Mail/message listing/thread pane needs more organization in 3 vertical pane view (column wrapping, etc)
Categories
(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement, P3)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: kevin.breit, Assigned: aleca)
References
(Blocks 4 open bugs, )
Details
(Keywords: ux-efficiency, Whiteboard: [Supernova3p][see comment 222])
Attachments
(2 files, 14 obsolete files)
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Comment 172•7 years ago
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Comment 176•5 years ago
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Alessandro Castellani (:aleca) can you please implement this? Thank you
Comment 177•5 years ago
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Ditto regs' comment. We have an office-full of users who, much to my chagrin and irritation, are planning on abandoning Thunderbird and going back to Outlook for no other reason than Outlook's message-list pane permits multi-lines per email (e.g. subject on 2nd line), letting them shrink the size of that pane. This all despite the fact that accessing CalDAV calendars from Outlook is a real NIGHTMARE, and, ironically, Outlook will only Active/Directory authenticate if using Exchange ... and I could go on and on. I think this one modification would preserve a lot of Thunderbird users.
Comment 178•5 years ago
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Postbox is based on Thunderbird which has implemented this feature. Please view the attached Postbox.png image from Postbox's website.
https://www.postbox-inc.com/
There are many clients that are based on Thunderbird. This might provide additional ideas on how to implement this feature.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Email_clients_based_on_Thunderbird
What do you think?
Thank you
Assignee | ||
Updated•5 years ago
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Comment 179•5 years ago
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Hi, thanks for pulling me into this.
I'll see if I have some capacity next week and submit a patch.
Comment 180•5 years ago
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Óvári : postbox looks very interesting. I'll download and check it out. I do need Windows and Mac, but too bad they don't do Linux.
Alessandro - I'll eagerly look forward to your "patch".
Assignee | ||
Comment 181•5 years ago
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I started working on this today and indeed it's fairly complicated as the current threechildren structure doesn't allow this kind of flexibility.
I'll write some test patch and gather some feedback from other devs to see how we can move this forward.
Comment 182•5 years ago
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(In reply to Alessandro Castellani (:aleca) from comment #181)
Thank you
Comment 183•5 years ago
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Be sure to take a look at comment 127 to see some work that was already done on how to do this with purely HTML
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945#c127
There are a lot of useful comments immediately following, well worth your time to review if you are going to take this on, which I really, really hope you do!
Thanks!!
Assignee | ||
Updated•5 years ago
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Comment 186•5 years ago
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Hi there,
I made a post on Mozilla support about this issue. They recommend me to add my comment to your discussion. So here I am. Maybe it could help or it could encourage progress on this.
First, I’m very happy that Thunderbird exists. Thanks for your work. It is great to have an efficient open source email software!
However, I'm used to managing my emails in vertical view and when I switched to TB, I found that the configuration of the message list pane was not adapted for this layout. I think that information (date/subject/sender/etc) listed horizontally is not adapted for vertical display because:
- It needs too much space in the message list pane to make important information readable and complete. The result is a message pane squeezed. (Screenshot 1)
- Inversely, making enough room for the message pane squeezes the message list pane and its information. (Screenshot 2)
Superposing information of the message list pane would solve this problem. (Screenshot 3)
It is how vertical view is displayed in Apple Mail (screenshot 3), Outlook and Kolab Now for example. It makes reading accurate and more pleasant.
So I’m wondering if Thunderbird team could consider working on it for a future release.
(Besides, I don't know if there’s a better space for my comment/suggestion. Please, feel free to redirect me if there’s one.)
Thanks!
Comment 187•5 years ago
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Comment 188•5 years ago
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Hi, thanks for using Thunderbird and for your extremely polite request :D
I'm planning to work on this and landing it before the next ESR release, which is supposed to be 78.
I will probably be able to work on this in a couple of weeks.
Comment 189•5 years ago
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Comment 190•5 years ago
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Comment 192•5 years ago
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This is literally the only thing preventing me from using Thunderbird again.
I remember there being a bigger discussion bug about this and how it was really hard to do, and the discussion also going into the XUL treeview component etc. I don't know if it would be possible to just have a workaround, like for example:
- Use a different widget without deep tree features for thin list panes
- Have "fake" virtual columns that just have multiline content (and increase the row height of the whole control)
I'm glad to hear someone is taking this on! :aleca, is there anything we can help with? I can't do C/C++ but I can do UX design and maybe some HTML/JS...
Comment 193•5 years ago
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This is great news!. The only thing I have been missing in TB.
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Comment 195•5 years ago
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Great! I'm a big fan of Thunderbird but the lack of column wrapping has always been the biggest niggle for me.
If you could make the columns individually re-sizeable as well that would be even better. Thanks :)
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Comment 197•5 years ago
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I am so curious how far Allesandro Castellani has come with the solution of this (now) 17 years old bug. Can we already test something? I would be excited to do so!
Will Allesandro gain eternal fame by solving this 17 year old bug?
Assignee | ||
Comment 198•5 years ago
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I haven't progressed a lot unfortunately as I've been super busy with a million other bugs, as usual T_T
While exploring a possible solution, I noticed that using a simple HTML view doesn't scale well and it gets very heavy and slow when handling 1k+ messages.
The tree
XUL element is way more performant and stable, so I'm exploring the possibility to create a custom view
with a single column in order to leverage the same element without reinventing the wheel, and therefore inherit all the flexibility and performance of the tree.
If I manage to fix this bug, at least I deserve a paper star on my scrapbook :P
Comment 199•5 years ago
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I'm not a developer, so take what I say in that context, but the impression I've gotten is that all XUL elements will ultimately be going away.
Perhaps though tree
will get replaced with a 1-to-1 swap-in replacement?
Assignee | ||
Comment 200•5 years ago
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Probably in the future will be dropped, as you can see in bug 1446341, but for now it stays so we still have a bit of time to properly explore alternatives and replacements.
In that bug I shared, you can see FF implemented a react-based tree in the devtools, which we might extend, it's just a thought tho, nothing has been decided.
I guess we might try to use this bug as an experiment and see how a new implementation handles things, without replacing everything at once.
Comment 201•5 years ago
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It may help you looking at the experimental implementation I attached to this bug five years ago. It is a pure HTML implementation, and works fine with an unlimited number of lines. The footprint of this implementation is constant.
The trick is just to use a view port with fixed height Elements. This allows sliding the elements inside the view ports and combine this with a simple caching strategy. The addon just at maximum cached 50% of the visible elements in either direction. Which means if 25 Elements where displayed the HTML ended up with at most 50 Elements. The fixed height means you can easily calculate the visible elements.
It as was poor mans implementation without any optimization so there is plenty of room left (e.g. by using a canvas or webGL as context).
Comment 202•5 years ago
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Thank you Alessandro for looking at this bug/feature request. Could I also ask would it be possible in this view for the first line of the message be displayed in the middle panel under the subject line. This is the default view in Outlook, Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook and is a real usability improvement as long as saving time with message triage. This is explained further in Bug :
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=307070
A functional and efficent interface really helps end users and seperated Thunderbird from it's competitors. It is good to see the project supporting users with these usability improvements.
Comment 203•5 years ago
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I should say Geary for Gnome desktop on Linux instead of Outlook twice.
Comment 204•5 years ago
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(In reply to Thomas Schmid from comment #201)
It may help you looking at the experimental implementation I attached to this bug five years ago. It is a pure HTML implementation, and works fine with an unlimited number of lines. The footprint of this implementation is constant.
The trick is just to use a view port with fixed height Elements. This allows sliding the elements inside the view ports and combine this with a simple caching strategy. The addon just at maximum cached 50% of the visible elements in either direction. Which means if 25 Elements where displayed the HTML ended up with at most 50 Elements. The fixed height means you can easily calculate the visible elements.
It as was poor mans implementation without any optimization so there is plenty of room left (e.g. by using a canvas or webGL as context).
Yep, this is how it's done. Web components for virtual scrollers are emerging
https://github.com/PolymerLabs/uni-virtualizer/tree/master/packages/lit-virtualizer
https://github.com/WICG/virtual-scroller
Comment 205•4 years ago
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In "Vertical view" with TB 80, the message body overflows (text width larger than pane width), without horizontal scroll. This is due to the fact that the text width is at least the menu bar width (bar with action buttons -- msgHeaderView).
To get readable emails again, a workaround is to remove the buttons in userChrome.css
.
.msgHeaderView-button {
display: none !important;
}
Another workaround would be to allow line breaks between buttons but I don't know how to do this.
Comment 206•4 years ago
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TB78 looks already more modern than previous versions, maybe we have a chance to see this feature coming soon? I guess P2 is a pretty high priority, right?
Comment 207•4 years ago
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According to [1] the next Firefox ESR is scheduled for July 2021, and that will also mark the release of Thunderbird 91 as the next stable release. Missing Thunderbird 91 will mean punting the fix to this bug in Thunderbird stable to 2023 at best :(
Updated•4 years ago
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Comment 208•4 years ago
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So now if I understand this classification that this feature request is even less likely to be implemented?
This really is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees here when this is a clearly popular suggestion. It's truly sad seeing Thunderbird becoming less and less relevant and outdated over time.
Comment 209•4 years ago
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We'll implement it at some point, but it's not something we can do right at this time for the next release. (Just not technically feasible.)
Updated•4 years ago
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Comment 210•4 years ago
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(In reply to Jamie M from comment #208)
So now if I understand this classification that this feature request is even less likely to be implemented?
This really is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees here when this is a clearly popular suggestion. It's truly sad seeing Thunderbird becoming less and less relevant and outdated over time.
I was just wondering, if a P2 is still hanging around after almost 20 years what is P3 like?! ;-)
Yes it's dissapointing and likewise I see this as a big flaw with T'Bird. On the other hand, it's still the best email client for my purposes and presumably priority is being given to other issues that would cause us problems if not dealt with, while manpower is limited. So I'll take the opportunity to say thanks to the devs for all their hard work on all that's good in T'Bird.
Comment 211•4 years ago
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I agree... it is truly sad.
Thunderbird is by far the most effective email client, if we stick at the mail management.
However, the interface is really outdated and does not work well on modern devices.
And, it is not a matter of taste!!! I saw some comments by some developers, pointing to the fact that it is perfectly usable, looks "more modern than before" and so on, all with a common mood: "if you don't like it, is it up to you to change your way of doing things".
I really do not understand why design/UX things are considered, so insistently, as they were a lowest priority issue. They are not! There are several pieces of wonderful software just forgotten, simply because they are practically unusable. And no, it is not the whole world being wrong with respect to a limited set of developers...perhaps, it is the time developers try to understand changed needs.
This thread is an example. Practically any modern email client has the email list column that display 2 or three rows (Sender, subject, first line), there is a reason if this practice expanded to all email clients (thunderbird excluded). Or are you seriously thinking you (developers) of thunderbird are all right and the other (the rest of the world) are all wrong?
Another example is the scrolling. Nearly all laptops now have a touchpad and all of us are used to scroll with our two fingers. Scrolling in the message list of thunderbird is insane. The reason is that it is not able to scroll pixel by pixel, but the scrolling is implemented line by line, so the scrolling action with the touchpad makes the list scroll simply too fast. The scroll function with mouse work well, but its behavior is different at its roots, so they are not comparable. This highlights that no one took care of adding such a basic (in 2021) function.
To conclude, "just not technically feasible" looks a bit strange. And to prove this, I point to just two open-source solutions that may count on a much more restricted support that Mozilla based solutions can count on: Mailspring and Geary.
That Mozilla, and thunderbird in turn, developers tell me that having something the competitors have (from years now) "not technically feasible" seem really something to take indefinite time.
Comment 212•4 years ago
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(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #209)
We'll implement it at some point, but it's not something we can do right at this time for the next release. (Just not technically feasible.)
Thank you for clarifying, I understand the constraints you are all under. But please do not just forget about this request and put it on the back burner indefinitely. People have been asking for 18 years.
The lack of this feature makes Thunderbird genuinely less usable compared to other mail clients. As this won't make the next release are you able to put some priority for this feature to implemented in the release after?
Kind of like marking the 20th anniversary of this request by solving it?
Comment 213•4 years ago
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It can't be fixed before we have a good enough (performant enough!) widget to replace it with. In the new address book we're working on, we will prototype such a widget, and once successful it could be used for this as well.
Like I said, we do want to fix it. It's just not technically feasible to fix it right away. Probably before it's 20th anniversary though.
Updated•4 years ago
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Comment 214•3 years ago
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We have implemented this now:
https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/blob/main/91/features/04-feature-multiline-tree.patch
https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/blob/main/91/features/04-feature-multiline-tree-m-c.patch
From comment #107:
You really should check the work that postbox has done on this, particularly in treeview, ...
Like in our patch based on Paul Rouget's work, Postbox have modified layout/xul/tree/nsTreeBodyFrame.cpp to paint whatever they need into the rows of the tree.
Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 218•2 years ago
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Comment 219•2 years ago
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Finally started working on this with a more sane approach and not hacking the XUL tree.
It should land in the next beta 112 as a very first and simple implementation.
Also, it doesn't depend on the XUL core anymore since we implemented a new widget.
Comment 220•2 years ago
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Adding [Supernova] to Whiteboard 20230223_1125
Comment 221•2 years ago
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Oops. Restore whiteboard. Sorry!
Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 222•2 years ago
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This initial patch is landing on daily soon, so here's a quick overview of the progress and plans for further improvements.
This is just an initial implementation, is not completed and many things are missing
- The new
card
item will kick in automatically if users switch to aVertical Layout
.- Some users might still prefer to keep the
table
item even with aVertical Layout
, so in the future we will explore the option to control that independently.
- Some users might still prefer to keep the
- For now, on the
sender
,subject
,date
, andfavourite
fields are visible.- All other fields will be added in a follow up.
- Toggable options to show/hide preferred fields will be added.
- New messages get a primary blue color variation, as well as a drop shadow and white background.
- A more prominent visual indicator will be added later, probably a top left circle like we use for the folder pane.
- Threaded messages are only indented by 1 level.
- We can't show the actual threaded indentation because that defeats the purpose of the vertical layout, making further indented messages harder to read without a wide screen.
- This UI will improve later once we implement a proper conversation view.
- These
cards
are not yet density aware, we will implement this later.
You will notice rough edges and missing features, especially the quick filter bar is kinda useless in Vertical layout.
I will create a follow up meta bug to track the effort and hopefully we will have something good and usable before 115.
Thank you all for the suggestions and patience.
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Comment 223•2 years ago
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Temporarily removing check-in due to test failures.
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Comment 224•2 years ago
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Pushed by alessandro@thunderbird.net:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/ee075ab2651a
Implement an initial and simple card tree row for vertical layout. r=darktrojan
Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 225•2 years ago
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Great things are finally happening, thanks much to Geoff and Alex!
Per Alex comment 222, we'll continue working on this for refinement (tracked in meta bug 1819710).
Updated•2 years ago
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