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Bug 259064 - RFE: implement proper keyboard navigation
RFE: implement proper keyboard navigation
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: evolution
Classification: Applications
Component: Mailer
3.2.x (obsolete)
Other All
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: evolution-mail-maintainers
Evolution QA team
evolution[kill-bonobo]
: 206930 244208 263575 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: 242070 327508 327510
 
 
Reported: 2004-05-25 19:25 UTC by Karsten Bräckelmann
Modified: 2021-05-19 12:28 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Karsten Bräckelmann 2004-05-25 19:25:11 UTC
Frankly: The keyboard navigation currently quite sucks.

Example Mailer: Once selecting a Mail Folder, the user need *8* times the
<tab> key to get to the mail list. The Component buttons and the search bar
have to be passed first.

The 1.4. behavior of automatically forcing the focus to the mail list is
deprecated -- the focus should stay at the mail tree. Unfortunetaly, due to
this decision, switching between mail tree and mail list is painful.

However, the regular usage for most users will be switching between mail
list and mail tree.


Here is my proposal:

Drop the Component buttons and the Search bar from that <tab> altanation.

With one single <tab> press the mailer should switch from the mail list to
the mail tree, with another <tab> to the mail pane (like it just now is).
Similar, <shift>-<tab> schould reverse this alternation.


Some thoughts:

- The Components buttons are buttons and will most likely be used by mouse
only. For anyone using keyboard shortcuts, there is a new Component
switcher menu. Shortcuts bypassing the menu should be available, if not
already.

- The Search bar probably should get its own shortcut. Any average user
will not use this on a daily basis, although it is very useful. Power users
will love a shortcut.


Filing this as Component=UI, as this should be consistent across
components. (4 follow up bugs depending and blocking this one would be
appropriate.)


May the discussion and flame fest start... ;)
Comment 1 Karsten Bräckelmann 2004-05-25 20:38:40 UTC
Sure, instead of dropping the Component buttons and Searcb bar, the
<tab> ordering just needs to be *adjusted*.

Please make the mail tree, mail list and mail pane being easily
accessible to the user.
Comment 2 Ben Kahn 2004-06-18 15:56:25 UTC
<aol>me too</aol>

The tab order in the mailer should be:

Folder list -> Message list -> Message -> Search drop down -> Search
text entry -> Find Now -> Clear -> Compoent buttons
Comment 3 Rodney Dawes 2004-06-21 17:40:08 UTC
So. This looks like it is basically not possible with the current way
ESidebar works. The UI freeze is also today. What should I do here? It
is probably ideal to change the way the sidebar stuff works anyway, in
which case I should be able to fix the tab ordering in a fairly simple
manner.
Comment 4 Rodney Dawes 2005-01-24 21:18:43 UTC
*** bug 258786 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 JP Rosevear 2005-02-23 19:52:14 UTC
So the buttons are hideable now, this should really cut down on the issue.
Comment 6 André Klapper 2005-05-04 14:47:31 UTC
*** Bug 206930 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 André Klapper 2005-05-04 14:48:10 UTC
adding dependency
Comment 8 Calum Benson 2005-07-28 10:39:43 UTC
Apologies for any spam... cc'ing usability-maint on all Evolution usability
bugs. Filter on EVO-USABILITY-SPAM to ignore.
Comment 9 André Klapper 2005-09-20 18:15:45 UTC
guenther, solution for comment #1:
there's a pretty interesting article at
<http://www.redhat.com/magazine/011sep05/features/shortcuts/>
stating that e.g. F6 switches focus between folder list, message list and
preview pane.

generally, i have filed bug 316797 to include some of those shortcuts to the
quick reference card and/or user documentation.

punting target to 2.5, anyway.
Comment 10 André Klapper 2005-10-09 00:02:45 UTC
*** Bug 263575 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 André Klapper 2005-10-10 02:15:21 UTC
*** Bug 244208 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 Srinivasa Ragavan 2005-11-10 09:20:13 UTC
Fixed in head. Just type '/' would focus to the search bar.
Comment 13 Karsten Bräckelmann 2005-11-10 15:30:25 UTC
Reopening.

Please read the original bug report again. If you think this really is fixed,
care to drop a short note how it is fixed? Assigning a shortcut to the search
bar is nice, but it doesn't fix this issue.
Comment 14 Matthew Barnes 2008-11-19 14:27:48 UTC
Targetting this for the kill-bonobo branch.  Also moving to Mailer.
Comment 15 André Klapper 2012-06-16 21:17:57 UTC
Not sure what EXACTLY is required to close this report as FIXED.
Using F6 works quite well for me.
Comment 16 rfdeshon 2015-08-24 19:02:22 UTC
Sorry for bumping an old bug, but I would like to see this as well. Using Tab to move around is a widespread use paradigm and I fail to understand why it makes sense to jump from the folder tree to the component buttons on tab. The tab key is also much easier to hit than F6 from normal typing position (not to mention some keyboards have changed the F-keys to single-purpose buttons, and require holding a modifier key to use proper F-key function).

Additionally, '/' does not (any longer) focus on the search bar.

The keyboard navigation in Evolution really needs to be re-evaulated as a whole. I'd go back to Thunderbird if I could for the proper keyboard controls alone, but I can only get Evolution to connect to my work Exchange server.
Comment 17 Milan Crha 2015-08-28 12:08:48 UTC
Maybe I did something wrong, but gtk_container_set_focus_chain() didn't work for me for some reason. And doing a manual focusing on key-press-event looks too hacky.
Comment 18 André Klapper 2021-05-19 12:28:21 UTC
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. 
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version, then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/Community/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new bug report ticket at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.