622181 - "Apply columns to ..." option does not apply SORT setting

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 574986

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[k73qq55wftttt2chb424]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101207 Thunderbird/3.1.7

In the message list window (where the emails are listed, one line at a time, for a particular folder) a person can configure the columns by:  adding, removing, resizing, rearranging, and SORTING.

Upon getting the window to look exactly as they want, they can right-click the column row and choose "Apply Columns to...."  and apply/duplicate the same appearance for one, multiple, or all folders (in an account;  YES..it would be nice if "ALL ACCOUNTS" was also an option...but I digress).

HOWEVER, when they apply the column settings to other folders, all settings are copied/applied **EXCEPT** the sorting setting.  So...if a person sorts, for example, on SIZE in DESCENDING order (which is not a default setting) and then applies to other folders, this attribute is NOT propagated.  This is the BUG.

When applying column settings to other folders, ALL settings including the currently selected SORT COLUMN as well as the SORT ORDER (ascending or descending) should apply/ propagate as well.  Thanks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. In DETAILS.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
SORT column settings do not transfer/propagate.

Expected Results:  
SORT settings should transfer/propagate.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Anything in tools -> Error console when this happens ?

Comment 2

[k73qq55wftttt2chb424]

There is nothing in the error console when this happens.  It isn't an 'error', it is simply an oversight.

When you right click your columns and tell the program to apply the column settings to either another folder (or another folder and it's children), Thunderbird simply will NOT apply the sort ordering.  It only applys the column names, widths, and ordering from left to right.

It should apply the sort ordering also or else this feature is useless for somebody who wants all folder to sort by date, for example, in a particular order which is not the default order.  It means they have to visit EACH folder and set the sort order for EACH *manually*.

This bug still exists as of today v9.01 Thunderbird (Windows XP)

Comment 3

[k73qq55wftttt2chb424]

To reproduce simply take two folders with some emails in them.  Make sure they are sorted by different columns or in different decending/ascending order.

In one of them right click the column heading row and "Apply Columns to..."

Apply the column settings to the other folder.
The sort order will not apply or transfer over.
This is the but.

I sort all folders with newest emails at top, not bottom (which is the default).  To change folders to sort in this way, I have to manually change each and every folder.

Comment 4

[k73qq55wftttt2chb424]

There is a separate, but related bug.

If you create a new folder under an existing folder it does not inherit the same column and layout of its parent which would be the logical expected result.

And as per the bug listed above, even if you "Apply columns to.." all the new subfolders after creating them, the sort order will not propagate so you still have to manually set that.

Comment 5

[posita]

[e-mail], did you file a separate bug for the behavior noted in Comment 4? Also, consider voting for your own bug.

Comment 6

[Andrei Boros]

Sorting does not propagate as described by reporter also in TB17.

Bug applies to both "Apply to folder" and "Apply to folder and it's children"

Comment 7

[:aceman]

Asuth, was this left out intentionally? Or is it hard to do?

Comment 8

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #7)
> Asuth, was this left out intentionally? Or is it hard to do?

The memory is very foggy to me; if there was intent it should be in the bug discussion, tb-planning, or in comments in the code.

It doesn't look particularly hard to do from a quick skim.  Sort order and type appear to be stored on the dbFolderInfo the same as the the list of columns.  The only meaningful difference is that they are stored/retrieved as Uint32s.  nsIMsgFolder only has string property getters/setters (which is what we use in setStringPRopertyOnFolderAndDescedents for GC reasons), but since I believe mork is untyped and we don't care about notifications for meddling with the sort info, I don't think that makes any real difference.

For performance reasons, we would of course want to change setStringProperty OnFolderAndDescendents to take a dictionary/list/other of properties rather than calling it 3 times and having it open and close all the folders 3 times.

Comment 9

[Andrew Sutherland [:asuth] (he/him)]

Noting that any patch would ideally leave existing callers intact in the event that there are extensions out there that rely on the current functionality.  Either overloading or leaving around a function with the original name that calls the new signature would be fine.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(CORRECT wording is "Apply columns to")

I can't think of a specific example, but someone might prefer applying sort setting to be optional, i.e. a separate choice.

Comment 11

[Andrei Boros]

On the other hand, I believe if someone sets the columns and also sort order on INBOX, and that person applies the columns used for INBOX to other folders using this functionality, I believe that same person would prefer the same sort order as INBOX, if it was changed from the default. 
Having mixed sort order for different folders only increases confusion to the user.

Comment 13

[Jan Janousek]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, use Needinfo for questions) from comment #10)
> (CORRECT wording is "Apply columns to")
> 
> I can't think of a specific example, but someone might prefer applying sort
> setting to be optional, i.e. a separate choice.

Exactly!

(In reply to Andrei Boros from comment #11)
> On the other hand, I believe if someone sets the columns and also sort order
> on INBOX, and that person applies the columns used for INBOX to other
> folders using this functionality, I believe that same person would prefer
> the same sort order as INBOX, if it was changed from the default. 

That's not a quite right assumption. I use the same columns everywhere while I have different sortings in different folders. And I think I am not the only person here.

> Having mixed sort order for different folders only increases confusion to
> the user.

No, it does not.

Please, do not mix applying columns with applying sorting.