GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 320031
Keyboard shortcuts need revision. (And other usability issues.)
Last modified: 2006-02-19 13:07:02 UTC
This message covers several bugs as issued in the bug database. It gives an overview on its own, though, so it might be simpler to mark its dependencies. I'll do that as far as I know the archive. Recieving large quantities of mail, one of the most important features of an email application is the keyboard shortcuts. As long as you can control the most important tasks with one hand at the keyboard, without any need to move it for the most common tasks, graphical applications like Evolution do fine as long as you don't mind the half-a-second waiting for the next message. (And that's a Good Thing To Have (tm) when you recieve html emails and all other sorts of graphical attachments.) So there's probably a need for some input on the most used features. Here's my list. 1) Next unread message. '.' is fine. 2) Next page of the message. Space bar is fine. 3) Mark this email as junk. «Train your spam filter.» No keyboard shortcut! This being so important is largely due to the state of the spam filtering, but there always has to be training of the filter. 4) Mark this email as unread. «Need to read it again, when not in the middle of the heap.» 'Ctrl+k' as keyboard shortcut is unwieldly. 5) Mark this email as important. «This is actually interesting.» No keyboard shortcut! 6) Delete this email. «Not spam, but...» 'Ctrl+d' is unwieldly, 'Del' button is better. Perhaps there should be a «Undo» feature, instead of hiding the keys? 7) Reply. 8) Reply to all. 9) Reply to list. And that's about my list of commonly used features. Not so sure if 2 or 3 is the most used one. Nor about 4 to 9. Perhaps other people use 'Next' or 'Previous' a lot, but I don't. An 'undo' that goes back to the last mail read and marks the previously marked read as unread would do way better for me than fumbling around with 'next' and 'previous'. So, highest on my nag list is to get the spam filtering to work better. As far as it is in the Evolution used here, it isn't even possible to mark mails as Ham (if it isn't marked as spam first). Anyway, a spam filter needs to be trained. An easily available shortcut for marking a message as junk (and train the spam filter) is needed. The minus sign ('-') perhaps? The plus sign ('+') could go for ham. And 'u' (or eventually 'ctrl+u') as undo. Then comes the unwieldly keybord shortcuts. If you have to walk all over the keyboard to do something then you can just as well use the (ugh) mouse. One other nice thing would be a «read next unread or important message». Emails marked important are there to be reminded about, and they're easy to forget. Perhaps have a configuration switch to know if you want «read next unread message» or «read next unread or important message». Or a «ctrl+.» to do the «unread or important». For people using several languages: The way to switch language (for the spellchecker) can be a tad deep. Perhaps have a button showing the current language used in the lower right corner of the editor window, to the right of «Show attachments (drag attachments here)». Then you can click that button and choose from the shortlist you have at 'Edit'->'Available languages' A fast «Mark this mail as read *now* (I don't want to wait for it to time out) and go to next unread» could also do well. This is often faster than «mark them all, click and use 'mark as read'» Perhaps an easy way to set the timeout to nil? Undo could work better than timeout for many of us. Perhaps there could be a function to load or switch keyboard scemes. Perhaps even make and modify your own ones, as an advanced option? Last: Some people delete messages right there and then. Others might want to keep all for a while, then delete some (or most) of them when they're old enough. Especially email lists, the kind that gets archived some place anyway, can be deleted after a while. It's the only way to keep your archive from growing out of proportions. As it is right now, this has to be done manually every month or so. Make the folder not threaded (if you use that), mark a proper mass of mails, delete them, then make the folder threaded again. So. I know it takes some coding, but if you could make some kind of monitoring filters that delete certain mails (that meets these or those criteria) after a chosen amount of time, that would be a popular feature. Thanks for listening. Other information:
also see bug 310552
some of your issues are definitely duplicates, would be cool if you could check for them; perhaps i'm going to do when i have time :-/
> This message covers several bugs as issued in the bug database. so if they are already included in the bug database, it does not really make sense to file them again. > it might be simpler to mark its dependencies. to depend on something is different from to be a duplicate of something... ;-) > as long as you don't mind the half-a-second waiting for the next message. check out 2.4, there have been some speed improvements. > 1) Next unread message. '.' is fine. as long as you are not in the folder list, yes. see bug 250873. > 3) Mark this email as junk. No keyboard shortcut! duplicate of bug 260734. > 4) Mark this email as unread. 'Ctrl+k' as keyboard shortcut is unwieldly. it is ctrl+shift+k, and it's not hard at all. i can do that with one hand. > 5) Mark this email as important. No keyboard shortcut! duplicate of bug 304170. > 6) Delete this email. «Not spam, but...» 'Ctrl+d' is unwieldly, 'Del' > button is better. Perhaps there should be a «Undo» feature, instead of > hiding the keys? i don't get this at all. where's the problem? i always use "del". > 7) Reply. > 8) Reply to all. > 9) Reply to list. content? just writing "foo" without any information sucks. > An 'undo' that goes back to the last mail read and marks the previously > marked read as unread would do way better for me than fumbling around with > 'next' and 'previous'. why do you go to the next mail and *then* think of keeping the former mail as "unread"? i also keep todo/to-answer mails as unread, but i realize that when reading it. what should an undo function exactly do? it would just heavily irritate. > So, highest on my nag list is to get the spam filtering to work better. > As far as it is in the Evolution used here, it isn't even possible to mark > mails as Ham (if it isn't marked as spam first). you have a toolbar button for that, an context menu entry and an menu entry (at least in 2.4). it has been the same in 2.2. > An easily available shortcut for marking a message as junk (and train the spam > filter) is needed. as already written, duplicate of bug 260734. > The minus sign ('-') perhaps? The plus sign ('+') could go for ham. bad idea, the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) dislike one key shortcuts. also, + and - are used for deflating and expanding message list trees, so you would always have to have the focus set to the message preview pane. > And 'u' (or eventually 'ctrl+u') as undo. ctrl+u is used for viewing the message source since evolution 2.3, since most other programs do it the same way (e.g. firefox or thunderbird). and as already written, the improvements of an undo-function are not obvious at all to me. > Then comes the unwieldly keybord shortcuts. If you have to walk all over the > keyboard to do something then you can just as well use the (ugh) mouse. then come up with some conclusions. we only have a limited set of characters, and we have to take care of the HIG. > One other nice thing would be a «read next unread or important message». another cluttering UI option. in evolution 2.3 and 2.1, *many* menus were rewritten because there were just too many options. it was the same with the quick search dropdown menu. break it down to the things that people actually need. you can always easily sort your message list for important messages, you can also set your view to "hide read messages" in 2.4. > The way to switch language (for the spellchecker) can be a tad deep. > Perhaps have a button showing the current language that's http://www.gnome.org/bounties/Mailer.html#127530 > A fast «Mark this mail as read *now* that's control+k. > and go to next unread» could also do well. that is "." and "ctrl + ]" > Perhaps an easy way to set the timeout to nil? just do it in the preferences, it's possible. > Perhaps there could be a function to load or switch keyboard scemes. > Perhaps even make and modify your own ones, as an advanced option? that is gnome stuff, but definitely not evolution stuff at all. > if you could make some kind of monitoring filters that delete certain mails > (that meets these or those criteria) after a chosen amount of time, that > would be a popular feature. so popular that it seems that it has not been requested for the last six years, at least i cannot find it. hmm. so any comments on how to proceed further with this here? please note that i'm not an evolution developer, so be angry with me and not with the hackers... ;-) cheers, andre
setting to NEEDINFO, please REOPEN when adding more comments. thanks in advance.
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for. Thanks!