68891 - mail search window should focus textbox automatically

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, enhancement)

Description

[Jesse Ruderman]

When the mail search window is opened, the textbox next to "subject contains" 
should be focused.  Currently nothing is focused automatically.

Additionally, opening a Mail window and then pressing (Alt+S, M, foo) quickly 
should get "foo" in the textbox (cf bug 57507 and bug 62452).

Comment 1

[scottputterman]

reassigning to naving

Comment 2

[Adam Lock]

This would be a usability win. I've sworn several times after hitting
ctrl+shift+f to find I have no focus and have to use the mouse to select the
text box.

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 129877 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Jesse Ruderman]

I have a patch:

- Opening the mail search window focuses the textbox for the first criterion.
- Clicking "Clear" also focuses the textbox for the first criterion.
- Adding a row for another criterion focuses the attribute dropdown.
- Clicking "Clear" resets the "Less" button to the disabled state.

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Attachment: patch

Comment 6

[Jesse Ruderman]

I just tested the patch on Mac (not OS X) and Linux, and it works on both.

Comment 7

[Sean Su]

Comment on attachment 90888 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

I would rather still have the searchvalue have the focus when there's more than
one search term.

This is because mscott had already fixed a bug that causes new search terms to
remember what the last searchattribute was set to and makes the new search term
contain the same searchattribute.

Because of that fix, it assumes the user wants the same attribute for the next
search term and thus having the focus on the searchvalue makes more sense to
me, IMHO.

In either case, r=ssu

Comment 8

[Jesse Ruderman]

I think it's much more common to search with each row having a different field.
 I might sometimes want to search for two words in a title, but I'll usually use
quick search for that (bug 123788).

Another argument for focusing the textbox when the user hits More (click or
Alt+M) is "Focusing the field dropdown helps users who use the keyboard whenever
possible, while focusing the text field helps uses who type with the keyboard
and do most other things with the mouse. There are more users in the second
group."  While this is a valid argument, there are several factors that make it
somewhat weak:

1. Having to shift+tab is frustrating, while having to click a field when you
already have a hand on the mouse is normal.

2. Many mouse users will click the field anyway, not noticing that the field was
focused for them.  I've seen this among Netscape engineers (at google.com) and I
suspect that it's even more common among normal users.

3. Many mouse users will select the field first, since that is the logical
order, and they won't gain the benefit of having the field already focused. 

4. Keyboard users may select the field first, since that is the logical order. 
That ends up being two shift+tabs and two tabs, which is inefficient and
potentially frustrating.

Comment 9

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

Comment on attachment 90888 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

sorry for the delay, jesse.

before you check in, make sure to test that editing existing filter rules still
behaves correctly.  test filters with few rules (1 or 2) and many (5 or 10).

if that works fine, then sr=sspitzer

you may also have to make some similar changes for advanced addressbook search,
so that both our search dialogs behave the same.  If this is the case, you can
spin that off to another bug.

Comment 10

[Jesse Ruderman]

Attachment: patch v2

This goes back to focusing the filter name when creating or editing a filter. 
I added a boolean argument to onMore saying whether to focus part of the newly
created rule and made it true everywhere except the filter dialog's onload.

Comment 11

[Jesse Ruderman]

The patch also works for address book search.  Cool, I didn't know that :)

Comment 12

[Olga]

It is almost done. Can we make it for Buffy? I put nsbeta1 - usability.

Comment 13

[Rafael Ebron (:rebron)]

Mail Triage team: nsbeta1+/adt3

Comment 14

[Stefan Borggraefe]

Comment on attachment 95511 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v2

This patch doesn't apply anymore. :-(

Comment 15

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 108101 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Jesse Ruderman]

I'm no longer working on this bug.

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #14)
> (From update of attachment 95511 [details] [diff] [review] [edit])
> This patch doesn't apply anymore. :-(

It doesn't apply, as in it has bitrotted?  Or, is there some other reason?

Comment 18

[Stefan Borggraefe]

(In reply to comment #17)    
> (In reply to comment #14)    
> > (From update of attachment 95511 [details] [diff] [review] [edit] [edit])    
> > This patch doesn't apply anymore. :-(    
>     
> It doesn't apply, as in it has bitrotted?  Or, is there some other reason?    
    
I just meant bitrotted back then.