688169 - First Run message is never displayed

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[:Irving Reid (No longer working on Firefox)]

TB has support for a special "first run" welcome page, displayed in the mail message window the first time a new installation (or a new profile) starts up.

The logic to display this page never triggers. In msgMail3PaneWindow.js/OnLoadMessenger() we call LoadPostAccountWizard() which sets a timer on the "window" object to call loadStartFolder(). Then we call specialTabs.openSpecialTabsOnStartup(), which calls getApplicationUpgradeVersions() to check the old value of the "mailnews.start_page_override.mstone" pref **and set it to the current TB version**.

Then, later, the timer calls loadStartFolder() and a very twisty call chain gets to mailWindow.js/loadStartPage(), which checks the "...mstone" pref, sees it is already set, and always chooses to display the Start page instead of the Firstrun page.

Short term fix, as advised by Standard8, is to rip out the "first run" logic and page.

If we decide later that we really want a different UX on first run, I recommend that we pull out the "what is the old and new TB version, is this an upgrade or a first run" logic into a separate thing (object, group of methods on some existing object, whatever) that caches the test result, and call it from all the places that care; that way we won't be sensitive to subtle execution order changes.

Comment 1

[:Irving Reid (No longer working on Firefox)]

Attachment: Patch to remove start page from message display

Do we also want to remove the "first run" welcome page from the web site?

Comment 2

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 561493 [details] [diff] [review]
Patch to remove start page from message display

Almost there, but you need to remove the old pref definitions as well:

http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/search?string=mailnews.start_page.welcome_url&find=&findi=&filter=%5E%5B%5E%5C0%5D*%24&hitlimit=&tree=comm-central

Comment 3

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Irving Reid (:irving) from comment #1)
> Do we also want to remove the "first run" welcome page from the web site?

Oh, forgot to respond to this, there isn't one as we always redirect to the start page. We do need to clean up those redirections once this lands though.

Comment 4

[:Irving Reid (No longer working on Firefox)]

Attachment: Remove "first run" welcome page and prefs

Now with extra pref-removing goodness

Comment 5

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Comment on attachment 562450 [details] [diff] [review]
Remove "first run" welcome page and prefs

# Parent  a508ab7862d2255fd421bade976d964fb6dcbb8f
Bug 688169
Remove "first run" welcome page logic from message display

nit: when this lands, its better to have this all on one line, as otherwise most of our tools will just show the bug number (I generally prefer the review and any approval info on the same line as well).

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Checked in:

http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/ad1f76cfcbcc

Comment 7

[Jb Piacentino]

(In reply to Mark Banner (:standard8) from comment #6)
> Checked in:
> 
> http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/ad1f76cfcbcc

Interesting. We discussed yesterday the interest of proposing a 'Thunderbird Tour'. Maybe this should be displayed on first run only. :-(

Comment 8

[Rain [:rain1] (inactive)]

If we do want to display a first run thing, it would make sense to move it out into a module rather than in chrome code. That's what we now do with pref migration too, see https://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mail/base/modules/mailMigrator.js

Comment 9

[Rain [:rain1] (inactive)]

(In reply to Siddharth Agarwal [:sid0] from comment #8)
> rather than in chrome code

... rather than keep it in chrome code.

Comment 10

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

(In reply to Jb Piacentino from comment #7)
> (In reply to Mark Banner (:standard8) from comment #6)
> > Checked in:
> > 
> > http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/ad1f76cfcbcc
> 
> Interesting. We discussed yesterday the interest of proposing a 'Thunderbird
> Tour'. Maybe this should be displayed on first run only. :-(

I wasn't at that discussion, but in any case, I'd query if the message preview window (in which the start page goes away as soon as you do anything) is the right place/way to do that. Additionally this code was just broken and wouldn't have worked anyway, so removing it doesn't hurt for now.

Comment 11

[:Irving Reid (No longer working on Firefox)]

(In reply to Jb Piacentino from comment #7)
> (In reply to Mark Banner (:standard8) from comment #6)
> > Checked in:
> > 
> > http://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/ad1f76cfcbcc
> 
> Interesting. We discussed yesterday the interest of proposing a 'Thunderbird
> Tour'. Maybe this should be displayed on first run only. :-(

As Mark said, this probably isn't the right way to display a "tour" - I'd suggest using a new tab, like we do for the existing "What's New" tab when we notice the user has changed versions. That would be quite easy to add.

Detailed discussion of a "Tour" UX should probably move to a separate bug (and include bwinton)