814665 - timed "mark as read" is not consistently applied to message in standalone window/new window vs tab

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[Anje]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Firefox/17.0
Build ID: 20121119183901

Steps to reproduce:

Automatically Mark New Messages as Read" checked, and "After displaying for" checked and set to "9999" seconds. "Immediately on Display" is not checked. "

What this means is:
Option 1 - open with a single click:
As soon as you single click on the email in the list to display the email contents opened in the Message Pane, a countdown starts from 9999 seconds. After which the message will be marked as 'read' providing the email is still open in the Message Pane and focus is still on the message pane.

Option 2 - open with a double click:
However, if you do not do a 'single click' to open it in the Message Pane first, but instead 'double click' to open and read in a new tab, then the countdown starts from 9999 seconds. After which the message will be marked as 'read' providing it is still open and focus is still on the message in the tab. 

This setting was used so that a message could be 'previewed' in the message pane and not marked as read so it could be left til they viewed it later and then when opened in a tab by double clicking the message would then be set as read.
The person who used method this was using:
Mac (OS X 10.7.5) with a version prior to 16.0.2
when they updated to 16.0.2 this no longer occurs and the message is never marked as read until one of the above options occurred.



Actual results:

I tested the following on my Vista running version 17.0

"Automatically Mark New Messages as Read" checked, and "After displaying for" checked and set to "30" seconds. "Immediately on Display" is not checked.

I single click to display in Message Pane.
Read info, then select another email, but I do this in 10 seconds.
So the first email is not triggered as read because I opened and moved to another email in the list within that 30 second time frame.
I then tested, single click to see info then double click to read in a tab, then closed the tab and chose another email..all in less then 30 seconds. Nothing was triggered and the email still shows as unread.

Another test, single click to see contents, wait 10 seconds then double click to open in a tab, wait 10 seconds and then return to the email list, the email was still unread after 20 seconds has passed, so I now count the time I returned to view the 'unread' email in the Message Pane. I waited for 30 seconds and then the email in the list turned 'read'.
finally, I single clicked and then double clicked and stayed in the tab view for just over 30 seconds and then returned to the list of emails to see the selected email marked as 'read'.
So the trigger seems to be when I have focus on the email as shown in the Message Pane for 30 seconds or when I have focus in the Tab for 30 seconds.
If I swap between the two in less than 30 seconds the trigger time is reset.

This means that if I set a time of 10 seconds, I must read the Message Pane and move on to another email all in less than 10 seconds to not trigger the 'read'
or
I need to double click and open the email in a tab. Then I must spend at least 10 seconds reading the email in the tab to trigger the 'read', else it is not triggered unless I keep it open in the Message Pane for another 10 seconds.

The resetting of the 'read' if you change focus within the time frame selected, could effectively mean that it is possible to never trigger the 'read' if the time set is longer than the actual time taken or if far too long like 9999 seconds like the Mac user who wants to only trigger the mark as read when he opens in a tab and not when viewing in the Message Pane.


Expected results:

I would expect the countdown to start when I initially select the email in the list to see it in the message pane and the count to continue - not restart- when I select to then open the same email in a tab.

However, the issue arises because it is not possible to select the following option.

Only mark as read when I select to open in a tab or window and not to mark as read if viewed in the message pane.
Please see comments by the Mac user here:
https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/automatic_mark_as_read_not_working?utm_content=topic_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reply_notification

Advise on how to make Thunderbird to this.
Could this option be created in the Options, so that under opening you can select when the 'mark as read' is triggered on selecting to view a message in the Message Pane or when opening in a tab or window. 
If selecting to 'mark as read' in the Message Pane is selected then it auto continues the countdown to mark as read if opened in a tab or window.

Comment 1

[Anje]

Copied comment from forum..link given in previous comment.

" I have been using Thunderbird since the days of Windows 98, and until a few months ago there was a satisfactory workaround in the form of setting the timer to "9999" and the program would then mark emails that were opened to a new tab or window. That no longer works, and I believe that it should be fixed or the function accommodated in some other way. "

Comment 2

[Mark Lewus]

Many of us still use the message pane as a "preview" pane. I don't think I am unique here as most email clients have the ability to "preview" part of a message without opening it. I do this because I get far more message traffic than I can handle in one sitting. I triage in the message pane, answer the important stuff, then come back later and open them in a new tab (or window) when I want to answer them.

A couple of years back there was a workaround posted in the forum by one of the developers that suggested you enable the "mark as read after XXXX seconds", and set the timer to a high value. Then you could preview in the message pane without the message being marked as read, but as soon as you opened it in a tab or window the timer was overridden and the message would automatically be marked as read.

Sometime in the last six months or so that workaround became broken.

One possibility is to just fix the workaround, and comment the code so that it is not broken again in the future. A longer term solution is to add another preference so that the current prefs are directed to the message pane, with a new checkbox item to automatically mark messages opened in tab/window as read (no timer).

Please let me know if you want me to test anything and thanks for all of your efforts in this regard.

Comment 3

[Mark Lewus]

Matt noted 

"Matt CHAMP
Matt 2 days ago
I think this is a regression dating back to the implementation of Tabs. Try setting your open messages in a new window instead of a tab and it will work (or so the story goes)"

I tested this and it does work, but the problem still exists when using tabs.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

a) Sorry, the description is too hard to follow. Please boil this down to a couple short sentences.

b) tabs has been around a long time - is this not a duplicate bug?

Comment 5

[Matt]

I still maintain this is probably related to the introduction of Tabs. A regression it may not be, but the behaviour if the mark mail as read is set to 999 and mail is opened in a tab Vs a window is different.

To reproduce
Set mark mail as read to 999
set open in new window to true

Result: mail is marked as read as soon as the window opens.

Set mark mail as read to 999
set open in tab to true

Result: mail is not marked as read until the timer counts down.

Given that the open in window behaviour predates Tabs, I am guessing that the implementation of tabs is the issue.

I can not find a duplicate, but my bugzilla search skills are limited.

Have changed operating systems to all and version to Trunk. as I can reproduce on Windows 7 with a Trunk build.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

personally I think the proper behavior should be what you describe for tab, that message is marked read only at timeout.  Despite the historical behavior.  (But doesn't matter to me - I have the value disabled)

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Anje does this still reproduce for you in version 115 or newer?

Comment 8

[Anje]

version beta 120.0b5

Set mark mail as read to eg: 10 or 999 seconds - basically any number
set open in new window to true
Double click on unread mail to open in new window
Result: mail is marked as read as soon as the window opens.
Expected: mail is not marked as read until timer counts down.
I can still reproduce this bug.

Set mark mail as read to eg: 10 or 999 seconds - basically any number
set open in tab to true
Double click on unread mail to open in new tab
Result: mail is not marked as read until the timer counts down.
This was expected.

Set mark mail as read to eg: 10 or 999 seconds - basically any number
set open in tab to true or new window
single click to open in Message Pane
Result: mail is not marked as read until the timer counts down.
This was expected.

Note: if
Set mark mail as read to eg: 10 as easier to test
set open in tab to true
single click to open in Message Pane wait a couple of seconds and remain selected
double click to open in new tab - so it is two seconds behind
Result: as mail was initially opened in Message Pane then the count is performed on the first opening in Message Pane and not the opening in tab.
This was expected.

Set mark mail as read to eg: 10 as easier to test
set open in tab to true
single click to open in Message Pane wait a couple of seconds and then select another email.
double click on original email which I opened in Message Pane previously - to open in new tab
Result: as unread mail initially opened in Message Pane was closed withiin the time frame then the count is restarted on opening in tab.
This was expected.