81753 - Improve Offline & Disk Space settings panel UI

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Backend, defect, P3)

Description

[racham]

In the process of fixing bug 76388, many people suggested various things that we
could do improve the UI for offline settings in the AccountManager. Please use
this bug to make all your suggestions. I will bring forward the items listed in
bug 76388. There is a need to consolidate once the consent is established on
various issues. That would help the bug owner to work towards the solution most
people agreed on.

I will list all the existing bugs (add dependencies) so that we don't duplicate
our suggestions.

Added all people who would be interested (from cc lists of related bugs) in this
bug.

Comment 1

[racham]

Adding major comments since Jennifer posted an updated UI on 
-------  2001-05-07 14:20 ------- in bug 76388 taking care of all previous comments.

Comments from Blake Ross & timeless from bug 76388 : begin 
_______________________________________________________________________________

------- Additional Comments From Blake Ross 2001-05-17 12:49 -------

Some brief comments about the UI, because I hate laptops:

- Where possible, we need to group related items more intelligently.  Right now 
most of the contents of the panels are just in one big groupbox (without a 
title).

- I don't understand parts of the Disk Space UI.  Specifically, how can things 
like "Download only unread messages" and "Download only messages since [ ]" be 
checkboxes?  Or why are there three radiobuttons for "Keep ..." and one checkbox 
for "Keep only ..."?  How is that even possible?  Perhaps this is due to my own 
ignorance in this area, but this UI seems overly complex.  Also, those controls 
should generally be indented under the labels, but really they should have their 
own groupboxes.

- A textbox that is dependent on a checkbox or radiobutton should only be 
enabled when the checkbox or radiobutton is.

- The text after a textbox in a radiobutton or checkbox seems misaligned in some 
cases.  I suspect that clicking it won't check the radiobutton or checkbox, 
also.  Toolkit needs to provide ways to handle this better (a different bug).

- There are some wording problems (e.g. the inconsistent placement of "only" in 
"Keep only unread messages" and "Remove message bodies only older than [ ] 
days" or redundant usage of "... when you are working offline")

- Two checkboxes generally does not justify the need for a new pref panel (the 
spec doesn't even seem to suggest that there are more on the way), although I 
see that it's for consistency among the two mail types.

- I still don't see the reason of leaving in broken UI, even (especially) if 
it's permanently disabled, considering you already had a patch to remove it.

I defer to Matthew and Ben to decide which of these issues (or any that they 
have) should be fixed before checkin, and which can be handled in a new bug, 
taking into account the desire to get this in for 0.9.1.




------- Additional Comments From [e-mail] 2001-05-17 14:15 -------

my comments will probably overlap w/ others, i'm sorry.

wrt attachment 34975 [details] Is it possible to just download headers?
wrt attachment 35015 [details] How does compacting folders relate to download time? -- If 
this is about compacting server folders please indicate.

Offline text messages are inconsistent.

Instead of a disk space group box in the disk space panel, please create 
separate download time and clean up groupboxes.
* Move compact folders into the second group.

your radio buttons have two different appearances.

Move up and move down buttons should be disabled for non accounts. Otherwise 
you confuse the user.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Comments from Blake Ross & timeless from bug 76388 : end

Comment 2

[racham]

Comments from David : begin
________________________________________________________________________________

------- Additional Comments From [e-mail] 2001-05-17 21:57 -------

No, 4.x looked the same and didn't get any complaints. The radio button choice
"Keep all messages" would perhaps more accurately be labelled "don't keep
messages based on arrival date or number of message" but I don't think that will
fit in the dialog. The purpose of that choice is as a negative of the other two
radio button choices. I'm not sure if there's a more succinct UI for that other
than three radio buttons. Basically, the user can choose A, B, or none of the above.

________________________________________________________________________________

Comments from David : end

Comment 3

[Blake Ross]

Bhuvan, thanks for filing this and being responsive on it!

Per the discussion in the other bug, this needs to be fixed for 0.9.2.

Comment 4

[racham]

Related bugs :

* bug 80194 - offline: Radio buttons for 'When it is time to clean up messages'
are not initially set

* bug 80134 - offline: gui refresh problem when toggling between a Mail
offline&diskspace pref and a News offline&diskspace pref

Please feel free to add bugs that (I may have missed) directly linked the
offline UI problems.

Also, please bring forward any other missed UI problems and suggestions. thanks.

bhuvan

Comment 5

[Peter Trudelle]

New Offline UI seems unnecessarily heavyweight:
Select appears in pane for each server, but resulting dialog shows folders on all 
servers. Why not just have this in one place, like 4.x?
Separate checkbox for Inbox offline seems to duplicate setting in Select dialog, 
is that just there for convenience? Currently, they can be different, and some 
users may not grasp the connection.  What happens when user selects inbox in one, 
but clears it in the other? 

Wording for 'create new folders' checkbox seems awkward, uses different 
terminology than elsewhere (i.e., "select them for offline" vs "Make the messages 
available").  Also, is it clear that this applies only to current server?  

Also using both 'choose' and 'select' to refer to specifying offline folders.

Do end-users understand what "locally" means?  If not, perhaps "to your computer" 
would be clear?

Are users clear about the model for offline? Is the For instance, after they 
check "make messages in inbox available", won't they expect them *all* to be 
available?  Will they be, or will only subsequently received or read messages be 
available? Shouldn't the explicit "synch" step be associated?  It isn't mentioned 
in the offline panel.

Do Disk Space prefs apply to all mail use, or just to offline use?  May not be 
clear for some of the settings.

When is it time to cleanup messages?  

Is there an equivalent bug for the Download/Sync Now dialog?

Comment 6

[Håkan Waara]

Trudelle: if you have any comments specific to the Select Folders dialog. Add
them to bug 82660.  Thanks!

Comment 7

[Jussi-Pekka Mantere]

Moving to 0.9.3.

Comment 8

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Currently this panel doesn't even fit in 800*600, let alone 640*480. Drastic 
changes are necessary.

Here's a simple one: The Select Folders UI is included in the `Offline & Disk 
Space' panel for every account. This gives the misleading impression that there 
is a separate `Select Folders' dialog for each account, when this is not the 
case (and indeed it would be very annoying if it *was* the case). So, this UI 
should be moved to its own panel in the Preferences dialog.

Comment 9

[Håkan Waara]

I agree with Trudelle and mpt. Ain't it just a great idea to have the "Offline &
Disk Space" panel as a global panel, like the SMTP server panel?  I really like it.

Comment 10

[Blake Ross]

Doesn't look like this is getting fixed before the freeze tonight.
Pushing out a milestone.  Please correct if I'm mistaken.

Comment 11

[Diane Sun]

This one is only a tracking bug, all the bugs listed here have been closed.
Close this one. 

Comment 12

[grylchan]

Marking verified (only a tracking bug, no actual patches associated
with this bug).