550832 - Add "Filter for messages involving <contact>" command to email address context menu (message header pane)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, enhancement)

Description

[Andrew]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6 GTB6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.8) Gecko/20100227 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.3

When reading an email in the Preview Pane you can click on email addresses and perform various actions.  A beneficial action would be to filter the current folder (maybe even a search global).  

Example:
Reading email from [e-mail].
Instead of going to the search box and typing [e-mail] 
Just click on it and choose from the drop down "Filter Folder"
The Inbox then lists emails from [e-mail]
As if I went to the Search box and chose "Subject From or Recipient Filter"

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Enhancement.

Comment 1

[Andrew]

Email problems with address, testing update.

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

That would be a cool feature to have. TB's abilities to do useful things with addresses that are already tangible right in front of you are currently very limited, to say the least.(*) This looks like a low-cost step in the right direction, the use cases are obvious.

-> This bug should be confirmed as a valid request for enhancement.

Functionally and UX, it'll make a great difference if we implement this as a filter (within current view), or a global search (new tab). Actually, I think I'd want them both.

Filter:
- fast, easy, intuitive, in-place
- but smaller scope

Global Search:
- more comprehensive scope
- better integrated with conversations
- but slower, more complex UI-wise (less intuitive)

STR
1) read interesting mail from Bryan
2) want to read more interesting mail involving Bryan
3) try right-clicking on header pane's from header

Actual result
- cannot filter or search easily for all mails from Bryan (in this folder/globally)
- need multiple steps to perform this basic task (copy email address, paste into quicksearch box, possible change filter etc.)
- think "why the heck is this so complex, I've got the address right in front of me, how come I can't do this intuitively and straight from here" (*)

Expected result
- provide one-click way of filtering/searching for more/all mails that involve Bryan
- have a filter/search context menu on the from-header's context menu
- think "wow, that was easy, TB rocks!"

Proposed UI:

context menu of contacts (from-header, to-header etc.) should be:

Bryan W Clark
------------------------
Edit Contact
Compose Message To
Copy Email Address
------------------------
Filter for <[e-mail]> (2)
Search for <[e-mail]> (2)
Create Filter From (3)

(2): I can imagine a variety of different wordings for the search/filter commands, but Wayne has taught me that "terseness rules"...
For the same reason, I probably wouldn't mention the scope in the command, unless we find a very concise way of doing so, maybe like this:
- Filter this view for <[e-mail]>
- Search all messages for <[e-mail]>
(where "all messages" probably isn't the ideal term, but it's the term we currently use for gloda search in quick search box, and we should be consistent)

(3): "Create Filter From" command on the context menu: actually, I could live without this one, is anyone ever likely to use this? If yes, how often? More than once? Probably not! It's enough to have that on the main message menu

(*): Off topic: Similar scenarios involving addresses that drive me nuts include (but aren't limited to) the following:
- in quick search bar, type the name of a contact you are looking for, like "Bryan". You'll instantly get a variety of matches including the one you are looking for. Realize you cannot do anything with Bryan's email address, even though it's right in front of you in the dropdown. Bang your head while you go all the way through multiple results screens until you can actually grab Bryan's address.
- on gloda/faceted search first result page, spot the contact that you were looking for in the list of involved "People" on the left. Bang your head that you cannot even copy the email address text from there (bug 525558), let alone do anything else of use like "add/edit contact", "compose to" etc. As mentioned elsewhere, faceted search first results screen is a design alien that's completely disfunctional for anything beyond basic filtering on facets...

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Confirming the filter part of this bug (after a supportive ping via mail from Ludovic).

The search part is a duplicate of Bug 518295 (reported 2009-09 by David A.).
It's probably best to handle them separate, in the hope that one might make it into the actual program sooner than the other.

Andrewwlc, thanks for pointing this out!

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

dupe of bug 319540? (or vice versa)

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment 4)
Wayne, thanks for pointing to bug 319540, which underlines the needs for this sort of enhancement.

> dupe of bug 319540? (or vice versa)

No, bug 319540 central request is about the mail as a whole (drag & drop to quicksearch, or add filter commands to the *mail's* context menu), whereas this bug much more specifically asks for an addition to the mail's *senders/recipients* context menus only. They are certainly similar in their intention, so we can say that broader bug 319540 depends on this one.

Comment 6

[alta88]

fyi, this is implemented in TotalQuickFilter:
https://bitbucket.org/alta8888/totalquickfilter