GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 526402
Make composer's Save / Save As more useful
Last modified: 2021-05-19 12:13:07 UTC
The (new) mail composer UI uses the gtk save icon for both "save" and "save draft". Using the same icon for two different things is bad. At the same time, the "save draft" is inside a group with "save" and "save as" so it can profit from those save icons and does not need it's own icon. [If the "drafts" folder had a special icon this could probably be used here, but it is using the normal folder]
Created attachment 108693 [details] Screenshot + Mockup
I've often though of using the GTK_STOCK_EDIT icon for Drafts folders, though I don't think it would be appropriate for a "Save Draft" action. I also remember seeing another bug questioning the usefulness of the "Save" and "Save As" items in the mail composer, and frankly I have to agree. All they do is save the /body/ of the message as an HTML document (regardless of whether the message is being written as HTML or plaintext). What worse is the subject and all other mail headers are discarded, and it's not at all obvious that the composer is going to do that. The unsuspecting user will LOSE DATA. Also, and this is just an implementation detail, but the new composer is written as a set of actions to which every menu and toolbar item is bound (similar, but slightly different than Bonobo "verbs"). The icons are bound to the action, not to the menu and toolbar items. So removing the icon from the "Save Draft" action will remove it from both the menu item and the toolbar item, which obviously we don't want. To workaround the problem I'd have to create a second "Save Draft" action specifically for the toolbar item that retains its icon. Suffice it to say, that makes the engineer in me cringe. Given that the "Save" and "Save As" actions are worse than useless (imo), I propose we simply kill them and retain the "Save Draft" action along with its present GTK_STOCK_SAVE icon. Adding this to my "new composer" tracker (bug #522153). Srini, what do you think about dropping "Save" and "Save As" in the composer? Do you know why these were added to begin with?
Eh... Matthew, I also started wondering about the usefulness of save/saveas just when I attached the screenshot above. Truth is, noone will probably miss those two items, so removing them will benefit everyone because the menu gets simpler. In that case, keeping the save icon for "save draft" sounds fine.
*** Bug 309019 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Matthew, I dont know the exact use case. Worth asking on evolution list. I feel, dont remove both, if we dont know the reasons. Have save-as atleast.
Asked: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/2008-April/msg00039.html
From the response I've gotten (much of it private replies to my posting), it's clear that the Save and Save As features are used, even if they're imperfect. One thing that keeps coming up is the desire to save messages as plain-text rather than HTML. I'm thinking we should tie this to the current mode: save as HTML in HTML mode, save as plain-text in plain-text mode. Still not sure what to do about saving message headers and attachments. Anyway, I'm getting OT. We need to figure out what to do with the Save icons.
What about... - removing "save" - replacing "save as" with export - letting the user choose between different "formats" in the export dialog?
That'd work too. Then the save icon would just be on "Save Drafts".
I wouldn't have "Export" in the toolbar, only in the menu imho once you do that, I would rename "Save As Draft" to just "Save" also, not sure you actually need to choose a format in the export dialog... it should simply save in the format you are composing in.
Pondering on this some more... I think I want to stick with "Save As..." rather than "Export" because we use "Save As..." for saving messages outside the composer. Moreover, I'd like to try to use the same mechanism (i.e. mail_save_messages()) so the message being composed saves as a real mbox file. This way we save everything -- attachments, headers, even text/html and text/plain parts. We would need to add a "save-as" signal to EMsgComposer alongside it's "save-draft" signal and have em-composer-utils.c handle it. That's not difficult. This is diverging quite a bit from the original problem, but icons are still part of the issue. If we keep "Save As..." I'd definitely want to stick with the standard icon for it. Maybe a folder with a disk emblem in the corner would work as a "Save Draft" icon? Thoughts?
(In reply to comment #11) > Maybe a folder with a disk emblem in the corner would work as a "Save Draft" > icon? Forget that, it's not theme-friendly. I'm staring at a build that uses "folder-open" for the "Save Draft" icon, and I have to say it kinda works. Fits better than a picture of a hard disk, anyway. The tooltip for that action should be improved, too. Maybe something like: - "Save as draft" + "Save this message to your Drafts folder"
(In reply to comment #12) > Forget that, it's not theme-friendly. Right > I'm staring at a build that uses "folder-open" for the "Save Draft" icon, and I > have to say it kinda works. Fits better than a picture of a hard disk, anyway. Why folder-open? This icon is a status indicator for folders (open folder)... Also, this icon is quite similar to document-open, which has the exact opposite meaning to "save". Keep the current save icon or let's think about a nice metaphor for "drafts" which could also be used in the folder list.
(In reply to comment #13) > Why folder-open? This icon is a status indicator for folders (open folder)... Drafts is a folder, and represents the save destination (as opposed to a hard disk). I was just looking for an existing themed icon that might work. > Also, this icon is quite similar to document-open, which has the exact opposite > meaning to "save". Good point. > Keep the current save icon or let's think about a nice metaphor for "drafts" > which could also be used in the folder list. Thunderbird uses a pencil tip icon for the Drafts folder. Claws Mail uses a folder with a pencil overlayed. KMail uses something very similar to gtk-edit (pencil and paper). Microsoft Outlook uses a folder AND pencil and paper.
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