84131 - Forwarding multiple e-mails to single/multiple recipients as separate messages

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement)

Description

[Didier Moens]

When forwarding multiple messages, all messages are currently opened in a new
window, and the recipient has to be manually entered in each and every window.

This is a major burden when forwarding tens of messages on a regular base.

The only alternative is to forward the messages as an attachment, but this has
to be considered reduced functionality (invalidation of the message subjects,
difficult inline navigation, etc.).

It would be nice if the user is offered a choice when forwarding multiple
messages (as is the case in Pegasus Mail), e.g. :

(a) "Simple forwarding (each message is forwarded separately)"
(b) "Forward all the messages separately, but all to the same address"
(c) "Start a new message with the selected messages as attachments"

(a) is Mozilla's standard action, (c) is available through the "Forward As ...
Attachment" option

(b) is not available, but would eliminate the user interface burden of (a) when
(c) is not deemed appropriate.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

ccing mpt for UI guidance

Comment 2

[Håkan Waara]

cc jglick for UI guidance

Comment 3

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

I think that if multiple messages are selected when the user chooses Forward, 
the obvious intent is to forward them all in the same message, not to create 
multiple composition windows. (Asking the user what they wanted to do would be 
worse, UI-wise, than *either* of these approaches.)

Comment 4

[Didier Moens]

Attachment: Pegasus Mail options dialog box when forwarding multiple messages

Comment 5

[Didier Moens]

Consider the following scenario :

You queried a molecular sequencing database, and received 20 resulting hits by
e-mail. You choose to forward those results to several co-workers, who each need
to review and archive *subsets* of those results.

Ergo :

1. Multiple composition windows for each result is an administrative
*nightmare*, especially with multiple result sets on a daily basis (imagine
clicking through hunderds of composition windows, each time filling in the
recipients) ;

2. sending the results all in the same message defies the ability of your
co-workers to pick the individual messages they're particularly interested in,
and puts the administrative burden (searching the complete message for the
subset(s), and archiving these - how ? cut-n-paste ??? - individually) on their
side.

UI-wise, the user gets the proposed choice only when forwarding multiple
messages : that's an IMO unobtrusive one-click operation for an action which is
less frequently used anyway, and as such would not interfere with the more
frequently used forwarding of single messages.


In attachment : the dialog box from Pegasus Mail (Windows app) when forwarding
multiple e-mails.

Comment 6

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

I'll wait for jglick to weigh in with a decision (and update the spec) before 
working on this.

Comment 7

[Didier Moens]

Sorry to bother you this close to Moz 1.0, but I'm a bit thick on the actual
status on this bug.

Status = ASSIGNED (to sspitzer), but Seth states in comment #6 he's awaiting
jglick's decision.
Has jglick decided yet (due to the ASSIGNED status), and if so, shouldn't this
be reflected in a comment ?

Is there a way to see *when* a bug's status has been changed ? (Because, if this
one's changed after 2002/01/04, I'd been able to figure this out myself).

Comment 8

[Christian Franke]

Re comment 3: I agree. Mozilla should by default forward multiple selected mails
in the same message. Why does Mozilla (1.4RC2) does this only when forwarding as
attachment but not when forwarding inline?

Is this difference a Bug or a Feature?-)

Comment 9

[Russell Odom]

Related: bug 57604

Comment 10

[Seva Gluschenko]

Agreed, too. I have intention to forward multiple messages inline regularly, I
don't need to forward them as attachments or forward each message separately.
This must be a user selectable. If somebody chooses to forward inline, he
expects his choice to be applied.

Comment 11

[Benedikt Kantus]

*** Bug 253382 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 13

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 14

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 15

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 16

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 17

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 18

[Robert Kaiser]

This bug report is registered in the SeaMonkey product, but has been without a comment since the inception of the SeaMonkey project. This means that it was logged against the old Mozilla suite and we cannot determine that it's still valid for the current SeaMonkey suite. Because of this, we are setting it to an UNCONFIRMED state.

If you can confirm that this report still applies to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it back to the NEW state along with a comment on how you reproduced it on what Build ID, or if it's an enhancement request, why it's still worth implementing and in what way.
If you can confirm that the report doesn't apply to current SeaMonkey 2.x nightly builds, please set it to the appropriate RESOLVED state (WORKSFORME, INVALID, WONTFIX, or similar).
If no action happens within the next few months, we move this bug report to an EXPIRED state.

Query tag for this change: mass-UNCONFIRM-20090614

Comment 19

[Peter Nemsak]

Could this, please, get switched to TB3?

Additionally, this could be solved the same way as the 'Get new mail' toolbar button. Currently, the optional sending of multiple messages as attachments in one message is already available through the message tree context menu. However, the toolbar 'Forward' button acts only per partes - opening each message separately to forward.

SOLUTION 1:
Remake the 'Forward' toolbar button to a toolbar menu button, with options a, b, c from the original bug post, not sure of the default action - probably sending the mails as attachments in one message.

SOLUTION 2:
A simple and accessible way of forwarding would be having the 'Forward' toolbar button check for multiple selection, and asking in a simple radio dialog if the messages should be included in one, as attachments, or separately sent - the dialog being given address(es) of recipients.