User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050803 Firefox/1.0.6 Mnenhy/0.7 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050803 Firefox/1.0.6 Mnenhy/0.7 I d like TB to automatically record draft of emails I am typing, in hidden local folder, so that in case of power failure, of accidentally escape compose window, after reboot, it could restaure on way draft. see https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=252799 for equivalent Mozilla bug, and idears about code. Microsoft Word do offer a neat autosave option with timer, and vim also automatically save modifications on current file in temp file somewhere, so that I was expecting TB to do the same. I know of ,save option, which saves at default place. But this is NOT ENOUGH. Power failures happen any time, any where. I amexpecting TB to SILENTLY AUTO SAVE current drafts in local folder. Doing that online would be network consuming, this useless. No need to show the bold '(1)' any place ... lame users would not understand it. After a crash, TB should scan local folder for broken emails (like vim does when reopening badly saved file). I think of some hidden folder like: ~/thunderbird/12234567897/.backups/* which would contain in 'maildir format' all drafts, or maybe just 20 last ones, so that next time TB is open, it scans this dir for 'non sent and non saved' emails; I ask for maildir format so that a simple 'vim' can re-open them. Files could be name-timestamped for conveniance. You could also add a submenu in the bar, maybe not with a list of those 20 last drafts, but maybe a browser to this backup directory ... which would automatically re-open emails in a new compose window. ( I am telling about the same browser as the one which lets choose files to attach ... do not rewrite a proper browser) Since it happened to me that I clicked by hazard on 'close, and do not save', I am also expecting TB to keep track (I mean local copy) of any email written, saved or not saved, sent or not, even if asked not to save them (because human make mistakes. I am expecting my computer to be failure safe, and also compensate my own mistakes. If records are done in private part of local folder, this should not introduce security issues. That is really a big issue for me. Also add customisable entries in the registery, about place to save files, number of last files to keep, timings for autosave (after each letter typed, every minute ... and optionally do a system 'sync' after autosave). I use TB about 30 times a day. OOo twice a year. Read that I am expecting TB to be as good as other office suites. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:

this basic feature is in trunk builds and will be part of 1.5 (if you're using imap online, we'll save it in whatever your drafts folder is, online or local, up to you). It's basically auto save as draft, which was a great simplification in implementation. Also, the user just needs to look in their drafts folder for their messages...

note that this IS a bad idea ... because it happened to me twice that I start writing an email, which is saved by default on remote server, then connection falls down, then I need to shutdown laptop before waiting connection comes up again. On those day, TB produced errors because remote was not reachable, and refused saving my drafts. I had to open terminal+vim to copy the texte I typed ... I had later to cat my manual dump, and copy it back to TB next day was box was on, and connection was up. when using feature 'save file' is saves it as .txt or html which compose windows could not recover ... any clue when 1.5.0 will be released ? ~september ? 2006 ?

If you are having connectivity issues with your mail server, modify your account preferences store your Drafts as a local folder. A Bugzilla bug report or RFE is not considered an appropriate forum for discussing Firefox/Thunderbird/whatever release dates. Releases are bug-driven, not date-driven. Try the Thunderbird Road Map on http://www.mozilla.org/.

*** Bug 307044 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

(In reply to comment #3) > If you are having connectivity issues with your mail server, modify your account > preferences store your Drafts as a local folder. This is an issue. I would like drafts to be on server so that I can access them from anywhere. However auto-save is purely a local mechanism for saving temporary work - just because the implementation chose to club this with drafts for simplification should not force a user to change his drafts folder!! Is there a reason why autosave cannot use local drafts folder always? Also, its just not connection reliability, this ties up bandwidth and can be exceedingly annoying on a slow connection. So please reopn this bug for additional comments bassed on above,

*** Bug 307044 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

This bug is marked as an enhancement???! It should be a critical bug in my opinion. It causes data loss in the sense whatever words are typed into compose window when auto save is happening are lost. It a major bug and a pretty sad implementation of autosave functionality. Renders autosave completely useless and irritating for me and all others who use IMAP. In my opinion it should also be a blocker for the next RC after 1.5.

lets put it normal first ... and see what other people think about it ... I would be glad marking it as critical: - I opened it becaus I suffered the data loss you mention but from the code point of view, it is not really a b ug, nor a security issue, but a 'missing C function'. Imagine if Microsoft products were blocked for final release until they had all desirABLE features ? :P Wait and see what other CC people think about it, I would feel strange being responsible/author of a bug blocking a new realese of such a big project as TB. - on the other hand, any user is free to set up as draft folder any folder in reliable place ... - but yes in some case it causes non-reversable major data loss. I marked as enhancement because some coders could accuse me of not using reliable material/computing stuff; shall softwares anticipate bad technological choices choices of stupid users ? or even faults of internet connections ? whats the level of quality of TB ? do other CC want major ? critical ? blocking ? shall I set up a priority ? P3 ? P2 ? P1 ?

This is an enhancement, because the current behaviour is not faulty. You want a better handling in case of IMAP failures and more options to the user, that is ok. see also Bug 307042

I dont agree this is an enhancement. Autosave functionality is simply intended for recovering lost work locally - must not mess up the user folders or consume network bandwidth or additionally load the IMAP server. Show me one application that does not use its own internal user-invisible mechanism for auto-save! Let us acknowledge that this "feature" is clearly implemented this way to save programming effort and not definitely desired from user point of view. This implementation also does not allow us to distinguish easily between a message that is stored as draft intentionally and the auto-saved version of the same message, in case both happen during same message composition. This is another serious flaw. I would from all angles consider this a bug.

(In reply to comment #10) > Show me one application > that does not use its own internal user-invisible mechanism for auto-save! two at once: - nano - Microsoft Word until (including) Word98, where the option had to be activated manually. Not sure if versions editted before 1994 even had an autosave at all. </troll> > Let > us acknowledge that this "feature" is clearly implemented this way to save > programming effort and not definitely desired from user point of view. Why not ? I do want it; and statistically, the fact 'one person' dares reporting /usually/ means about 10 to 1000 other people also want it, but do not take time to report. > This implementation also does not allow us to distinguish easily between a > message that is stored as draft intentionally and the auto-saved version of > the same message, in case both happen during same message composition. This is > another serious flaw. Look at that old Word98, which on some point was quiet advanced: when you start just the program, it used to look at various places for autosaved docs (when the option was on), and offer to restaure the draft. That feature was quiet usefull when I started the document, and the computer crashes before I could save it once: there was no record in the public part of the user profile, and no file.doc to open or bind an autosave to ... but MS-Word still had a hidden copy of the work on progress, what allowed me several times to restaure work after a Windows98 failure, or even powerfailures. Sorry for mentionning about non free softwares, but those Word98+Windows98 was quiet a common combo that was famous for the kind of problem I encontour with TB today. And when the options were activated, Word98 could become quiet good somehow. OOo up to 1.3 did not have that auto save feature, or some times acted a strange way ... recent computer users may not undeerstand may saying.

(In reply to comment #11) Looks like you have not understood me completely and your post is tangential to mine. My point was that the way autosave is implemented in TB is flawed - it cannot be considered a good implementation. My additional point was that requesting for implementing a proper autosave (autosave file hidden from user) cannot be considered an enhancement to existing functionality - it needs to be considered as a bug report for the existing feature.

moving (back ?) to 'normal' not sure what Trunk means. Could some one switch to higher priority ? Considering comments 11 and 12, I would like to make this blocking release 2.0, but I dont want to switch from enhancement to blocker in one day :) lets keep chatting.

(In reply to comment #13) > moving (back ?) to 'normal' > not sure what Trunk means. > Could some one switch to higher priority ? > > Considering comments 11 and 12, I would like to make this blocking release 2.0, > but I dont want to switch from enhancement to blocker in one day :) lets keep > chatting. this is not a chat - there is sufficient information here for the developers. Further argumentative comments may well lengthen the 6 months of unconfirmed status. If you leave the setting at enhancement (reference comment 9) the rest of the fields and actions are up to the developers. Let the process take it's natural course. If and until it is fixed, as a workaround you can set save drafts to a local folder - or not as you wish. See also https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html

CC me

is this recently been revised? cause there is bug 380679 with newer ver2, addressing maybe similar area ..

Ovidiu, no. He is complaining that the draft folder is created on server, and he can not delete it from TB. He complains there are drafts on server. I am asking an explicit option in the conf pannel to let user choose where if wants to store drafts. Still not in TB3.

bug 457136, I think, is similar or the same issue, and is more concise. If you strongly disagree, or find that this bug isn't resolved after bug 457136 is fixed, then please reopen. duping to bug 457136.

Nope; this is NOT dup of bug 457136 . He is asking to add more auto-save, and that those features are hardcoded, and fixed for every one. He is asking that drafts are saved locally first, in any case, and, at more rare times, on server. This is EXACTLY what i want to AVOID. In many cases, what's asked in bug 457136 should be avoided: - ROOT or /home over NFS - slow local disks - local disks using SSD that dislike frequent sync In the last case, either the filesystem rarely sync (recommended with chead SSD), and the draft is just *not saved*, or Thunderbird forces the sync to disk (using synchronous calls) and this feature may kill the disk itself. That's why I am asking, yes, still 5 years later, a choose box, letting people choose where to store drafts. But, i don't know why, in May I did not see it; today, in 3.1.3, I can see the account manager > copies and folder ... let me configure if i want to store my drafts on localfolder. Wonder why i had not see this in May. Hope this actual behaviour is not provided to "just me" by an addon.

OK, so you are saying the current settings work, so this is WFM - not fixed :)

It's not WFM (but i won't fight just for the reason of closure). I have just tried the safe mode, which disables all add-on, just to make sure the feature have not been added just for me by a plug-in. And even in safe mode, i could see my imap account propose saving draft in localfolder. So, it's REALLY been "fixed" somewhere between 3.0 and 3.1.3 ... ... and in wonder why i said in may it was not available ... (unless, I am dreaming right now ? )