837546 - Column heading lock Option in Submenu

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[ukrainianconsular]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:21.0) Gecko/20130201 Firefox/21.0
Build ID: 20130201030927

Steps to reproduce:

Accidental reorder of emails resorted through mouse clicks attempting to reopen old emails, or enlargement of columns



Expected results:

I'm requesting a new option in the column heading submenu.
An addon called mailtweak installs many other tweaks that are not 
necessarily needed & many of them are useless like "save as webpage" 
when you can already save emails as html files. adding that option in 
the tb's code with direct access in the column's submenu is more orderly 
than go look in an addon's option & add invasive useless other functions 
through the use of that addon.

There would also be another alternative which is adding

addEventListener(
  "click",
  function (event) {
    if (!event.shiftKey) with (event.target)
      if (localName == "treecol"
          && parentNode.parentNode.id == "threadTree")
        event.stopPropagation()
    },
  true
  )

In the stylish addon .. . but it's the same system, a user has to open the addons
window, open stylish & disable it there. many people don't know that option is available & would give up.

it would be so much better to have it as an option in the submenu .. .


The request should be passed to the devs of tb.

Comment 1

[ukrainianconsular]

In my case, sorting isn't the only option i want to lock but also preventing column headers from being ordered differently through the act of sliding icons or enlarging them .. .

Comment 2

[ukrainianconsular]

huh ?

Comment 3

[:aceman]

So in the context menu of the message list header, you want some option called "lock columns" that if enabled would prevent the mouse operations on the columns (resize, hide, move, change sort order) ? E.g. like the Windows taskbar has "lock taskbar".

Would it be enough if this was global for all folders? So depending on a single preference?

Comment 4

[ukrainianconsular]

Looks like i may live another christmas before the right time, 
i've always had issues with those buttons & that's why i've had 
frustrated experiences with thunderbird since more than a decade 
& was expecting for something better but it never appeared ((

What you're explaining is exactly what i'm dreaming of ))

& even in your last question, it would be perfect,
because i wouldn't have to keep reproduce a standard
personalized column header to all folders.

What would be wonderful is if i select that "lock columns"
option, any new account i select will auto reproduce my
actual column header profile ... .

It would be amazing if you can add this aceman, & if possible,
please warn me when it's eventually implemented even in a tb
nightly build, unless it can be auto approved in stable builds,
that would be magic ))

Comment 5

[ukrainianconsular]

I don't know if this is possible too, but it's not primordial. It would be cool
if lock columns could also lock the vertical bar between account folders & messages, and the horizontal virtual bar between message header view & messages
bodies .. .

Comment 6

[ukrainianconsular]

Oops, correction:

What would be wonderful is if i select that "lock columns"
option, any new account i [Create] will auto reproduce my
actual column header profile ... .

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I don't see this as a "bug".  If its new function to workaround User accidents then ENH

Comment 8

[ukrainianconsular]

oh yes, it's a feature request, sorry about that Wayne, i forgot to select it ))

Comment 9

[:aceman]

Yes, maybe I could implement this.
Bwinton, what do you think? Specification in comment 3.

Comment 10

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Do any other programs which display a list let the user lock the columns?  (iTunes doesn't.  Firefox doesn't.  I couldn't find another app with a list…)  I'm not saying that I would reject the feature even if no-one else was doing it, but it would be nice to have some prior art to look at/copy from.

Having said that, not all functions need to go into Thunderbird's core.  Having some of them as extensions is one of our goals.  But it would make users' lives easier, and it's not going to be too exposed, so I would _probably_ accept it.

Comment 11

[ukrainianconsular]

thsnks ))

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

both bug 286712 and bug 503604 start off with the problem of "[attempting to clikc on] first message, I click the on the title column header and my mail sorting settings changes".

bug 503604 has many user comments. FWIW https://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/message_sort_order_lock doesn't have many users requesting, and I don't find other topics requesting this in getsatisfaction.

Comment 15

[Brian Hauer]

Wayne: I'm not sure what to make of the (lack of) popularity of this enhancement at getsatisfaction.  I for one was a voter for this in its bug 286712 form and I've never used getsatisfaction.  I now realize that Bugzilla doesn't even include a notion of votes any more.  (That's a shame because I used my votes as a list of favorites/bookmarks, but so be it.)

Unintentional adjustment of the sort order of folders is one of two daily frustrations I have with Thunderbird (the other being #593145 / #302109).  The selector control/menu at the right of the column list should have "lock columns and sort order."

The re-specification of a preferred set of columns and sort order for newly created folders is also a commonplace frustration but by nature of the task at hand, less common than fixing accidental resorts.

I am going to check out the two addons the reporter cited.  I had not heard of them before seeing this particular bug.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(For completeness) bug 286712 had 10 votes in 8 years.

Bugzilla still shows votes. And you can vote.  But vote has marginal impact on what gets fixed - because what gets fixed tends to be more biased to what's possible with (short supply) developer resources, problem severity and randomness of the universe.  Which means add-on are important in this ecosystem, as they should be.

Comment 17

[Brian Hauer]

Indeed, add-ons were the solution that I wasn't even aware of.  I found the following add-on that deals with this issue very nicely:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/no-message-pane-sort-by-mouse

Thanks!

(I don't see votes on Bugzilla any more, but I do like the new look!)

Comment 18

[ukrainianconsular]

The aim is in comments 5 & 6 .. .

brian's suggested addon isn't a complete answer to what aceman "could do"
& abandoned .. .


":aceman 2013-02-04 09:34:29 PST

Yes, maybe I could implement this."

ppl should have the ability to choose which columns to lock in order to prevent accidental sorting & still use a regular specific column sorting .. .

But that addon doesn't prevent moving separators accidentally which happens
& should be locked since its not anything ppl change all the time.

but this png based email client with outdated addons as time goes by is starting to irritate me, i decided to pass specific requests to the em client staff who acepted to add them on next release .. .

while one request here, took a lot of precautions & fears & was never considered with objectivity.

im closed to a clean microsoft email interface with em client & i dont have too many useless internet headers like tb adds to emails that can cause interferences with complex email filters.

its time to move on for me.

Comment 19

[ukrainianconsular]

this is a 6 months old request, adieu tb.

Comment 20

[:aceman]

I haven't seen any abandoning yet. Also I have not yet seen a mention that the lock should be per column.
In 6 months Microsoft gives you nothing (as it has longer release cycles) so I do not understand the comparison. Outlook reportedly also does not have such a lock, it would be a unique feature in TB that is why there was not an automatic UI approval in comment 10. Anyway, we need to look at how hard this is to do, whether the columns are completely operated from Toolkit or TB has some say in their implementation and can block the resorting.

Comment 21

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

This seems like something that would be great to prototype as an add-on. Given this feature's comparative rarity in other applications (I can't think of any that do this either), we'd need to see some more evidence that this is worth the maintenance cost of adding this code to TB. An add-on with a significant amount of users would be a good start for showing this.

Comment 22

[Brian S. Craigie]

I think doing this is a no-brainer.  Once it has been coded, is there really a big overhead on maintaining it?  A simple right-mouse on any column to give the option to lock or unlock the columns.  When locked, they simply can't be left-clicked, so this means they can't be dragged and the sort order is locked.

I think the lack of support for this is simply people are not aware that a) this bug exists, b) that this proposed enhancement is even an option.

Doing an add-on would be ok, but my standard add-on list for a new TB install is now numbering around 15 so I'd rather this one was native.

So many times a week, I get phone calls from my elderly customers, some with early onset dementia, saying they are not getting new emails or they can't find emails.  Some of them are in tears thinking they've lost emails.  Thankfully, with remote support I can fix it for them. It is always the case that they've accidentally sorted by some other column than date, or even removed the date column so they can no longer sort by it.  A simple "lock columns" option would really help us IT support people.  It's so frustrating for me having to repeat my explanation to them over and over again because they can't remember what the problem was when I explained it to them last week...  and it's frustrating for them and they blame Thunderbird because they don't understand.

If it is easy enough to do, please would somebody consider taking it on?  Thanks. :-)

Comment 23

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

(In reply to Brian S. Craigie from comment #22)
> If it is easy enough to do, please would somebody consider taking it on? 
> Thanks. :-)

Have you installed the add-on from comment 17 yet?

Comment 24

[Brian S. Craigie]

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #23)
> (In reply to Brian S. Craigie from comment #22)
> > If it is easy enough to do, please would somebody consider taking it on? 
> > Thanks. :-)
> 
> Have you installed the add-on from comment 17 yet?

Thanks Jim, yes, I've tried the add-on and it does work.  However, I think I explained fairly clearly and cogently  why it should be in the core and not reliant on an add-on. When I install TB for a client, it is a real pain to have to install 17 add-ons to make it work sensibly... and this fix would make it just one less add-on to have to worry about remembering to install :-)

Surely it can't be that hard for someone who knows what they are doing (I wish I did).

Comment 26

[MarjaE]

bug 1608288

Comment 27

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Seamonkey equivalent is Bug 237051.

Comment 28

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I found no more duplicates, and nothing on Connect.
But there is Bug 1593636 - Clearer presentation of message list column headers - avoid unwanted re-sort by accidental clicks on column header

Comment 29

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #28)

I found no more duplicates, and nothing on Connect.

Correction, https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/column-sorting-lock/idi-p/49500