63641 - View > Message needs to show/hide message pane rather than collapse

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Blake Ross]

Build ID: 12/22 trunk (tip)

Steps to Reproduce:

(1) Open MailNews.
(2) View > Message.

What actually happens: the message pane is either collapsed or uncollapsed.

What should happen: the message pane is hidden or shown.

The current behavior goes against everything we've indicated to the user, 
namely that panes can be collapsed/uncollapsed by clicking grippies or (if 
possible) hidden/shown by clicking menu items.

Comment 1

[laurel]

I don't understand your differentiation between collapsed/expanded and
shown/hidden in this context -- I don't understand what the problem is.

Comment 2

[Blake Ross]

Open Navigator, and keep clicking on the grippy on the side of the sidebar.  
Note that the sidebar collapses (e.g. it's reduced to a tiny bar against the 
edge of the screen) and decollapses (e.g. it expands to an "open" size).  Now 
uncheck View > My Sidebar and note that the sidebar completely disappears. 
There doesn't seem to be a way to completely hide/close the message pane; View 
> Message is supposed to do this.

Comment 3

[jglick]

Valid point.

Comment 4

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

This is Platform/OS ALL

Comment 5

[[e-mail]]

Attachment: Proposed patch

Comment 6

[Samir Gehani]

Mail triage team: nsbeta1-

Comment 7

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 96442 [details] [diff] [review]
Proposed patch

This isn't going to work, Account Central needs to be taught about it.

Comment 8

[Leslie G. Harper]

Attachment: View Menu doesn't close it either

Comment 9

[djk]

Neil,

I don't want to be a bother, but what do you mean in comment 7?  What's broken
about your patch in attachment 96442 [details] [diff] [review]?

I just applied the patch to moz 20030312, and it seems to work.  Except that you
have to persist 'hidden' of the splitter to get the visibility to stick through
restarts.

Regards,
David

Comment 10

[[e-mail]]

I mean that (possibly only in alternate 3-pane view) that activating and
deactivating Account Central may unhide the message pane.

Comment 11

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I'm confused about this bug.  There is no   Message   item under the View menu,
any more.  I have no idea if that menu item existed in 2002 when Neil posted his
original patch.

I also don't understand Leslie Harper's text attachment in comment 8, altho I
guess the reference is to   View | Show/Hide | Message Pane.

I encountered this bug while looking for a bug that's duped by Bug 203289.  Is
this it?  Leslie Harper, is the symptom in that bug what you are talking about?

I can't tell if Neil's patch has been checked in or not, it seems not; and yet,
the current behavior (1.3 Final and 1.4b-0423) behave as he describes: 
switching to Account Central will unhide a hidden message pane, in the alternate
view.  Futher, it does so without updating the checked status of the 
  Show/Hide | Message Pane   menu item.

Overall, this appears to have morphed into the same thing as Bug 203289; that
bug has a clearer and more up-to-date description, and I recommend resolving
this as invalid and focusing on that one instead.

Comment 12

[djk]

I don't think that bug 203289 is a dup.  Maybe blocking, but no dup.

Neil, I think that bug 77447 is the bug about Account Central messing up the
alt-3pane splitter.

David

Comment 13

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Blake Ross, do you think this bug needs to be maintained?

It is true (per comment 2) that the splitter(s) between panes are never 
completely hidden, which is different from the case of hiding the sidebar in the 
browser -- but the sidebar is a form of toolbar, whereas the panes are all 
integral parts of the program's function.

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

modify summary

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

-> WFM, that menu item does not exist. I don't see what is supposed to be done here, and from the lack of answers, no one else either.

Comment 16

[[e-mail]]

WONTFIX is probably the more appropriate resolution.

As Mike pointed out in comment 11 the menuitem has been moved, but it has since been moved again to View > Layout > Message Pane (F8).

The key/menuitem to collapse the folder pane also does not hide the grippy.