609623 - Compose window HTML formatting toolbar doesn't wrap/isn't accessible at smaller window widths

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Composition, defect)

Description

[Daniel B.]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.14) Gecko/20100930 SeaMonkey/2.0.9
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.14) Gecko/20100930 SeaMonkey/2.0.9

In the mail composition Window, in HTML composition mode, the formatting
toolbar does not have any mechanism to wrap or scroll its contents to 
fit in the available window width.  That means that some buttons on
the right are not always accessible (without widening the window, which 
isn't always convenient, and isn't always possible).

All toolbar components should be accessible in a window that isn't wide
(especially given that none of the individual toolbar components (e.g., 
button groups, etc.) is wide).


The simplest solution would probably be to make it work as SeaMonkey's
personal bookmarks toolbar does:  When some bookmark icons don't fit in
the available window width, the toolbar displays a little ">>" for
a menu that lists the remaining items.

Another solution would be for the toolbar to wrap--that is, when the 
total width of its components is wider than the Compose window with, 
it would expand in height and wrap some of the components to a next 
row).  (That would wrap the components just like typical text wrapping 
wraps words to fit a wide range of available window/column widths.)


This also applies to some other toolbars (but not to the underlying
UI toolkit library, since the bookmarks toolbar shows that you 
already have the underlying capability).

One other one I notice right now is the site navigation toolbar in the 
browser window.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open the mail Compose window in HTML composition mode.
2. If needed, narrow the window enough to hide the menus/buttons at
   the right edge (e.g., the emoticon icon/menu).
3. Try to use a menu/button that is hidden.
Actual Results:  
4. There's no way to get to the menu/button on the toolbar.

Expected Results:  
4. There should be some way to get to the menu/button on the toolbar.
   (Yes, one can probably use the regular menus to get to the same
   formatting commands, but that's much less convenient.)

Comment 1

[Bruno 'Aqualon' Escherl]

I can see this with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101206 Firefox/4.0b8pre SeaMonkey/2.1b2pre but I have to make the window width smaller than 700px.

Comment 2

[Daniel B.]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I can see this with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101206
> Firefox/4.0b8pre SeaMonkey/2.1b2pre but I have to make the window width smaller
> than 700px.

Yes, of course, you won't see the problem with a full-screen window.


Don't think that 700 pixels is all that narrow:

Imagine using a half-screen-width window (for composing, browsing, etc.)  (Remember that some of us use our screen space for multiple windows (e.g.,
referring to one while wording in another), not just one full-screen 
window.)

And the remember that 700 pixels is significantly more than half the 
width of a 1280-pixel-wide screen, and is still almost half the width 
of a 1440-pixel-wide screen.  (Yes, of course, plenty of people have
screens wider than that now, but SeaMonkey shouldn't work only on 
wide screens.)

By the way, although I can't check my 2.x setup right now, a 1.1.x SeaMonkey 
on Linux shows the problem starting at 783 pixels.



Daniel

Comment 3

[Karsten Düsterloh]

This is a valid RFE; I'm occasionally hit by this as well:
I tend to have my composition windows only slightly wider than 72ch in text mode,
and when needing html compose mode, toolbars get cut off …