69163 - SMTP UI: Need to display better error dialog to users when users hit SMTP limitation

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Description

[Karen Huang]

Need to display better error dialog to users when users hit SMTP limitation.

Refer to bug 19026, if that server SMTP configuration is common depend on how 
SMTP setup the configuration, then our client should display better error 
message to let users know there is SMTP limitation, not just get the error 
directly from the server, users have no idea what this dialog means and don't 
know what they need to do....

1) Login to this mail server sspitzer.mcom.com.
2) Send the messages to other domain (e.g. netscape.com) address.
3) Actual Results: Got an Alert :
"An error occurred while sending mail, The mail server responded: 
<[e-mail]>...Relaying denied. Please check the message recipients and 
try again>

Expected results: If users is hitting SMTP limitation based on the SMTP server 
configuration, our client should display better error dialog, current dialog 
display: "...Relay denied. Please check the message recipients and try again 
will confuse users, our client need to display better error dialog for users....

Comment 1

[Karen Huang]

Adding SMTP UI on the summary. QA -> me.

Comment 2

[Karen Huang]

Attachment: Attach the current alert directly from server which confuse users

Comment 3

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

actually, that's a pretty good error dialog.

there isn't much we can do, the message fails to get sent and the SMTP server
tells us why.  That error message comes right from the server.

that SMTP server is not setup to relay.

moving to future.  I'll leave it open for discussion, but it should be invalid. 

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

This alert is certainly better than others in Mozilla, but there are still a few 
things which could be improved.

(1) This is an alert. An alert (as opposed to a dialog) should not have a title,
    as a title usually provides very little useful information and so slows down
    the user rather than speeding them up. (The exception is on Windows, where
    platform convention is to use the name of the application or document as the
    title for an alert. But that will be handled when we get <alert> in XUL, it
    shouldn't be handled here.)

(2) This alert is reporting an error, it's not asking the user to make a
    decision. So it should use the error icon, not the caution icon. (This is an
    easy mistake to make -- Microsoft does it frequently.)

(3) The alert should tell the user what actually happened. At the moment it says
    `An error occurred while sending mail', but it needs to be made more clear
    that this error actually prevented the message from being sent at all -- as
    opposed to, for example, the message only being sent to a subset of the
    intended recipients (which would seem quite plausible from the user's point
    of view).

(4) The alert doesn't tell you which message had the problem, or which server
    reported the error -- which may make the alert next to useless if you are
    synchronizing multiple accounts at once, or if you are sending multiple
    queued messages.

(5) UI generally shouldn't say `please'. Computers exist to serve, not to beg.

(6) `Check the message recipients and try again' is good for what-shall-I-do-now
    text, but it isn't really appropriate for this particular error. The text
    needs to be made more general.

How about:

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::|
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
|  _  The message “Re: Why does Mozilla encourage the use   |
| (X) of open relays?” could not be sent, because the       |
|  "  server “smtp.foo.bar” reported an error:              |
|                                                           |
|     <[e-mail]> ... Relaying denied              |
|                                                           |
|     Check the recipients’ addresses and try again. If the |
|     problem persists, check your mail server settings.    |
|                                                           |
|                                                ((  OK  )) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

Comment 5

[Karen Huang]

Nominating nsbeta1 based on PRD better error handling.....

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> (4) The alert doesn't tell you which message had the problem, or which server

See <http://mxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/search?string=An+error+occurred+while+sendi&case=on&find=/composeMsgs.properties&tree=seamonkey>

At least, "The mail server" should say which server:
See bug 400633 as an example.