58587 - [RFE] pref to put folder list into a sidebar panel

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

I'm really getting into sidebar and I've got about 8 panels.

in mail, having a folder pane and a sidebar with a bunch of panels doesn't seem
to work well.

if the folder pane was a sidebar channel, I think things would look better.

jglick, and comments or suggestions?

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

enhancement.

Comment 2

[jglick]

Having the folder pane be a panel within the sidebar was actually part of the 
original design. See German's old spec: 
http://gooey/client/5.0/specs/sidebar/sb_arrange.gif
http://gooey/client/5.0/specs/sidebar/index_old.html

There were a lot of problems with the original design. Sidebar was not doing 
well in usability testing (Sidebar in general, no specific Mail related problems 
were tested).  http://gooey/usability/studies/seamonkey/sidebar/SBresults.html
So, a meeting was held to re-work the Sidebar (about a year ago?). For each 
component (Mail, Browser, IM, Composer) a rep from PM (LaGuardia, Gable, Sol, 
Bijal), UE and Engineering got together to work out the quirks in the existing 
sidebar design. I believe Phil Peterson was the Engineering rep for Mail. In 
addition to other stuff, it was decided that having a major part of a component 
(Folder Pane for Mail, ABs/directories for AB, Buddy List for AIM) as a panel 
within the Sidebar was not the best design and was potentially confusing for 
users. German's updated spec following this meeting describes how an "app 
specific" area should be designated. 
http://gooey/client/5.0/specs/sidebar/#Cheatsheet

If I can remember correctly some of the reasons:

Sidebar is an addition to the app you are currently working with. It is a place 
where non-app specific type panels can be placed and available. Mail Folders are 
a critcal part of the Mail application. They are not something extra that can be 
added/removed.  Things containing fuctionality critial to the particular app 
(Mail Folders in Mail) should be always be available. Users shouldn't be able to 
re-arrange their sidebar panels and "loose" their Mail Folders. 

What does it mean when an app specific panel is added to another apps' sidebar? 
For example, what happens when a user adds the Mail Folders panel to the Browser 
sidebar? What happens in the browser when the user selects mail folders?

There were probably other reasons that I don't recall. The gist, it was decided 
that App specific stuff should be Separate from Sidebar functionality.. Users 
can choose to have a Sidebar visable in addition, but it should not mess with 
the core functionality of the app.  

If you would like to have this design re-evaluationed, you should talk to 
German, Gable and/or LaGuardia.

Comment 3

[jglick]

I'm sorry the links referenced are internal. It has already been agreed that all 
new specs will be on Mozilla, but we won't be updating old specs.

Comment 4

[johng]

cc'ing kevin murray and removing my name since he'll deal with this possible
enhancement.

Comment 5

[Robin Monks]

*** Bug 87520 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 7

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 8

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 9

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 10

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 11

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 12

[Robert Kaiser]

MASS-CHANGE:
This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but still has no comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project 5 years ago.

Because of this, we're resolving the bug as EXPIRED.

If you still can reproduce the bug on SeaMonkey 2 or otherwise think it's still valid, please REOPEN it and if it is a platform or toolkit issue, move it to the according component.

Query tag for this change: EXPIRED-20100420

Comment 13

[Karsten Düsterloh]

Not doing this.