User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070325 SUSE/1.1.1-37.2 SeaMonkey/1.1.1 Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070325 SUSE/1.1.1-37.2 SeaMonkey/1.1.1, also Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (rv:1.8.1.3) In the 1.8.1.x branch, e-mail address lists are truncated after a single line is displayed with the "twisty" closed; in previous versions, they were truncated after a constant number of addresses. This was configurable in 1.8.0.x by changing that constant using mailnews.max_header_display_length to an arbitrary value. After this parameter was removed, there does not appear to be any mechanism to configure the number of addresses to be shown. Since it is not clear from prior bug discussions whether the removal of the configurability during the redesign was intended or accidental, I'm filing this as a bug report rather than an enhancement request. To name some examples: business mailers may include the title of a person along with department or location information; e-mails in educational institutions may have multiple sub-domain levels. This increases the character count per address. Many people who are usually receiving e-mails with long recipient lists desire or need to see more or all entries by default, thus the loss of this configuration option has a certain impact. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: The problem occurs when the mail window is not fully maximized and/or the individual e-mail addresses are long. This is aggravated in SeaMonkey by the attachment box being located next to the headers, thus limiting the available width of the headers. Actual Results: Address lists are truncated to a single line, it is not possible to configure this behavior. In the worst case, only a single e-mail address is shown. The user is forced to click the "twisty" for the full list every time (can be a major annoyance, depending on e-mail volume). Expansion of the list over a couple of lines (as allowed in previous versions) does require only marginally more vertical space, thus the fixed setting of one line is not well motivated. Expected Results: To retain having the number of entries shown based on the line length for the collapsed view, but to regain configurability, following options could be considered (in decreasing order of preference): 1. Introduce a new user preference (suggestion: mailnews.min_header_uncollapsed_lines) that allows to display "n" lines before truncation rather than "1"; 2. introduce a new user preference (mailnews.min_header_uncollapsed_addresses?) to show a minimum of "n" addresses even if split over multiple lines, or a single line, whatever yields more addresses; 3. reinstate mailnews.max_header_display_length but give it a special value (e.g., -1) to select the new single-line behavior. This could be coordinated with solving the twisty bug described in #348395 and possibly other related bugs.

As a crude workaround to expand the address lists by default when viewing an e-mail, I've changed file "content/messenger/mailWidgets.xml" of my local messenger.jar, lines 852-853 in method "clearEmailAddresses" from this.toggleIcon.removeAttribute("open"); this.longEmailAddresses.setAttribute("singleline", "true"); to this.toggleIcon.setAttribute("open", "true"); this.longEmailAddresses.removeAttribute("singleline"); with the 2nd parameter of "this.fillAddressesNode()" in line 808, method "buildViews", set to 15 as the hard limit of addresses. This provides the intended effect but interestingly removes the "twisty" completely, thus not allowing to collapse the list.

(In reply to comment #1) > > intended effect but interestingly removes the "twisty" completely, thus not > allowing to collapse the list. The fix for bug #348395 in 1.8.1.5 (SeaMonkey 1.1.3, Thunderbird 2.0.0.5) added another instruction this.toggleIcon.collapsed = true; at this location. If it is left this way, the workaround continues to hide the twisties. If set to false instead, it will add a twisty to all address lines, regardless of their lengths, thus allowing to collapsing them.

If SeaMonkey and Thunderbird react identically, this must be a Core bug.

You are correct, mailWidgets.xml is shared mailnews code, thanks. The issue persists in nightly SM 2.0 and TB 3.0 trunk builds.

The message reader is currently undergoing major changes for Thunderbird, see bug 456814 for tracking those. This also includes the address display: (Quoting bug 456596 comment #6) >> The To and CC address lists already collapse by default if they exceed one >> line. (Maybe that's new? [...]) > That expand / collapse has been there for a while. We'd be removing that in > favour this, a list that shows a number of addresses and truncates before too > many instead of just one. If the solution found for Thunderbird is general enough, the bug here could be retargeted to whatever is left to be done to make it also work for SeaMonkey.

Now that mailWidgets.xml was forked per bug 466795, SeaMonkey has its own version in suite/mailnews, and the one in mailnews/base/resources/content should retire with Thunderbird establishing its mail/ version as well. Thus, bug 456596 will handle the issue for Thunderbird only, so that this bug here would handle the respective implementation for SeaMonkey. Moving back to SeaMonkey and confirming, address headers are still restricted to a single line and expanding them will not stick, no configuration possible [Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1b3pre) Gecko/20081127 SeaMonkey/2.0a2pre].