595662 - If Drafts are stored in Inbox, then Double-Clicking a message runs "Edit as New..." instead of "Open Message in New Tab"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect, P3)

Description

[LangtonBen]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100824 Firefox/3.6.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100825 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.3

See recreate


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Set Tools > Options > Advanced > Reading & Display > Reading > Open messages in: = A new tab
2.  Set Tools > Account Settings > <AccountName> > Copies & Folders > Drafts, Archives, and Templates > Keep message drafts in: = "Drafts" Folder on:  <AccountName>
2.  Double click a message in the Inbox; it opens in a new tab (as expected)
3.  Set Tools > Account Settings > <AccountName> > Copies & Folders > Drafts, Archives, and Templates > Keep message drafts in: = Other > <AccountName> > Inbox
4.  Double click a message in the Inbox
Actual Results:  
The message opens in the "Edit as New..." window.  It does not seem to matter whether the message is a draft or not; every message exhibits this behavior.

Expected Results:  
If the message is a Draft, it should open in the Edit As New... window.  If the message is NOT a draft, it should open in a new tab.

reproducible on a "fresh" profile.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Anything in Tools -> Error console ?

Does it work better if Thunderbird is launched in safe-mode (http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode) ?

Comment 2

[LangtonBen]

Sorry for the delayed response.  I replicated the issue.  There was nothing in the error console.  A detail I had not noticed before:  It seems that the behavior only starts occurring after I have created a Draft and saved it.  It seems like once I have done that, then the Inbox is treated as a Drafts folder from then on (with regard to the stated behavior).  Closing and reopening Thunderbird does not resolve it.

I tried it in safe mode, and the behavior persisted.

Thanks,

Comment 3

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

It's current design/implementation inherited from Netscape Mail(many mailers base on it too). Netscape mail also inherited the design from other famaous mailer(s).
Draft mail, template mail, sent mail copy, other mail(received maill) is determined by mail folder's attribute which is set by your Copies&Folders settings, instead of mail's attribute or characteristics.
So, "Edit As Draft" is always invoked for any mail in mail folder which is marked as "folder used to save draft mail" by you.

AFAIK, old OUTLOOK's default was "save any mails in Inbox of IMAP, and isolate draft mail by \Draft flag", and he probably showed draft mails as if mails in other folder than Inbox. It's design/implementation during "Inbox only era of IMAP folder or Inbox only era of local mail folder for POP3".
Tb's design inherited from Netscape mail is:
  Different folder for different purpose and different characteristics,
  because "multiple mail folders for an mail account" is already supported.
By this, contention of mail folder by mail download(Inbox), by draft save(Drafts), by sent mail copy after mail send(Sent) is easily be avoided.  
It's inconvenient for some users like you. So Virtual Folder(Saved Search Folder) was implemented for users who want to see any mails in a mail folder. If you select multiple mail folders as search target folders at a Virtual Folder, you can do it.

I believe WONTFIX, because Tb works as designed well and because "keeping any mail in single Inbox even though multiple mail folders is already supported" is never practically good.

Comment 4

[LangtonBen]

Thank you for your reply.

Your justification for the behavior is based on code/behavior inheritance and on "Developer Reasoning", rather than on "User Reasoning" (i.e. good usability principles) (I am a professional software tester).  

The software offers a feature:  Storing Drafts in a folder other than the Drafts folder, but it does not explain the unexpected ramifications of that behavior.  The value of the setting to open email in a tab is overidden without warning or explanation.  

The ramifications of this behavior, when multiplied by a large number of emails, are actually rather severe, though they may sound trivial.  I VERY nearly gave up using ThunderBird due to this perplexing and frustrating behavior.  Having to remember to right click on every email I read was highly annoying.

Now that I know how to avoid this behavior, I do plan to keep using ThunderBird.  However, I strongly suggest either hiding the setting to keep Drafts in a different folder, so that only an advanced user (which I am not) knows how to access it.  Alternatively, communicate the ramifications of changing the setting to the user at runtime (i.e. not buried in a Help file or database somewhere).

Thank you very much for your contribution.

Regards,

Ben Langton

Comment 5

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

[e-mail](bug opener):

Please note;
WONTFIX is for your claim of "if Inbox is set as folder to save draft mail, any mail in Inbox becomes a draft mail, and it's bug of Tb". It's because "any mail in folder which is set as folder to save draft mail is draft mail" is current design/implementation and it works as designed/implemented. And WONTFIX instead of INVALID means your request is never invalid request. Reason of WONTFIX is far small fruit compared to high workload required to implement your request.

Similar request to yours exists for sent mail in Sent folder.
Many users want reply mail in same folder as one which replied mail is held. If mail is moved to outside of Sent folder, or if reply mail is saved in same mail folder as replied mail(by [x] Place replies in the folder of the message being replied to), "status of sent mail" is lost, becaue the mail is not mail in Sent folder any more. So, only way to know "a mail is sent mail" is currently checking "From: mail address is defined as identity or not". It's inconvenient if mail address is changed in order to avoid too many spams. User can't remove old mail address from Tb's identity definition.
To improve it, "per mail status of sent mail" will probably be required. It's similar to your "per mail draft status in any mail folder, and support of it".

However, "per mail 'draft mail status'" and/or "per mail 'sent mail staus'" is hard to implement because of no room in X-Mozilla-Status:/X-Mozilla-Status2: header.
Technically, it's easy - add X-Mozilla-Status3:. But it's very hard because of compatibility with old versions, because of compatibility with other softwares already uses X-Mozilla-Status/-2 headers, because of required very many code changed to support new header, ....
It's another reason of WONTFIX.

Other enhancements such as "qmail directory format support" may improve situation. Change from Mork DB(.msf) to other DB(e.g. SQL DB) is also considered. Watch bugs for such enhancements, please.