679243 - date range quick filter search

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Search, enhancement)

Description

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

I'd like to see a quick filter date range search for finding messages within certain date ranges.

I had some mockups for this a while ago but I can't seem to find them right now.  I'll try to recreate them if time permits, here's ascii art for now. :-)

qfb:
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| ... (t) (a) (d)           [ filter these messages... ]  |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

My suggestion adds the (d) button which I used a little calendar icon for when in icon only mode.

(d).onClick():
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| ... (t) (a) (d)           [ filter these messages... ]  |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| today, yesterday, this week, last week, this month, [v] |
+---------------------------------------------------------+

When selected the filtering doesn't change but you are presented with a number of quick options for filtering messages.  The quick options will want some real thought into what are likely to be the best types of date ranges, gathering supporting data here would be a really good thing.  My examples where "today", "yesterday", "this week", "last week", "this month" but I didn't spend too much time debating that list.

The final option [v] is a calendar chooser which likely needs to have the following format.  from: [v] - to: [v] where each [v] opens a calendar widget for choosing an inclusive date to filter by.  Some detail work needs to be done here to ensure smart date selection by bumping the to / from dates as either is changed.

If any quick or specific date range is chosen the message list filters the displayed messages to only those messages matching the given range.

Luckily this will bring up lots of questions to deal with regarding "what is last week?" the last 7 days? etc. :-)  My usual format for these questions is always doing the search inclusive of today and back to what would be considered last week.  

I think it might make the most sense to have the quick labels change the from/to entries such that people could start with a quick search and then adjust the from/to entries with the calendar widget.

Comment 1

[David Ascher (:davida)]

adjusting title ;-)

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

nice idea