66570 - improve "Welcome to mozilla mail & news" page

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Henrik Gemal]

why make the "Welcome" page a plain html page, when we (mozilla) might as well 
could have a funky XUL page.

Comment 1

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

I'm not sure who this should go to for evaluation, so I've CC:ed a number of people.

Comment 2

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Currently HTML+CSS would seem to allow considerably more funkiness than XUL does.

What sort of funkiness did you have in mind?

Comment 3

[Henrik Gemal]

firstly just make it look a bit better. Something like the accountcentral or the 
welcome in outlook express.

Comment 4

[Henrik Gemal]

Attachment: welcome pag ein outlook express

Comment 5

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

The welcome page in Outlook Express is written in HTML+CSS. QED.

Comment 6

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

the current "welcome to mozilla mail & news" page is mozilla's version of the
commercial start page.  the commercial start page lives on netscape.com, and
serves up adds or what ever.  the mozilla start page lives on mozilla.org.

we could definitely make the mozilla start page better.  To have something like
what OE does, it would have to be a chrome:// url, and not a http:// url.

the chrome:// url would have the right access privilages to get at things like
the unread count or to launch commands.  

over to racham, this would be just like the accountcentral page work that he did.

Comment 7

[timeless]

I think html+js running from chrome has the same privs as xul+js running from 
chrome. So do we want to change the topic s#XUL#chrome://# ?

Comment 8

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

changing summary.  racham will know what to do.

Comment 9

[racham]

taking this one...

Comment 10

[racham]

Yes. We can make this a chrome:// page. But whether we want to present something
so similar to AccountCentral page (looking at the attachment posted) is the
question here..Also this is the one time page, just at the startup. So, we have
to decide on the items to be presented there...we can't have some common routine
tasks there.

Also today we have limited space there (it's only the message pane) unlike the
AccountCentral page. So, we really have to decide and present some valuable
information there.

Jennifer, Do we already have any plans to revamp this page also....?

Comment 11

[jglick]

As Seth mentioned, for the Netscape version, the data comes from netscape.com. 
For mozilla version, its up to the mozilla folks what they want to appear here. 
Agree that it shouldn't be to much like the Account page though to avoid 
confusion for users.

Comment 12

[Robert Kaiser]

I think the start page in Mozilla should move into chrome, even if it doesn't
get 'improved' the way this bug suggests. I filed bug 191171 for that move, it
should solve a bunch of issues or make them easier to work on - this bug included.

Comment 13

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 192390 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

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

once bug #191171 lands, we should improve the mozilla start page.

Comment 15

[Robert Kaiser]

Now that 191171, we can really start hacking on this.
I'd propose that we replace the current image with a more neutral one, simply
because we should get rid of the green lizard...

What direction would we go best?

Should we stay with the basic priciple we have now, describing some features in
a simple HTML page, should we go for a XUL page with access points to some
features? Should we seperate the documant from localizeable strings in it,
and/or maje it themable?
We now have the power to go all those ways without breaking prior versions, so
let's go for it and make it rock!

Comment 16

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

> should we go for a XUL page with access points to some features

see comment #10 with why that's problematic.  (that's account central, no reason
to duplicate it.)

maybe we should ping the guys at mozillazine.org, and have a "create the new
(internal) mailnews start page" contest.

get people to submit some static html / css (I say no js) and we'll judge.

Comment 17

[Robert Kaiser]

Seth:
yes, the account central has access points, perhaps access points to prefs or
help might fit the start page better, I'm not sure...

A contest sounds nice, we should be sure what content we want there though...

Comment 18

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

> A contest sounds nice, we should be sure what content we want there though...

I'd say something something simple, short (fits in a small space).

but we have a bigger problem.  the fix for #191171 has made it so my http://
start page won't load!

after updating and rebuilding, if I make my start page pref
http://news.google.com (for example), it won't load.

I'll look into it.

Comment 19

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

> http://news.google.com (for example), it won't load.

whoops, I had news.google.com, instead of http://news.google.com.

that was the problem.

ignore me, sorry.

Comment 20

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

> maybe we should ping the guys at mozillazine.org, and have a "create the new
> (internal) mailnews start page" contest.

for now, I've just made it simplier, and valid strict HTML 4.01

we already have the welcome page like OE, it's our account central.

but what we don't have is the "When Mozilla starts, go directly to my inbox"
checkbox on the start page, which is pretty slick.

when I get back to it, I'll log a bug for that.

Comment 21

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

Attachment: here's what the start page looks like now

Comment 22

[Christian Hamacher]

Following the suggestion in comment #20 (go directly to my inbox) would also fix
bug 207567.

I added this bug to the dependencies of a meta bug on MailNews start page issues
I created earlier today.

Comment 23

[Robert Kaiser]

Actually, Thunderbird has a quite nice looking page, see
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/mail/locales/en-US/chrome/messenger/start.html

We probably should adopt that one into Seamonkey Mailnews.

Comment 24

[Robert Kaiser]

Actually, it just decided I don't really like that page's code either and I want
to try to take some text off that one and make a real integrated chrome page,
that is, with localized strings in a .dtd and style in a theme .css file.

Patch coming soon.

Comment 25

[Robert Kaiser]

Attachment: patch: move to a nicer, themed, well-localized XHTML page

So, here's the patch, and I want to call it a _real_ improvement:

1) It has more helpful content, mxied from the current and the Thunderbird
page.
2) It's an XHTML page now and served from content instead of locale.
3) L12y is much better, as strings are in a DTD that can be localized easily
with the usual tools (I tested this for German with MozillaTranslator)
4) It's fully themable and comes with quite good-looking variants for both
Classic and Modern (again some ideas stolen from Thunderbird page though I
coded it quie differently)
5) The brand name, the vendor URL and the release notes URL come from
brand/region DTDs and switch easily with the respective L10n files.

I hope this makes up a much nicer mailnews start page for everyone.
Of course, the patch includes the required jar.mn and default pref changes.

Comment 26

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

Comment on attachment 162348 [details] [diff] [review]
patch: move to a nicer, themed, well-localized XHTML page

passing the review buck to david b.

Comment 27

[Robert Kaiser]

Attachment: Screenshot of new startpage: modern, en-US

bienvenu has requested that I add a screenshot of the new start page, so here
there's one with modern theme and en-US language.

Comment 28

[Robert Kaiser]

Attachment: Screenshot of new startpage: classic, de-AT

And here's a screenshot of Classic and German localization. (This one uses
system colors, and those happen to be blueish in my case, my be more greyish by
default on most systems)

Comment 29

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 162348 [details] [diff] [review]
patch: move to a nicer, themed, well-localized XHTML page

this looks OK to me...

Comment 30

[Robert Kaiser]

Attachment: patch that should apply cleanly on current trunk

I guess the patch has bitrotted and doesn't apply cleanly any more. This was
made from currently trunk and should apply without problems.

Comment 31

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 167219 [details] [diff] [review]
patch that should apply cleanly on current trunk

>-    locale/en-US/messenger/smime.properties                             (mime/cthandlers/resources/smime.properties)  
>+    locale/en-US/messenger/smime.properties                             (mime/cthandlers/resources/smime.properties)
Try to avoid random whitespace fixes ;-)

>+  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
>+   href="chrome://messenger/skin/start.css" />
Why not <?xml-stylesheet?>

>+  padding: 0.25em 0.75em; /* 0.75*1.5=1, so fit with 1em below */
Anyone can tell you that 3/4 * 3/2 = 9/8

>+a:link, a:visited, a:active {
>+ color: #313063;
>+}
Why?

Comment 32

[Robert Kaiser]

(In reply to comment #31)
> Try to avoid random whitespace fixes ;-)

Sure, I'll lokk at that when checking in...

> >+  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
> >+   href="chrome://messenger/skin/start.css" />
> Why not <?xml-stylesheet?>

I just did it the HTML way, I've little to no XHTML experience.
I'll change that.

> >+  padding: 0.25em 0.75em; /* 0.75*1.5=1, so fit with 1em below */
> Anyone can tell you that 3/4 * 3/2 = 9/8

Oops. I'll either correct to .67em or remove that comment :)

> >+a:link, a:visited, a:active {
> >+ color: #313063;
> >+}
> Why?

In modern, It looked better to me, when all links had the same color, even if
visited. Should I look for a second color so :link/:active and :visited get
different, or even split up into three colors?

Comment 33

[Robert Kaiser]

Attachment: patch v2 - live up to Neil's comments :)

OK, this one should fix everything Neil commented.

Remove whitespace fix, using <?xml-stylesheet?>, correcting padding to 0.67em,
and remove <a> styling for modern - the rest of the ui also uses the default
blue links...

Comment 34

[[e-mail]]

Comment on attachment 167275 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2 - live up to Neil's comments :)

>+    locale/en-US/messenger/start.dtd                                    (base/resources/locale/en-US/start.dtd)  
You managed to add some trailing spaces that the previous patch didn't :-P

Comment 35

[Robert Kaiser]

Checking in mozilla/mailnews/jar.mn;
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/jar.mn,v  <--  jar.mn
new revision: 1.88; previous revision: 1.87
done
Checking in mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/region.properties;
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/region.properties,v  <-- 
region.properties
new revision: 1.5; previous revision: 1.4
done
Removing mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/start.html;
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/start.html,v  <--  start.html
new revision: delete; previous revision: 1.9
done
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/start.dtd,v
done
Checking in mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/start.dtd;
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/locale/en-US/start.dtd,v  <--  start.dtd
initial revision: 1.1
done
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/content/start.xhtml,v
done
Checking in mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/content/start.xhtml;
/cvsroot/mozilla/mailnews/base/resources/content/start.xhtml,v  <--  start.xhtml
initial revision: 1.1
done
Checking in mozilla/themes/classic/jar.mn;
/cvsroot/mozilla/themes/classic/jar.mn,v  <--  jar.mn
new revision: 1.128; previous revision: 1.127
done
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/themes/classic/messenger/start.css,v
done
Checking in mozilla/themes/classic/messenger/start.css;
/cvsroot/mozilla/themes/classic/messenger/start.css,v  <--  start.css
initial revision: 1.1
done
Checking in mozilla/themes/modern/jar.mn;
/cvsroot/mozilla/themes/modern/jar.mn,v  <--  jar.mn
new revision: 1.142; previous revision: 1.141
done
RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla/themes/modern/messenger/start.css,v
done
Checking in mozilla/themes/modern/messenger/start.css;
/cvsroot/mozilla/themes/modern/messenger/start.css,v  <--  start.css
initial revision: 1.1
done