546926 - Headers information toggle (+ source)

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, enhancement)

Description

[Rob Campbell]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Firefox/3.5.7 GTB6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20100111 Thunderbird/3.0.1

I often need to examine mail header information and sometimes the source (this is one of the key reasons I migrated from Windowns Live Mail). I require a more user friendly and intuitiver way to change the header view.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. View a message

Actual Results:  
I can change meassage header and body view in Thunderbird, but only via a rather circuitous menu route ( View ¦ Headers ¦ [All; Normal] ) and ( View ¦ Message Source ). Message source is also available as Ctrl-U. It is also available under Other Actions in the Header panel, but if All Headers are displayed the Other Actions button is often hidden and you have to scroll to it first.

Expected Results:  
1. Implement a Toggle between [ 1 Line Header, Normal Header, All Headers, Full Source ]. The Full Source included in this toggle would be a nice to have.
2. Implement the toggle described via all of the following (given in convenience raking order):
  a) a double-click anywhere on the header panel
  b) a menu item on the Other Actions button
3. The user should be able to set the default View to any of the Toggle states.


A search of the Mozilla site revelaed that there is an add-on "View Headers Toggle Button 2.0.1 by Josh Lukens". However this is not compatible with version 3.0.1 and I would regard the implementation I have described as very much easier and more intuitive than the add-on button. I also think that this UI implementation should be core functionality rather than an add-on. I assume that it is relatively simple to implement.

In the toggle description above I include "1 Line Header". I noticed that this used to be a feature of Thunderbird but has been replaced with the "Normal Header". I think both are useful. I would not want the Normal to be replaced by reverting to the 1 Line Header, but I do think that the 1 Line is useful for real estate efficiency.

Comment 1

[Charles]

I would much prefer to just add a couple of buttons to the new message header pane on Thunderbird 3.1+...

1. 'Toggle Headers' - just toggles between 'All' and 'Normal'

2. 'Toggle Source' - toggles between normal message view and Source view in the message preview pane, or opens the source in a new window if the preview pane is disable

3. Keyboard mappings would also be desirable, but not necessary.

I'm one of those sorely missing the 'View Headers Toggle' extension since it stopped working in 3+...