65263 - Mark button is greyed out until message is actually selected

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking: NNTP, defect)

Description

[jay garcia]

Win98SE - Build 2001011204

Should be able to MARK / All / Read without having to select a message first.
May sound trivial but this was a useful feature in Communicator.

Comment 1

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

is this is the stand alone msg window or the three pane?

(thanks for logging the bug jay.  it's not trivial at all)

Comment 2

[jay garcia]

Doesn't matter which pane choice is active/selected.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

I see three ways of changing this:

1) Change the conditions for the button_mark command to always enabled.
2) Remove the button_mark commmand completely;
   buttonaction should use cmd_MarkMsgAsRead instead.

Since cmd_MarkMsgAsRead does nothing if no messages are selected this will stop
the mark button from having any effect and you will need to drop down the menu.

3) Design a new widget which will allow the button to be independently disabled.

Comment 4

[Niko Pavlicek]

IMHO it's really easy:
 the mark button should be completely disabled if there is now mail folder or
newsgroup selected in the folder-pane (if this is the case there shouldn't be
visible any message list of a mail folder or a newsgroup).
 the mark / all read of the mark button should be as long enabled as there is
selected a mail folder or newsgroup in the folder-pane and the user can see the
subject lines in the message list of this group/folder.
 the other mark-commands (mark / read and mark / thread as read) should only be
enabled if there actually is a message selected (and shown).

Comment 5

[jay garcia]

What if the user wants to mark-all-read in a group without having to 
hilite/display one? I do that frequently myself.

Comment 6

[laurel]

*** Bug 73471 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Håkan Waara]

Jay, then you have a problem.  :)

We can't handle all users in all situations. I think the current behaviour is 
OK. Just my opinion.

(Also making this bug's summary a teensy bit more readable.)

Comment 8

[Jacek Piskozub]

Håkan: This is IMHO a clear case of Netscape 4 parity. Adding 4xp keyword.

Comment 9

[Patrick Gallagher]

not just for version 4 parity - this is common behaviour with most/all
newsreaders. Should be for ease of use, not just parity. 

Note that the bug affects all OS's, not just windows 98

Comment 10

[Henrik Gemal]

selecting a newsgroup and no message and the Mark all as read is available for me.
So kind of works for me...

Comment 11

[[e-mail]]

I think dynamically changing the type of the mark button might work.
When no message is selected it would be a menu button.
When messages are selected it would be a dual menu-button.

Comment 12

[Sebastian Späth]

Henrik, strange it works for you. Because with 2002/01/29 it doesn't work for me
(Win32). Selecting a newsgroup (but no message) leads to an disabled mark button.

Comment 13

[Eric Vaandering (no email)]

Sounds like Henrik and Sebastian are talking about two different things. Yes,
you can go to the menu and do Message->Mark->All Unread.

But I've never seen the toolbar button active since this bug was filed (it used
to work, this is a regression). No one has ever come forward and said this was a
regression by design, either.

Comment 14

[cmorley]

This is yet another example of a programmer's limited world view.  "well, you
can mark the newsgroup read by 1. going to the newsgroup name, 2. right clicking
on the newsgroup name, 3. scrolling down the right-clicked newsgroup name's
popup and 4. clicking on 'mark newsgroup' name."  This NOT user friendly.  It
also 'appears' to be shoddy programming, when, once you click on an actual
message, the appropriate icon button menu item becomes available.  Some of these
programmers need to check out the competition (including N4.7+).

Comment 15

[Håkan Waara]

cmorley, no one has signed up to fix this bug, that's why there are no patches
attached. Feel free to reassign it to yourself, and I'll r= the patch.

However, do not comment unless you can give some useful information that is
related to this bug. Thankyou.

Comment 16

[laurel]

*** Bug 164835 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Antonis Christofides]

As a workaround, you can use the keyboard shortcut (Shift+Ctrl+C).

Sorry to sound pedantic, but is this really a "Networking: News" component? It
seems more like "Mail Window Front-End" to me.

Comment 18

[cristo morlan]

My suggestion would be to have the button available at *all* times, and all but
"mark newsgroup read" grayed out until you actually select a message.

I gotta say, this is the last (next to the minimize bug) and most annoying bug
left in the Moz's.  I read dozens of newsgroups a day, which means there may not
be many /new/ messages but may be dozens of replys in each group.  People (under
these circumstances) would view the subjects, and decide nothing new of interest
was there.  Having this bug fixed would save dozens of clicks and much, much
aggravation.  Also, that 'two handed' cramp-inducing keyboard shortcut is of
little practical help.

Comment 19

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 20

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Filter on "Nobody_NScomTLD_20080620"

Comment 21

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

WFM on Linux 2.0.0.15pre