Shula Amokshim Reporter
	Description • 16 years ago

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: All

when browsing and reading mail, all modal alert interferes with using or reading!


human interface considerations:
when a modal dialog pops up, thunderbird's icon on the task bar flashes for a user intervention (it's a desireable Windows feature) as if something critical had happened, but since it's so frequent, i don't need to be bothered every X minutes or at all.

when having more than 1 account the problem is a real annoyance.
when having 8 accounts (like mine) it's a show-stopper.

(in windows it is possible to disable flashing task-bar icon, but it's global for all apps, and flashing taskbar icons are actually desirable behavior if it happens only once in a while)



BTW: 
other modal dialogs which block using the program:
 a. when sending a message fails
 b. when checking email fails
 c. master password dialog
 d. other errors



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Mail servers can be inaccessible for various reasons:
 a. bad router/firewall
 b. blocked service (e.g. on some firewalled public-access hotspots)
 c. temporary network issues
 d. server maintenance
etc. 
it's very frequent particularly with mobile computers!

1. disconnect the network
2. get new messages

or

1. go with your laptop to a malfunctioning wifi hotspot
2. wait to next email sync

etc.

Actual Results:  
while reading or browsing or writing mail, a dialog interferes and distracts, forcing for clicking or pressing "enter"

Expected Results:  
possible solutions:
1. show the error note on a "self-closing side-box", (same as when receiving new mail)
2. show a "bad" indicator e.g. on status bar, (as in ms-outlook)
3. add a configuration parameter to disable modal-ness for ALL modal dialogs