715694 - Mailing List: Editing recipients list does not work correctly when adding new users to it (friendly display name lost on card; list entry defaults to Name: john.doe if address is [e-mail])

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Simon]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Iron/15.0.900.1 Chrome/15.0.900.1 Safari/535.2

Steps to reproduce:

I created a new recipient list with one contact. I then saved the list and double clicked it again to add new contacts.


Actual results:

Any new contact to a list is not attached correctly. The name is broken and consists of the first part of the email address until the @ sign. For Example i added Max Mustermann and his email is [e-mail] the name in the list is now max.mustermann.

Now when Editing the broken user, with double click on it, i can't save it. The window won't close.


Expected results:

The new user which was added should be correctly added to the list.

Comment 1

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to Simon from comment #0)
Are you referring to saving contacts in the address book?

Comment 2

[Simon]

Yes, i am adding users with autocomplete from my address book.

Comment 3

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to Simon from comment #2)
> Yes, i am adding users with autocomplete from my address book.

There is a similar issue in bug 609074. But check if there are any errors in the error console after you try to save.

Comment 4

[Simon]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #3)
> There is a similar issue in bug 609074. But check if there are any errors in
> the error console after you try to save.

no, there are no errors.

now that i have tested it, the contacts are even showing up twice even though i have them in the popup window to edit the list only once.

weird...

can anybody confirm this bug?

Comment 5

[Hashem Masoud]

(In reply to Simon from comment #4)
> now that i have tested it, the contacts are even showing up twice even
> though i have them in the popup window to edit the list only once.
This 2nd problem is dealt with in bug 45946.

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Simon from comment #0)
> User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/535.2 (KHTML, like
> Gecko) Iron/15.0.900.1 Chrome/15.0.900.1 Safari/535.2
> Steps to reproduce:
> I created a new recipient list with one contact. I then saved the list and
> double clicked it again to add new contacts.

Simon, it is very hard to understand your report. Can you add detailed steps to reproduce, pls use short notes with bullets, avoid prose, like this:

STR:

1. In Addressbook "Collected Addresses", create new mailing list
2. In "Mailing List" dialogue, type "Max.mustermann" and accept autocomplete suggestion using ... key; where Max is an existing entry of my AB with following properties: First name: Last Name: Display Name...
3. ...
Actual Result
Expected Result

Comment 7

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #5)
> (In reply to Simon from comment #4)
> > now that i have tested it, the contacts are even showing up twice even
> > though i have them in the popup window to edit the list only once.
> This 2nd problem is dealt with in bug 45946.

No, bug 45946 is about different type of duplicates.
The problem described by Simon in comment 4 is bug 628035.
But problem of comment 0 sounds different from problem of comment 4.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Hashem Masoud from comment #3)
> (In reply to Simon from comment #2)
> > Yes, i am adding users with autocomplete from my address book.
> There is a similar issue in bug 609074. But check if there are any errors in
> the error console after you try to save.

Hashem, bug 609074 is not really related to this bug. We need to find and translate important keywords of comment 0:

> I created a new recipient list with one contact. I then saved the list and...

Reporter talks about "list" very often.
So clearly, this is about UI part with technical name "Mailing List".
For such cases, please adjust the summary and add "Mailing List" so that other users and supporters can more easily find this bug report.

Comment 9

[Simon]

ok, here a very detailed description about my report

- open address book
- create a new list ("Verteiler liste" in german)
- give the list a name and in the text area type in a contacts name like "Max1 Mustermann <[e-mail]>"
- click ok
- open the list again by double clicking on it to add new contacts
- Max1 Mustermann is still on the list - ok.
- Type: Max2 Mustermann <[e-mail]>
- click ok

so now HERE comes the problem:
in my address book window i have the list name on the left frame and the contacs in the right frame.

i now see: "max2.mustermann" as the name and the correct email address "[e-mail]" but the expected result would be:
"Max2 Mustermann" as name and "[e-mail]" as email address.

Comment 10

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(This comment is not a reply to comment 9, which came in as midair collision when I posted this)

OK, ux-experience of mailing lists is ultimate confusion *sigh* because of 
a) flawed conceptional relationship between lists and AB cards (Bug 757736)
b) bugs (especially bug 628035, update problem in contacts list pane of Mailing Lists which leads to all sorts of ghost entries and seemingly missing information)
I tried to reproduce what I can understand from comment 0, here are the findings:

STR

1) create new AB called "TestAB"
2) within TestAB, create new Mailing list called "TestList", and type email address into recipients list which does *not* exist in your AB:
[e-mail]
2xEnter or click OK to save and close TestList; do not click anywhere outside testlist

Actual result:
TestList shows 2 identical entries (card-like) in the contacts list pane:
Name            Email
max.mustermann  [e-mail]

One of these duplicate cards does not exist (bug 628035), and you can make it go away like this:
3) In AB left pane, click on TestAB, then single-left-click on TestList.
-> ghost duplicate entry gone. better.

I think so far (while the whole concept is flawed, and we have problem of ghost entries), there are "no" (persisting) problems as far as *names* are concerned (which I think is the particular scenario of this bug, which looks wfm to me). But problems start when you start trying to fix the name:

4) Ensure focus is on TestList in left AB pane, so contacts of TestList show in contacts pane on the right.
5) double-clik on "max.mustermann" contact card
-> In Edit Contact, all fields except Email are correctly empty.
6) In Edit Contact, add this:
First Name: Max
Last Name: Mustermann
(was für ein schöner Name! :))
Display name will be added automatically: Max Mustermann

Now that we believe to have fixed that for *TestList*, let's doublecheck...
7) Double-Click on TestList
-> Surprise: Mailing List properties for TestList is still without display name, it's still [e-mail] only.
8) Click OK (sic!) to close Mailing List dialogue (without making changes)
-> Max's contact card in TestList seems to lose the Display name again, shows "max.mustermann" as Name (verfiy by double-click on card that all fields are empty; that looks like phenomenon of Bug 534564) - but alas - it's another ghost thing:
9) click on TestAB, then re-select TestList
-> magically, the Display Name and missing data reappears on Max card (both instances of the card: in AB and in TestList)
-> surprise: even on the Mailing List Properties, Display name has been correctly added.

(So very weirdly, if you reopen MailingList Properties twice in a row, each time you'll get a different information, and it kinda confusingly swaps wrongly with the card, but at the end of the day most of these wrong swaps are just a ghost list update failure problem.)

Now if you want a *different* display name on the TestList contact properties, you're up for more trouble, other way round:
10) double click on TestList, try editing Display Name of Max for TestList purposes only:
Mailing List Properties has "Max Mustermann <[e-mail]"
-> Removing "Max Mustermann " and the <> doesn't work;
-> Changing "Max Mustermann " into "Max Musterfrau" or "Max " changes the new *Display Name* on both instances of the card immediately (in TestAB and TestList), but does *not* change or remove the Last Name property (but user might be tricked into thinking Last Name is lost, perhaps another explanation of Bug 534564)

So (somewhat OT) imo it's currently impossible (or very complex) to use different display name for list than on card (although that's a legimitate use case).

Out of this total confusion of Mailing List behaviour, we need to understand this bug and see if it's duplicate of existing bugs, additional info for existing bugs, wfm, or whatever...

Comment 11

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Simon from comment #9)
> ok, here a very detailed description about my report

Thanks Simon, that's very helpful.
Unfortunately, I *cannot* reproduce that particular issue (but I've seen very similar issues as described in my comment 10).
For me, starting from scratch, ensuring no entry exists neither in AB nor in Mailing List, if I enter
"Max1 Mustermann <[e-mail]>" directly into Mailing List Properties, then click OK, it displays correctly (sometimes 2 entries, due to bug 628035) with "Name: Max1 Mustermann" in the list pane of contacts that belong to the mailing list, same for later adding Max2.

I've contacted Simon to verify.

Comment 12

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

After testin for almost 3hrs with Simon, we found that disappearing display names in "Name" column of contacts pane (right side of main AB view) can also be caused by regular setting:

View | Show name as | Last, First
mail.addr_book.lastnamefirst=1

With this setting, somewhat surprising, if card fields "First" and "Last" are empty, TB choses user part "johnmail" of email address [e-mail] for display in "Name" column, instead of existing Display name "John Doe".

Other problems are update problems of bug 758969.