903879 - Rethink the UI for the reply/forward/Junk/Trash controls in the message viewer.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Toolbars and Tabs, enhancement)

Description

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

As seen on http://infinite-josiah.blogspot.ca/2013/02/thunderbird-ui-concept.html, it would be beneficial to move/change the UI for the reply controls. Here's the plan:

Move the controls to right *under* the header. This would mean that the controls will slightly cover the content, but that brings us to the second change.

The buttons should hide when the mouse is hovered over the message content so that all of the content can be read, but new users won't miss the controls otherwise.

Starting work on the patch today, already have a partly working Chromedit concept.

Comment 1

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Attachment: WIP

Comment 2

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Attachment: WIP

Whoops. Left a remove .rej in the previous patch.

Comment 3

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

I'm assuming that you're making the toolbar hide itself to save vertical space. I think a much better way to handle that would be to have the headers scroll with the message body (this requires seamless iframes).

Comment 4

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Indeed, bug 464309.
Not having tried the patch, i would worry it's pretty primary controls that would not be very discoverable.

Comment 5

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #3)
> I'm assuming that you're making the toolbar hide itself to save vertical
> space. I think a much better way to handle that would be to have the headers
> scroll with the message body (this requires seamless iframes).

Yes, I agree completely. I am actually second-guessing this bug entirely. Apple's mail app does something similar, but they can get away with it because the reply controls are automatically placed on the toolbar. Even then the hiding controls are probably not the most intuitive thing.

I'm going to talk to the rest of the TB UX Team and then make a final decision with them.

Comment 6

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

If you think the seamless iframe solution would be the ideal (I recall bwinton and protz both really wanting it), I think there's a reasonable chance that it'll be implemented in the not too distant future for Firefox OS. There are a handful of things that we're working on where seamless iframes could actually be really useful.

Comment 7

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Yeah, so we decided this would be better suited as an add-on. Marking as WONTFIX. The seamless iframe solution is the way to go.

Comment 8

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

Yeah, so we decided this would be better suited as an add-on. Marking as WONTFIX. The seamless iframe solution is the way to go.

Comment 9

[Josiah Bruner [:jsbruner]]

(Collided with myself there) Whoops.