User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071128 SeaMonkey/1.1.7 Build Identifier: Thunderbird release 2.0.0.9 I just purchased an Asus EeePC running Linux. The screen is 7" diagonal with a fixed resolution of 800x480. For the "Account Settings" page under Thunderbird - Mail & Newsgroups Account Settings, many of the pages are just too tall to be able to input needed selections. This has sometimes happened on a Windows XP machine with a 19" monitor, but it generally is only the last slection or so and has not been a big problem. But on the tiny screen, too many of the boxes are not visible. The screen can not be resized and can not be scrolled, making it virtually impossible to select some choices. I was able to copy the file on to my windows machine, edit it using Thunderbird on that machine, and then re-copy it to the EeePC, but that should not be necessary. Asus helpfully suggest that I connect the little computer to a larger monitor, but I doubt that is something most people want to do every time they need to change how often their e-mail is checked, etc. I think one of three solutions are needed (in order of preference): 1) the windows need to be able to be resized and scroll - then they would work on any monitor. 2)The window needs to be split into two windows about half the height of the current windows. 3) An external editor need to be provided that can modify the parts that are not visible on a small screen. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Bring up Thunderbird 2. Click on Account Settings 3. Click on most any setting under an e-mail account listing and the window bleeds well below the bottom of the screen, but can not be reached. Actual Results: After you reach the Accounts Settings choices, the page is too big and the bottom portion can not be reached. Expected Results: You should be able to scroll or move the window to get to the additional choices on the bottom half of the page. This problem sometimes shows up in builds of Thunderbird and Seamonkey - even on fairly large monitors, but only a small portion of the selection screen is cut off in those cases. For example, in Seamonkey 1.1.7 under Newsgroup and E-mail Account Settings, Local Folders, Server Settings - the page goes beyond the bottom of the frame and can not be reached (no scrolling or resizing). I can submit screen shots if you think that would be helpful.

Do firefox have similar problems there?

(In reply to comment #1) > Do firefox have similar problems there? > On the EeePC the Firefox installation brings up an "options" dialog box which is much shorter than the one in Thunderbird, and the tabs across the top keep it pretty short - that might be the solution for Thunderbird. It can also be moved more easily, but CAN NOT be resized. At least on a 7" screen with 800x480 resolution this does not present a problem like the Thunderbird dialog box does, but it might be helpful to make that box adjustable as well. This is a problem in SeaMonkey for the e-mail account settings, but again not a big deal for the browser preferences. I downloaded the latest Firefox onto my windows XP machine just to check and find the same issue with the options box - no adjustment in size, but on a 19" monitor this is just fine.

Marking new, should possibly be in some Core component.

The tree view is a hangover from ancient times anyway. The entire dialogue probably needs reimagined using the new prefwindow code, with various forms being consigned to sub-windows for space reduction.

(In reply to comment #0) > User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) > Gecko/20071128 SeaMonkey/1.1.7 > Build Identifier: Thunderbird release 2.0.0.9 > > I just purchased an Asus EeePC running Linux. The screen is 7" diagonal with a > fixed resolution of 800x480. > > For the "Account Settings" page under Thunderbird - Mail & Newsgroups Account > Settings, many of the pages are just too tall to be able to input needed > selections. This has sometimes happened on a Windows XP machine with a 19" > monitor, but it generally is only the last slection or so and has not been a > big problem. > > But on the tiny screen, too many of the boxes are not visible. The screen can > not be resized and can not be scrolled, making it virtually impossible to > select some choices. > > I was able to copy the file on to my windows machine, edit it using Thunderbird > on that machine, and then re-copy it to the EeePC, but that should not be > necessary. > > Asus helpfully suggest that I connect the little computer to a larger monitor, > but I doubt that is something most people want to do every time they need to > change how often their e-mail is checked, etc. > > I think one of three solutions are needed (in order of preference): > > 1) the windows need to be able to be resized and scroll - then they would work > on any monitor. > > 2)The window needs to be split into two windows about half the height of the > current windows. > > 3) An external editor need to be provided that can modify the parts that are > not visible on a small screen. > > Reproducible: Always > > Steps to Reproduce: > 1. Bring up Thunderbird > 2. Click on Account Settings > 3. Click on most any setting under an e-mail account listing and the window > bleeds well below the bottom of the screen, but can not be reached. > Actual Results: > After you reach the Accounts Settings choices, the page is too big and the > bottom portion can not be reached. > > Expected Results: > You should be able to scroll or move the window to get to the additional > choices on the bottom half of the page. > > This problem sometimes shows up in builds of Thunderbird and Seamonkey - even > on fairly large monitors, but only a small portion of the selection screen is > cut off in those cases. For example, in Seamonkey 1.1.7 under Newsgroup and > E-mail Account Settings, Local Folders, Server Settings - the page goes beyond > the bottom of the frame and can not be reached (no scrolling or resizing). > > I can submit screen shots if you think that would be helpful. Hello, I have a similar problem with my ASUS N10Jseries that has a 10.2" WSVGA Screen on which I installed Mandriva Gnome. Your said: I was able to copy the file on to my windows machine, edit it using Thunderbird on that machine, and then re-copy it to the EeePC, but that should not be necessary. As I am not an expert could you describe me what you did, Regards René (rsatos@yahoo.com)

To modify the Thunderbird settings, or Firefox, I installed the programs on my desktop Windows XP machine. I then copied the working files (on the Asus it was under my user directory as .mozilla and .thunderbird) to a USB card. From the USB card I copied them onto the respective directory on the Windows machine so that the windows unit now had the same information and configuration for mail and web browsing. You might need to tweek the profiles.ini so the Windows installation can find the new data. After copying to the Windows machine, I logged on to Thunderbird and Firefox and made whatever changes I wanted since I have a large monitor and could access all the options. After that I copied the files back to the Asus and it worked fine. I have since discovered that you can move the windows on the Asus by holding down the ALT key and using the mouse (left click and hold) and drag the window to access parts that were off screen. This should be noted in the manuals, but I did not find it there. While this makes it possible to access options that are off the small screen without resorting to coping to another computer, it would be much easier to use by just making the menus shorter to better fit a small screen. With Firefox the default browser on many of the small netbooks, this seems like it would be a worthwile effort.

Here is a rough patch that tries to partly deal with this. It removes the headers, as those are duplications of the titles used in the sidebar already. Couldn't figure out where to fix it for the Return Receipts, Security and News and Blogs. Also need to look into the actual content of the pages as well.

BTW, what do applications in general do to address this? I imagine h>600 for stuff is very common.

The other applications that I've used on the EeePC with a 7" screen seem to avoid this problem. I am not sure if they were redesigned for the small screen or automatically adjust as needed. Open Office, for example, has no issues as to accessibility of menus, etc. Even some Windows programs that work under WINE don't cause their screen to overshoot the bounds of the small monitor - they scroll. One work around that I mentioned earlier, discovered by accident, is that the dialog window can be moved by using the ALT key and the left mouse button. This allows access to parts of the menu not showing - but it is hard to do as each dialog screen needs to be moved up, then stretched to view new options, sometimes several times to get to the bottom of the choices. One program that is an add on to Firefox, iMacros, does show the same issue - actually worse. It is a long narrow dialog and control box and the actual controls end up below the screen. This requires resizing Firefox and extending the bottom so the rest of the iMacros menu shows. Since Thunderbird doesn't cause this nearly as much due to the way its menu is set up, perhaps the Firefox menu could be modified to copy that style - basically splitting the choices into short menus set one after another across the top of the screen? Alternatively, if the menus simply scrolled that would allow the user to to get to the entire list easily.

One of the panes that gets cut off is "Copies & Folders". If we move the "Other" options to one of the options under the combobox, we'll end up with a much more simpler and smaller pane.

and here is how the combobox would look.

The ALT + left mouse button workaround doesn't work for me (Fedora 11 / gnome / Samsung N140). The workaround i've been using to change account settings in Thunderbird is to use the screen setup dialog to rotate the screen left and then turn my netbook on its side. Typing's awkward, but at least i can see the whole window!

This would, remove the header, put all the options for message deletion inside a single combobox instead of radio buttons and place "Local directory" and the text field on one line.

For the main account setting pane there are a couple of things that could be done: * Get rid of the header (says on the side already) * Get rid of the Default Identity + explanation (it's neat, but it eats up three row of space for something that a majority of TB users might not use since the only have one identity?) * Cut down the Signature text field from 5 rows to 3 or 4 rows.

An example of problematic cropping Andreas posted in another bug https://bug516472.bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=400760

dragging with alt dosent work if your default window manager is some sort of compositing one (well you can drag it but it snaps back if you go over the screen boundry) rather than try to make the window smaller by removing content making boxes smaller etc surly the best solution is just to have a scroll bar on the prefs boxes that will automatically cater for any size screen. my samsung N140 would then work properly with thunderbird.. also it must be noted that this isnt a problem solely with Thunderbird.... evolution has the same bug :-( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+bug/23810

This is still an issue on a Windows XP x86 based machine with an up-to-date Thunderbird 3.1. I'd think that the OS should be changed to "multiple" vs just being "Other Linux". I'll work around the issue by editing the config files by hand or moving them over to another machine, but really - what a pain... Machines with small screens aren't exactly becoming /less/ popular either. Oh, and it's not possible to resize the screen in order to get the button to come into view in this version of Windows either. Although I'm not familiar with the source of Thunderbird, I can kind of see how the components are arranged. As a programmer, I've dealt with similar situations by doing something similar to the following. For all tabs in the Account Settings dialog: 1) Add a scrollbar container around all content on the right side pane 2) Allow the Account Settings dialog to resize dynamically 3) Set a minimum size of the right-side pane to ~550px Another - much uglier - solution would be to allow entire dialog to be resized.

I fall into the "Aged and Vision Impaired" category, so, this bug falls into the "serious" category for me. Ironically, using a large high resolution monitor (mine is a 23" LCD TV set at 1920x1080) creates a large number of font readability problems, and, over the years, I have learned how to deal with most of them. One basic step to assist the vision impaired is to set the display properties/settings/advanced/DPI to "Large size (120 dpi)" Recently, even this has proven to be insufficient for my vision, so, in order to meet my vision needs, I recently set this to a "custom" value of 150DPI. When I set it to 150 DPI, SeaMonkey presented me with a serious problem trying to use the "Mail and Newsgroups Account Settings" screen. This screen has no "sizing" options and, at the 150DPI setting the window exceeds the size of the screen. The default problem is that you cannot get to the "OK, Cancel, Help" buttons. The only option for me was to select the <M>ove option to move the bottom edge of the window over to my second monitor. Then it get's crazy. SM "remembers" the screen position and the next time this window is opened, it opens with the buttons visible, but the top of the screen inacessbile. At that point, the only option is to remember that <Alt-space> brings up the "Move" menu, and <M> then allows you to drag the window to get to the top fields. The simple solution would be to assure that _all_ windows have scroll bars and sizing options and to not assume that the os platform offers access options. A reduced sized screen shot at http://bevhoward.com/stuff/images/OverSize.gif shows how the mail settings window is clipped when opened in the 1920x1080 monitor with the XPPro display font setting at 150 DPI. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=516586 states that this is "resolved" ...that statement seems to be as a result of not being able to reproduce the problem. This is kernel issue and it is reproducible in different platforms and different versions. Thanks in advance for any consideration to this problem. Beverly Howard

Any way to change this bug's "platform" to "ALL" This comment thread is a good discussion of the issues that run across all platforms containing email clients and possible other non sizable windows. Beverly Howard

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20110624 Thunderbird/5.0 What Beverly Howard described in comment #20 for SeaMonkey applies also to Thunderbird. This is not merely a Linux problem. I have this problem under Windows XP SP3. Therefore, I have changed the Platform -- both for Hardware and OS -- to All.

This issue makes the "Manage Identities" absolutely unobtainable! It is worse in Linux than in Windows - I use both and would love to "share profile" but that has not been possible since v2.0. I use a Packard Bell DotS2 netbook with 1024x600 screen. It is tragic that the marketeers have seemingly withdrawn 1360x768 10.5in screens, probably deliberate built-in obsolescence. So, more and more people are experiencing only 600 lines.

To give more detail, the "Edit","Account Settings", main pain for each account, the "Manage Identities" button is off the bottom of the 600-line screen. It can be pressed by "guesswork tabbing" only. There are no scroll-bars but there is a Maximise icon, which reveals the bottom of the pain with "Cancel" and "OK", but "Manage Identities" button is then MISSING. User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110617 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0

I run into the same problem on a Samsung NC10 with Ubuntu 10.04 and Thunderbird 3.1.15. A bypass for linux users is to use the 'xrandr' command from the command line to change the virtual resolution of the screen. For example, the command: xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1.25x1.25 on my machine modifies the apparent resolution from 1024x600 to 1280x750, which is enough to see and use the hidden parts of the menu. To revert to the original, simply write: xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1.25x1.25 HTH Patrr

sorry: to revert write xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1x1

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:7.0) Gecko/20110922 Thunderbird/7.0 It seems that I can now resize the window's height. However, the window often launches with the title bar beyond the top of my monitor screen. I cannot move the window down to see all of the top unless I can drag the title bar. In any case, the window should launch with a size that fits within my monitor screen.

For the previous comment poster; To deal with windows (under the windows os) where the title bar is not visible; Press <Alt-space> Press M Use cursor arrows to move the upper left of the title bar into view. Press <enter> Assuming the window exceeds the size of the screen; Click the icon at upper left of the title bar Press S to size and size the window so that it falls within the screen Maximize the Window Restore the Window The above will _normally_ "register" the window size for the next time it is opened. Beverly Howard

Thank you, Patrick! Brilliant workaround Works a treat for me. Useful for other things, too. Now, let's get this bug really fixed by re-organising the maximised version of the accounts settings dialogue so that the "Manage Identities" button is included at 1024x600.

Re comment #34: Hey!! I'm using 800x600. My eyes are now 70 years old. Larger resolutions make text too small, and some applications have neither internal options to make text larger nor comply with text size settings done in Windows. Good design says that applications should adapt to varying monitor sizes and resolutions and window sizes.

(In reply to Mike Yates from comment #34) > Thank you, Patrick! > Brilliant workaround > Works a treat for me. Useful for other things, too. > > Now, let's get this bug really fixed by re-organising the maximised version > of the accounts settings dialogue so that the "Manage Identities" button is > included at 1024x600. What about moving it to the top in line with the "Account Name" field?

Andreas Nilsson, are you still working on this?

I encountered this problem on my 1024x600 netbook with Thunderbird 8.0 on Linux Mint 12's MATE (a GNOME 2 fork) desktop. The "Manage identities" button is missing in the account settings window, and the window's scroll bar is broken i.e. totally absent. For a long time I actually thought that the multiple identities feature had been removed from Thunderbird in a recent update. As soon as I realized the real reason to this problem, it was easy enough to move the window up using Alt and mouse drag and then resize it (not something an average user knows how to do).

Is this bug relevant anymore? On trunk, the account settings dialog is definitely scrollable.

I reported this in 2008 after using an Asus netbook with a 7" screen. I still have that computer and it still is a pain to scroll through menus to make selections. I've learned to work with the problem, but it likely would cause some to look for an alternative browser/email client. Seeing that others posted comments fairly recently the issue seems to still be relevant.

I've now tried this on Windows (9.0) and Linux (nightly), and in both cases, it's possible to both resize and scroll the account settings dialog. While there are probably other things we can do to improve the account settings dialog for small screens, the solution described in comment 0 - "the windows need to be able to be resized and scroll - then they would work on any monitor" - is resolved by bug 567280. Any remaining issues should go into followup bugs (some of which probably exist already) to make things easier to follow.

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #41) > I've now tried this on Windows (9.0) and Linux (nightly), and in both cases, > it's possible to both resize and scroll the account settings dialog. While > there are probably other things we can do to improve the account settings > dialog for small screens, the solution described in comment 0 - "the windows > need to be able to be resized and scroll - then they would work on any > monitor" - is resolved by bug 567280. > > Any remaining issues should go into followup bugs (some of which probably > exist already) to make things easier to follow. This is fixed in version 9.0 but has regressed in verision 10.0

(In reply to James M Leddy from comment #42) > This is fixed in version 9.0 but has regressed in verision 10.0 Works for me.

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #43) > (In reply to James M Leddy from comment #42) > > This is fixed in version 9.0 but has regressed in verision 10.0 > > Works for me. Odd, must be a mistake on this end. I'll investigate.

Forgot to move the bottom of the window up. This is fixed in 9.0 and 10.0

(In reply to H Beitman from comment #40) > I reported this in 2008 after using an Asus netbook with a 7" screen. I > still have that computer and it still is a pain to scroll through menus to > make selections. This bug is about parts of the dialog not being accessible _at all_ because there was no scrollbar. If that isn't satisfactory, please find/open a new bug about the revamped preferences window as mentioned in comment #4.

(In reply to James M Leddy from comment #46) > This bug is about parts of the dialog not being accessible _at all_ because > there was no scrollbar. If that isn't satisfactory, please find/open a new > bug about the revamped preferences window as mentioned in comment #4. Comment 4 is a bit out of date. If we go so far as to revamp the dialog, we'll probably be moving it into a tab. I doubt that will happen in the near term, though.

This bug, as originally described above, is occurring in Thunderbird 11 on Ubuntu 11.10.

(In reply to Gavin Fleming from comment #48) > This bug, as originally described above, is occurring in Thunderbird 11 on > Ubuntu 11.10. The window is still to big, but now it can be resized. Are you saying you cannot resize the account window?

You're right, it is too big but I can resize it. Still minimum two moves (resize then drag) to get it into the window to use. Apologies for overstatement!

No, it is still very awkward, in Ubuntu 1110, Netbook Layout, 600x1024 pixels, because you cannot grab the bottom of the dialog to resize it and grabbing the top only moves it. You have to Alt-Space on the keyboard to choose resize (which disappears unless your mouse is in exactly the right place) and arrow-keys to introduce the (new) scroll-bars. If you full-screen the dialog in 600x1024, the scroll-bars DO NOT appear and "Manage Identities" is STILL missing. I still find it easier to use screen-scaling scripts to get at "Manage Identities". NOT satisfactorally fixed!!

Confirming, that this isn't fixed on Ubuntu 10.04 with Thunderbird 11 !