this bug is not fixed. If you looked at the link I provided you saw see hundreds of issues that are way older than 9 years. 

Please reread my comment 27 - it is not meant to be critical nor dismissive of your interest and concern, but those are your choices and restating your concerns doesn't change anything. But being involved can https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

Comment 30

[quixand]

if the user community is unable to communicate their frustration with issues and vote for issues to be resolved, how exactly are the development community able to understand the priority of issues? it sounds like this approach also explains why there are hundreds of issues older than 9 years.

I don't see how a product can be improved by leaving the understanding of the impact to end users up to developers alone.

Also Merry Xmas.

Comment 31

[Ron Higgins]

The attachment in Comment #6 shows the fix to be the addition of 4 lines of code. (that's what it looks like to me)

So if that's actually still the case, is there any way for me to add these 4 lines of code to my installation? I'm guessing that if there is, the changes wouldn't stick during updates, but maybe that's okay if it's easy enough to do.

Comment 32

[[e-mail]]

The add on "Change Quote and Reply Format" used to provide this capability until 60(ish). Now it breaks reply function and the developer is understandably fed up with Thunderbird development (https://freeshell.de/~kaosmos/index-en.html).

AFAIK there is no currently working solution for this fairly obvious productivity requirement. While I realize some people might genuinely prefer the default behavior of not marking a message as "read" when "replied" or "forwarded," it is quite frustrating to me that TB does not do this and clearly I am not alone.

Aside from a "waterbird" style fork to preserve plugin compatibility for those of us who've grown dependent on them to preserve the user experience we prefer, would it be possible to add this option as a core feature?