577655 - message tab of a message currently viewed is not displayed on a visible part of the tab bar - cannot close message unless I scroll to the proper message tab.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 725469

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, defect)

Description

[Michał]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; pl; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1

Message tab bar behaves all right until certain number of messages is opened, that is the tabs fit or do not fit in the tab bar depending of ones display resolution and windows width.
After the tabs exceed the tab bar width one has to scroll left and right in order to display the message being seeked or one has to use pull down menu with all tabs listed vertically. If one double click on certain message in the inbox folder to open it one get the message open but the acompanying message tab is put at the rightmost end without focus being transfered there. One can open many message consecutively and not to see their tabs.
Help please. It has continued since the very introduction of tabs in Thunderbird.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open more messages than the tab bar can contain within the window.
2. Change focus to any folder like inbox or sent or trash...
3. Open any message.

Actual Results:  
Now you have the message opened but the tab it is bound to is hidden from view until you manually scroll to it.


Expected Results:  
Having the focus transfered to the newly created tab and that tab displayed anywhere within the visible range of the tab bar would be fine.


I suggest not to close the folder pane in order to be able to easily navigate back to inbox or any desired folder.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Have you tried safe mode? (see https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode for more information)

Can you show a screen shot of 1) so we can agree on more than fit the window ?

Is the Quick filter bar hidden or shown ?

Comment 2

[Michał]

Attachment: at the left edge of message tabs pane

Comment 3

[Michał]

Attachment: at the right edge of the message tab pane

Comment 4

[Michał]

Attachment: one message is displayed but the tab that has focus is not displayed at the visible part of the message tabe pane.

Comment 5

[Michał]

Apropriate screen shots added.

Comment 6

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Bryan ideas on what the correct behavior should be ?

Comment 7

[Michał]

Attachment: tabs do not fill the window space if tab is closed

It is worth noting that if one is at the rightmost end of the message tab pane and one closes any message tab from those displayed in current window the tabs move to the left leaving a gap on the right side.
Maybe it would be wise to scroll the tabs to the right to fill that gap.

Comment 8

[Michał]

Mesers, any progress would be more than welcome please.

Comment 9

[Michał]

A temporary solution would be to:
OPEN NEW TAB ON THE RIGHT SIDE NEXT TO THE FIRST TAB ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE TAB BAR JUST LIKE YOUR MOZILLA FRIENDS DO.

Comment 10

[Michał]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Bryan ideas on what the correct behavior should be ?

Should anyone "take the glove" or it lies dormant?

Comment 11

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Please don't add random keywords if you don't know what they are for.

Comment 12

[Michał]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Please don't add random keywords if you don't know what they are for.

You almost absolutely right about random keywords addition for which I apologize but:
1. Nobody has taken any notice of the issue since 2010-07-23 06:27:11 PDT.
2. Nobody answered any of the suggestions.
3. The message tab system is so to speak "very immature" and has to be rethought and rewritten and this and the 580229 bug correspond with each other on the matter.
I absolutely, wholeheartedly keep my fingers crossed for you not to stop at hunting bad keywords but focusing on resolution of issues and bugs.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Michal, there are many bug reports. All good bug reports are welcome, however, not all reports can receive quick attention. please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html item 2

Current behavior does not substantially impact functionality, so sev=minor

I cannot reproduce comment 7 with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101115 Thunderbird/3.3a1pre

Comment 14

[Michał]

comment 7 is no longer valid. Consider merging this bug with 695285.

Comment 15

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Michał, as a fellow volunteer, I'd like to thank you for filing this bug and adding valuable information like the screenshots. I just ran into the problem described by this bug, and when I filed bug 725469 for this, your bug didn't show up. And to be honest I am surprised that this hasn't been fixed yet. But I accept that there are lots of other bugs which are worse than this, although I don't think this is minor. We also need to accept that developers are few and there is no way they could fix all the bugs.

In the meantime, what we can do is to present the problem as clearly and concise as possible. Therefore, in an attempt to move this bug forward, I will duplicate your bug against my bug 725469, hoping that my description with STR, Actual results, and expected results is easier/faster to understand and reproduce than here. We should then point to some of your helpful screenshots or attach them there.

(In reply to Michał from comment #9)
> A temporary solution would be to:
> OPEN NEW TAB ON THE RIGHT SIDE NEXT TO THE FIRST TAB ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE
> TAB BAR JUST LIKE YOUR MOZILLA FRIENDS DO.

Apart from the SCREAMING CAPS-LOCK, I think this is an interesting idea to explore, but we should do that in a new bug if there isn't one already.
We can then make that bug block bug 725469, as a potential partial workaround.

(In reply to Michał from comment #12)
> this and the 580229 bug correspond with each other on the matter

The problem of Bug 580229 will be tracked separately in bug 551363 of which it is a duplicate.

> I absolutely, wholeheartedly keep my fingers crossed for you not to stop at
> hunting bad keywords but focusing on resolution of issues and bugs.

Correct use of keywords is crucial for focusing on resolution of bugs.
Incorrect use of keywords will be obstructive for managing and resolving bugs.

(In reply to Michał from comment #14)
> comment 7 is no longer valid. Consider merging this bug with 695285.

As explained in Bug 695285 Comment 4, while the bugs are related in their general topic, there is no way we could merge this bug with that RFE.