597873 - Blocked "Get Mail" button in Thunderbird is Tab-dependent - button isn't active in calendar tab

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, defect)

Description

[KitchM]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100724 Firefox/3.6.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100806 Lightning/1.0b2 Lanikai/3.1.2

When the user has focused on a tab other than the mail tab, the "Get Mail" button is inactive or greyed out.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Go to the calendar or tasks tab
2.Try to get mail
3.Button is inactive
Actual Results:  
Impossible to download mail in the background when the process can't be started.

Expected Results:  
Should be able to activate the "Get Mail" button at any time.

Comment 1

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

I can confirm this. I think it would be nice to change the "Get Mail" button to  a "Synchronize" button, so other extensions like Lightning can make use of it.

Comment 2

[KitchM]

Thank you.  However, I believe that a separate button for syncing would be more appropriate, since the user really wants to use the background fuction of downloading mail at any time.

Thanks again.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

this is not major, because there is an _easy_ workaround. please see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#importance

curiosity/workflow question: why would you get mail when you don't have mail in focus?

Comment 4

[KitchM]

Ah, I see.  The misunderstanding you have is regarding what you view as important.  If a person wants to increase their productivity, they use the age-old feature of running things in the background.  One may wish to view their calendar while downloading mail.  Obviously, the productive person would prefer that Thunderbird keep up.  This is definately a very major loss of functionality.  And by the way, that functionality has always been implied.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Ah, I see.  The misunderstanding you have is regarding what you view as
> important.  
No, I have no such misunderstanding - if you read https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=fields.html#importance you will understand that severity minor is appropriate - "problem where _easy_ workaround is present" 

whereas, there are two easy workarounds a) change tabs  b) set your account's mail download interval

> >If a person wants to increase their productivity, they use the
> age-old feature of running things in the background.  One may wish to view
> their calendar while downloading mail.  Obviously, the productive person would
> prefer that Thunderbird keep up. 

indeed. which is why I asked the question "why you need to do this". Is mail download in the background not working if you have it enabled in account settings?  (Especially useful in version 3 because it will not only inform you that you have new mail, but it will also download it for quicker viewing.)

Comment 6

[KitchM]

Please never call the necessity of the use of a workaround as "easy".  That never, ever is.  IMHO, your link only displays coders desires to shift responsibility.  It is of no applicability in this case.

Workarounds are only necessitated by poor design and/or programming.  There is no excuse for that.  Ever.

As to the suggested workarounds; asked and answered.

I was beginning to wonder if I didn't remember or understand the settings available in the account settings area.  Turns out I understood it all just fine.  Another thing that people often forget is that the referenced account settings are for checking mail at a set interval.  Please note that a set interval is not "on demand".  One's only choice there is whether the user wants the server to be checked for new mail more often or less often.  This setting and the user's choice here directly affects system performance.  My issue has obviously to do with "on demand" useage.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

KitchM, Please, bugzilla isn't the place for policy such as developer attitude, nor for definitions that are well established. As for possible workarounds, they are in fact available and you don't indicate there is substantial impact to using them (or not) except as a matter of inconvenience, given that auto checking for mail involves tiny overhead on both server and client - unless you can identify an issue we don't have reported in bugzilla. 

Note - I'm not criticizing your request (it's great that you filed it and it's accurate that the button doesn't work), nor do I evaluate whether such a feature is badly needed and important to the product (I don't define severity, and note "severity" is not the same as importance).  If you have a critical workflow issue that isn't already noted above, then please describe it in more detail.

Comment 8

[KitchM]

Wayne, when someone asks a question or makes an assumption, there is a hope that they have thought it out.  Too many times however, such is not the case and that leads to provocative and leading presentations.  Of course the someone may not realize that, but then they shouldn't complain when someone answers honestly.  I would never state my ultimate thoughts normally, but when people don't realize where they're going with their thoughts and assume the other person hasn't thought it thru, it only leads to disaster for them 'cause I will probably be very clear with my response.  I totally believe that anyone can ask anything they like, but they better be willing to accept the response they get as very legitimate, at least for the one answering.

Please keep in mind that if you don't want the answers I gave, you shouldn't have asked the questions or made the statements you did.  I like to work off of facts, and that's how I respond.

Now, I'm not sure what definitions are well established, nor developer attitude policies to which you refer, but I can assure you that my responses were right on point.  Every user has a right to expect that their use of the program in question can deliver processes on demand.  I have shown one that doesn't work that way.  In other words, it doesn't work correctly or expectedly in common practice.

At any time, the user should be able to press the button to download mail, but that doesn't work.  It needs correction because it interfers with workflow.  Because you don't work that way is no justification for telling others how they should work.  That just makes people angry.  Not only isn't the user's work practice anyone else's business, but I would personally question any other way of doing things as ignorant and counter-productive.

By the way, the rest of your assumptions are wrong, presumptious and insulting.  Please move on to a more supportive and helpful position on this program flaw, or let someone else help us with our bug.

Thank you.

Comment 9

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen] [:📆][:🧩]]

KitchM, while I understand your aggravation with this bug, please keep such discussions out of this bug, see <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html>. The goal of this bug is not to discuss the usefulness of the severity field but to actually find a technical and ux compatible solution. Wayne was not asking questions to downplay the importance of this bug, but rather to understand your workflow. Furthermore I find comment 7 very diplomatic and don't quite understand your negative reaction there.

For example, I could imagine the following of workflow. I've personally had a small number of situations where I've actually went through this:

1. You are in your calendar, thinking about your current and future schedule
2. You are expecting an important mail from a client with further scheduling info
3. You don't want to switch back to mail mode just to find out the client hasn't sent the email yet.

Comment 10

[KitchM]

Philipp, you do almost the same as Wayne.  You make provocative comments to which you would not like the answer.  You have to realize by now that I totally disagree with such attitudes altogether.  While I understand where someone else may not comprehend my reasoning, continuing to imply that it may have no value is totally insulting.

In fact, I think it is obvious that, until the poorly reasoned and condesending comment 3, I took no negative tone.  Even in my comment 4, I still bent over backward to give the guy a way out.  He decided not to take it, and instead obviously prefered to "poke the bear".  Dumb decision.

Since at least you understand a situation where the problem of this bug comes into actual play, it should be no trouble to kick it upstream for addressing by the coders.

Now, do you still want to have me respond to your comments?

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

>Now, do you still want to have me respond to your comments?
No. 

Fallen has listed exactly the steps and workflow considerations that are needed for someone else to understand the reason for your request. Thanks Fallen.

For the record, no one is saying or attempting to imply your request is stupid.

Comment 12

[KitchM]

Well, thank you.

As mentioned, I believed he understood the situation with the bug.  To add to that, as I implied, anyone should be able to do anything in any order they find productive for their personal workflow.  I believe that the program has gotten in the way of that here.  I believe it is actually very simple.  Remove all unnecessary impediments to that in the coding.

By the way, I don't think that I am asking very much.  Consider it this way.  If the program naturally allows the selection of that button normally (this is easily proven by the fact that starting a download with it and then selecting it again, because it is continually active, will bring up a message to the affect that it is already in process), something else has obviously gotten in the way of the more foundational part of the application's processes.  That something else has clearly interrupted that which is basically always available.  Therefore, the fix must be in the thing that interrupted the basic process.  In this case, another tab is one such interruption above the basic functions.  Somehow they have been designed to interrupt other functions.  There's the source of the problem.

[As an aside: This is odd, IMHO, since a tab is a simple display function or interface arrangement.  And that brings up the question of how it could possibly happen.  This type of programming is always a surprise to me, since it flies in the face of reason.  For instance, how could the tab bar be related to the button bar?  I simply cannot fathom the logic behind that.]

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This works for me with 115.0b4 on Mac using "get messages" in the unified toolbar.