663216 - Moving a message tab to a new window should open stand-alone message viewer

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, enhancement)

Description

[rsx11m]

With bug 468808, tabs can now be reordered and moved into their own window. From the user's perspective though, the behavior implemented for message tabs (i.e, such opened with "View Message in a New Tab") is unexpected given that a complete 3-pane window is generated with the message as a tab in that window.

As a follow up to bug 468808 comment #15, the behavior of detaching a message tab using "Move to New Window" or a mouse-drag action should match what the user sees with "Open Message in a New Window" and open a stand-alone message viewer instead. This would make the result of this feature more consistent.

Comment 1

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

I think our favoured direction currently is to not to switch to the standalone message window, but to move away from requiring the 3-pane by default, and hence then not have the standalone window as such, but maybe altered UI.

Hence, if a user had a window with a single message in it, they would then be able to drag more things into it if so desired, or just close the window. The general advantage is that there's less code (and duplication thereof) required to do all this, and we can provide a more consistent UI across the main windows.

Comment 2

[rsx11m]

Ok, so if the target is to eventually merge 3-pane and stand-alone windows into a single mechanism this should provide the basis for detaching as message-only window as desired. Feel free to add any dependencies needed or to morph this bug into such a larger scope as it fits best.

Comment 4

[Carl Ponder]

This also goes for moving my Calendar tab off to its own window.
Currently (thunderbird 11.0.1) when I do this, I end up with a messaging tab.
I don't want messaging tabs in two windows, I want one window for messaging and another window for the Calendar.
As a quick-fix, you could allow us to close the messaging tab.
Are you confident that having more than one messaging window won't cause thunderbird to get confused and start losing messages?

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Carl Ponder from comment #4)
> As a quick-fix, you could allow us to close the messaging tab.

That isn't a quick-fix, the main window has various assumptions about what exists, and closing the tab would break those.

> Are you confident that having more than one messaging window won't cause
> thunderbird to get confused and start losing messages?

Yes, Thunderbird has been able to have more that one messaging window since before Thunderbird 2.