755898 - Rename Account manager files

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Account Manager, enhancement, P5)

Description

[:aceman]

The reasoning is this:
It seems to be an anomaly as the other am-*.js files have a corresponding .xul file represent an Account Manager pane or a sub-dialog in the AM. 

am-prefs.js is just a library in the way e.g. amUtils.js is.
The same can be done with am-help.js.

So I propose to rename these 2 files to amUtils[Prefs,Help].js to keep the current naming system.

Comment 1

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Original title: rename mailnews/base/prefs/am-prefs.js to amUtilsPrefs.js and am-help.js to amUtilsHelp.js

I think that rename would add more confusion than it helps. Me, I expect related code to be right next to each other. If a dialog is comprised of 5 files, theses files should appear next to each other in an list of the directory (alphabetical, e.g. in Open dialog, in mxr etc.), so that I can quickly find it, and quickly open them all when re-starting work. It also allows me to know right away that SmtpServerEdit.js/xul and accountUtils.js are part of the AccountManager.

A common prefix "am-" for all files of the dialog achieves this, but it would be even better to make a common directory prefs/accountmanager/ and put all files for AccountManager there.

There are other files are even more scattered:
AccountManager.js/xul and accountUtils.js and smtpEditOverlay.js/xul and SmtpServerEdit.js/xul
and I think it's even more urgent to get these in line.

So, please:
* create base/content/prefs/accountmanager/
* files have no prefix
* move all files for Account Manager (.js, .xul, .js util etc.) there

Comment 2

[:aceman]

But that would leave mailnews/base/prefs/ empty as all files would be moved to the new directory. All the files in /prefs are needed of the Account manager.
What would be the point of that?

Only Account wizard could be separated a bit, in only shares the *Util* files with Account manager.

Comment 3

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Oh, that dir contains *only* the account manager? See, that wasn't clear to me. I assumed it contains the main prefs dialog!

Comment 4

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Actually, that's not strictly true: the old account wizard is also in that dir.

So the main prefs dialog is in mail/components/preferences/. :-(

Comment 5

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

For reference, my proposal is what IanN said: "files shared by AM and AW could be left where they are, with am-* and aw-* moved to relevant subdirectories".
While you do that, rename the individual files to your heart's content, but without am-* prefix.
That's my proposal, anyway.

Comment 6

[:aceman]

Standard8, bienvenu, can I hear your preference?

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #6)
> Standard8, bienvenu, can I hear your preference?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755898#c5 seems reasonable to me, but I don't have strong feelings about it. Ultimately, the account settings and options UI should merge somehow which would probably require a new structure/naming scheme.

Comment 8

[:aceman]

(In reply to David :Bienvenu from comment #7)
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=755898#c5 seems reasonable to
> me, but I don't have strong feelings about it. 

So you do not care either way, but will accept it if it is done?

Comment 9

[rsx11m]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #4)
> Actually, that's not strictly true: the old account wizard is also in that dir.

...and SeaMonkey still uses the old e-mail account setup from there, unless that was moved into suite/mailnews, but I can't find anything aw-related there. Thus, please make sure not to break the suite in the process if this is implemented.

Comment 10

[:aceman]

Yes, there is no intention to remove anything. And we have Ian to watch over it :)

Comment 11

[rsx11m]

Good, my comment was just a precaution that no "obsolete" files get lost. ;-)

> (comment #1) * create base/content/prefs/accountmanager/

Sorting those out into subdirectories (i.e., am-* go there, aw-* into a parallel prefs/accountwizard directory) may be a way to more cleanly separate those, also given that prefs/accountcreation exists already for the TB mail-account setup.

Comment 12

[:aceman]

Yes, that's how I understand it.
The proposed tree would be like this:
mailnews/base/prefs/content:
accountUtils.js
amUtils.js

mailnews/base/prefs/content/accountmanager:
AccountManager.*
SmtpServerEdit.*
addressing.*
...
smtp.*
smtpEditOverlay.*

mailnews/base/prefs/content/accountwizard:
AccountWizard.*
accname.js
...
outgoing.js
ispUtils.js

mailnews/base/prefs/content/accountcreation:
* (as today)

Just one question to BenB:
Is base/content/prefs/ a typo instead of base/prefs/content/?
Or do you really propose moving it under base/content/ ?

Comment 13

[:aceman]

And any idea how to solve my original problem of prefs.js and help.js not sorting into the other files (for panes)? Removing the am- prefix will not help me. Can I use some other prefixes (like digits or letters) to force some nice ordering in the directory?

Comment 14

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

> accountwizard

Can we name this something else, e.g. oldwizard/, specialaccountwizard/ or whatever? "accountwizard" sounds too much as if it was accountcreation/.

> any idea how to solve my original problem of prefs.js and help.js not sorting

Ideas:
util/
lib-*

> Is base/content/prefs/ a typo instead of base/prefs/content/?
> Or do you really propose moving it under base/content/ ?

It was a typo.

Comment 15

[rsx11m]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #14)
> Can we name this something else, e.g. oldwizard/, specialaccountwizard/ or
> whatever? "accountwizard" sounds too much as if it was accountcreation/.

It was my understanding that parts of the old wizard other than e-mail accounts are still used (and will be in the future), e.g., for news and RSS accounts, both by Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, thus "old" or "special" aren't quite applicable.

Comment 16

[:aceman]

(In reply to rsx11m from comment #15)
> It was my understanding that parts of the old wizard other than e-mail
> accounts are still used (and will be in the future), e.g., for news and RSS
> accounts, both by Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, thus "old" or "special" aren't
> quite applicable.
It seems it is not wished to be used in the future, see bug 732109.
So today it is not old (as there is no new one), but can become one.
So I would be OK with "accountwizard-old" (to allow good sorting with the -new one).

Comment 17

[:aceman]

(In reply to Ben Bucksch (:BenB) from comment #14)
> > any idea how to solve my original problem of prefs.js and help.js not sorting
> Ideas:
> util/
> lib-*
> 
If this is .../accountmanager/util/ then I like it.

Comment 18

[:aceman]

I'll make this depend on some bugs that shuffle code between files, that could influence which files are shared (utils).

Comment 19

[rsx11m]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #16)
> It seems it is not wished to be used in the future, see bug 732109.

Thanks, I forgot about that one even though I've CC-ed myself to it...
Thus, SeaMonkey eventually would need to move the code to suite/mailnews if it's still depended upon, once and whatever is going to happen in that other bug.

Comment 20

[:aceman]

And what about files that are not under mailnews/base/prefs but under mailnews/extensions (like am-feeds.* and am-smime.*)?

Comment 21

[David :Bienvenu]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #20)
> And what about files that are not under mailnews/base/prefs but under
> mailnews/extensions (like am-feeds.* and am-smime.*)?

those are how extensions plug into the account manager ui, and they use the same naming convention to make it clear that's what they're doing. I suppose if you stop using that naming convention, that makes those file names a bit less useful.

Comment 22

[:aceman]

Yes the AM has the convention and so also these files will need to be updated. Or we can make 'am-feeds' be the pane name instead of just 'feeds' and preserve the file name :)

(What's up with bugzilla today...)