User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-AT; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061211 SeaMonkey/1.0.7 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de-AT; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061211 SeaMonkey/1.0.7 I would like to see the preview pane in the mail window show the last selected message's contents when highlighting multiple messages. I often use the <shift> <down arrow> to select blocks of messages when I'm sorting/deleting. It would be advantages to see the currently selected message's contents while doing this. Currently, once two or more messages are selected the preview window stays blank. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open a mailbox/folder with multiple messages in it. 2. Click on the first message 3. use <shift><down arrow> to highlight multible Actual Results: The preview pane remains blank. Expected Results: The preview pane should show the last selected message's contents I'm sorry to open a new bug for this, cause this was already asked for in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=207277 but I could not find out how to open the closed bug and I'd like to see this feature, too, cause I have a lot of messages to deal with.

I want this too, patch coming up...

We actually want the current behavior - cc'ing mscott in case he disagrees...

(In reply to comment #3) > We actually want the current behavior - cc'ing mscott in case he disagrees... > Can you tell me why? If you really don't want to change the behaviour, is it possible to make it adjustable?

someone could submit a patch with a hidden pref to control this behavior, sure. There are lots of reasons for the current behavior, but for one thing, displaying each selected message will slow things down. It's also a simpler and more predictable behavior - what happens when you have ten messages selected, and you deselect the one that's displayed? What do we display next? That's a rhetorical question, but there are lots of complications with the proposed behavior :-)

(In reply to comment #5) > what happens when you have ten messages selected, > and you deselect the one that's displayed? What do we display next? You don't get the beauty of the proposed behavior ;-) Selection has nothing to do with it. It's the item is "current" (the one with the outline) that is displayed. It just so happens that extending the selection also makes the last added item the current item. Toggling the selected state of the current item does not change the view.

I definitely do not want to see this. As far as I'm concerned, this breaks the UI -- it is the opposite of beautiful. I don't think it should be provided even via a hidden pref. Specifically: I don't want an empty selection to show a message, which is what would happen if the 'current' is what's used to load the message pane -- because there's *always* a 'current.' One example of why this is undesirable: you select the junk folder to see what's in it. If the proposed behavior is implemented, then you're guaranteed to have a junk message displayed, unless you've turned off the message pane. Further: if the focus is not on the thread pane, the 'current' is not visible. If the 'current' is not the same as the selection, then there is no visible indication of which message has been loaded. (This argument opposes both the empty-selection and the multi-selection cases.) If you want to poke around in this code, how about fixing bug 353057 instead?

(In reply to comment #7) > Specifically: I don't want an empty selection to show a message, which is what > would happen if the 'current' is what's used to load the message pane -- > because there's *always* a 'current.' I don't see how the proposed change would be any different from current behavior - if there is a selected message and you switch to another folder and then back to the first folder the message is displayed again. This happens even if you deselect the message before leaving the folder. > One example of why this is undesirable: you select the junk folder to see > what's in it. If the proposed behavior is implemented, then you're guaranteed > to have a junk message displayed, unless you've turned off the message pane. Again, this is how it works already - if you had selected something in the Junk folder it will be redisplayed, if nothing was selected nothing will be displayed. The suggested change will not change this since it does not force an item to become the current item on folder selection. > Further: if the focus is not on the thread pane, the 'current' is not visible. > If the 'current' is not the same as the selection, then there is no visible > indication of which message has been loaded. (This argument opposes both the > empty-selection and the multi-selection cases.) This is separate bug. When the thread pane isn't focused it should still outline the "current" item, possibly with a dashed/dotted border instead of the solid border it has when focused.

(In reply to comment #8) > (In reply to comment #7) > > Specifically: I don't want an empty selection to show a message, which is > > what would happen if the 'current' is what's used to load the message pane > > -- because there's *always* a 'current.' > > I don't see how the proposed change would be any different from current > behavior - if there is a selected message and you switch to another > folder and then back to the first folder the message is displayed again. > This happens even if you deselect the message before leaving the folder. Only true if the "Remember last selection" option has been selected. > > Further: if the focus is not on the thread pane, the 'current' is not > > visible. [...] > > This is separate bug. When the thread pane isn't focused it should still > outline the "current" item, possibly with a dashed/dotted border instead > of the solid border it has when focused. I don't agree this is a bug. This behavior follows that of Windows and of Gnome. The 'current' indicator on a list is like the caret in an edit field -- it *is* the (primary) focus indicator.

(In reply to comment #9) > > I don't see how the proposed change would be any different from current > > behavior - if there is a selected message and you switch to another > > folder and then back to the first folder the message is displayed again. > > This happens even if you deselect the message before leaving the folder. > > Only true if the "Remember last selection" option has been selected. Again, the proposed patch makes no difference from the current behavior in this regard. When "Remember last selection" is off, a message is *not* automatically selected, same as now.

Comment on attachment 249598 [details] [diff] [review] Patch rev. 1 I'm not going pursue this if the module owners doesn't approve. I really do think suggested new behavior is an improvement. When dealing with large amounts of mail it's more efficient to be able to add to a selection and preview it as one step, before deleting/moving the selection or whatever.

Mats, I'm not opposed to having a hidden pref for this, but I wouldn't want it on by default, and I really do think there are a lot of edge cases that would need to be handled...

(In reply to comment #6) > (In reply to comment #5) > > what happens when you have ten messages selected, > > and you deselect the one that's displayed? What do we display next? > > You don't get the beauty of the proposed behavior ;-) > Selection has nothing to do with it. It's the item is "current" > (the one with the outline) that is displayed. And yet... (In reply to comment #10) > When "Remember last selection" is off, a message is *not* > automatically selected, same as now. Well, are it displaying "the item [that's] 'current'", or not? Even without an automatic selection, there's a 'current' item. Mats's use-case appears to revolve around using Shift+Click or Shift+Arrow to change the selection. The problem comes when the 'current' is not part of the selection -- either by deselecting with Ctrl+Click or Ctrl+Space, or by simply moving the 'current' out of the selection with Ctrl+Arrow. What gets shown then? The simple answer is, blank the pane. But then, do you also blank the pane when there's a single item selected and the current is elsewhere?

Sorry for my dup patch and new bug report (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=369836) I'm novice in bugzilla and found no this thread. Proposed feature very important for users who have 100+ unfiltered mail for manually processing. Time to delete spam from TheBat mail client less in N times. For example look at TheBat use-cases -When you select one or a few messages - you can see message under cursor in preview pane. -If unselect current message (for example by Ctrl+Click) - pane become empty -If no one message selected - pane is empty -If you come to other folder selection will become empty - preview pane is empty Don't care if this will be by pref or by default but need it very mutch in official Thunderbird’s release. Thank you

could alt+whatever+click (or something) do the reverse of what whatever+click normally does in terms of displaying a message? * alt-click 1 message, don't load preview (would fix bug 179862, a valid issue) * alt-shift-click previews last message clicked * alt-ctrl-click previews clicked message still leaves inconsistencies as david mentions.

I VERY much agree that this is the most annoying behavior in Thunderbird, in particular, for many users migrating from Outlook or The Bat. For examples of frustrated users, see http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.wishlist/browse_thread/thread/4f1e6f25f3def3da/5ef95e15ea7c405b%235ef95e15ea7c405b http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.thunderbird/browse_thread/thread/113294b067e6ebba/2c08facf5fcc23df%232c08facf5fcc23df http://www.ritlabs.com/en/forum/read.php?FID=4&TID=4149 and many more. I would very much like it as an optional feature, too.

Hello, it would be nice if those how think this patch is a bad idee cause of reason x,y and z tell us what these reasons are in detail. There were some message like "there still remain problems" but if we don't hear more, we cannot check these cases. IMHO Mats has disproved the reasons which were posted till yet.

Is there still life on this thread? It's all very well for Mike Cowperthwaite to say it breaks the UI, but does Thunderbird provide an efficient alternative to processing many (hundreds) of messages in batches other than one-at-a-time? It's clear that many users of other clients (Outlook / The Bat), select groups of messages while previewing the contents of each in the preview pane, and then process (file/delete) the batch of messages as a group. I, for one, do this all the time. There are few things that I would like more than do ditch Outlook, but I can't live without this feature. Why not add it as a hiddden pref - it makes the client much more acceptable to users who need to process large numbers of messages.

someone would need to propose a patch with a hidden pref, defaulted to off, to implement this. It shouldn't be too hard...

------------------------------------------ I'm waiting for this fix too!! When you have selected multiple messages in a list, it would indeed be useful to preview the content (show the email body in the preview window) of the last message selected in you selection. Microsoft Outlook Express does this fine, why wouldn't TB do it? For me, this feature is really missing. Why? (some may ask). BTW all the other similar applications I have tried show the last selected message in the same circumstance. Blanking the pane is a limitation not necessary. The ability the preview the message is important especially when you manage a lot of emails (thus a lot of spam and junk) and need to quickly go down a list of newly received emails selecting them one by one to, at the end, mark them as spam, delete them or move them. In this process, it is useful to see the content of the last message you selected and not just rely on the info showed in the columns of your list (title, sender...). If you are worried about showing the content of a spam email, just disable the discussed function / preference or (better) disable showing images by default in your preview pane. ------------------------------------------

Any news? It has been more than a year since the last reply.

bixlibidias > Any news? It has been more than a year since the last reply. Are you still using TBird 2? New behavior in TBird 3 (show a summary of all selected messages) is better than anyone in above thread apparently had the nerve to request :-) One quibble with current behavior (TBird 3.0.4) It would be "nice" if middle-clicking (or context menu option) an individual email link would open it in a new tab but that would be a different issue (haven't yet checked to see if its already been raised)

Alec > I am using TB3 and I don't like the new behavior :( It doesn't help me while trying to select and delete multiple mails. Considering that maybe someone finds the new behavior useful, I guess the ideal would be to have the opportunity to select the behavior we want.

With the new multi-message summary view in TB3 I suggest we resolve this as WONTFIX.

JFTR: This is a SeaMonkey bug...

(In reply to Alec_Burgess from comment #25) > bixlibidias > Any news? It has been more than a year since the last reply. > Are you still using TBird 2? New behavior in TBird 3 (show a summary of all > selected messages) is better than anyone in above thread apparently had the > nerve to request :-) (In reply to Mats Palmgren (vacation) from comment #27) > With the new multi-message summary view in TB3 I suggest we resolve this > as WONTFIX. The conversion summary view is useless. I want to actually read the currently selected email, not a summary of it.

(In reply to XP1 from comment #29) > The conversion summary view is useless. I want to actually read the > currently selected email, not a summary of it. +1