GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 271481
Provide generic Accounts editor
Last modified: 2017-07-31 08:57:47 UTC
Currently (in evolution 2.1.3.1) account configuration is accessed from Edit->Preferences, appearing as a page in the "Evolution Settings" dialog. I believe this would be better as a separate menu item in the Edit menu, moving the whole of that page of the Evolution Settings dialog to a fresh dialog - reinforcing a separation between the account settings (as site-local configuration data with one true value) and the user's preferences (which are whatever he/she happens to prefer). Since accounts can cover Exchange, Groupwise etc functionality this affects more than just "Mail" (e.g. shared calendars), so my suggested menu item label is "Edit->Account Settings". If this is done, the "Edit->Preferences" dialog should probably be renamed from "Evolution Settings" to "Evolution Preferences" (or just "Preferences"). By comparison, Thunderbird has "Tools->Account Settings", with a left-hand pre-expanded tree view, with the accounts as top-level nodes, and the different configuration pages as second-level node below them (allowing lots of pages, with longer names than tabs would allow, I think this is a better UI than what we currently have); it has "Tools->Options" for the user's preferences.
i second that. in order to destroy the UI component (as discussed with jpr, dobey, and nags), changing component and reassigning. adding usability keyword. moving this to mailer (because it is about the mail accounts), could be also misc or something. developers please reassign appropriately if necessary. :-/
adding dependency
I totally support this. Mail Accounts simply are NO preferences.
Let it be Edit->Accounts. Users can edit account settings in each view (Calendar Properties and so on), the same as they can manage Mail Accounts in more generic way, to enable/disable them, reorder them and so on. Sources in other Views can also be reordered, there's a special dialog for it. There was no place to edit Collection accounts, it's those which serve for multiple views. These had been (and still are) tight to the Mail Accounts in Preferences. I mean with that that each place has its usage and this new one makes accessible subpart of each in one single place. The added Edit->Accounts lets manage also Collection accounts, beside all mail accounts, calendars, memo lists, task lists and address books. It looks similarly to Mail Accounts, but knows slightly more with respect of account managing. I plan to extend it further, to be used to add also collection accounts in a smart way (related to bug #750564). This is just the first step towards it. Created commit 4720799 in evo master (3.25.90+)
@mcrha: Assuming the user docs require updates, please do create dedicated tickets under the "User Documentation" component for such important changes: https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/mail-account-manage-imap-plus.html https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/calendar-using-several-calendars.html https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/contacts-using-several-addressbooks.html https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/tasks-using-several-tasklists.html $:acko\> pwd /gnome-git/evolution/help/C $:acko\> grep -r "<gui>Mail Accounts" . | wc -l 55 So "Edit > Preferences > Mail Accounts" does not exist anymore, and instead users have to go to "Edit > Accounts"? How are non-mail accounts shown in this dialog? Is there a 3.25 screenshot? > + N_("_Accounts"), Does this mnemonic collide with "Select _All" in the "Edit" main menu?
(In reply to André Klapper from comment #5) > So "Edit > Preferences > Mail Accounts" does not exist anymore, No, it's still there. > and instead users have to go to "Edit > Accounts"? They can, but they do not have to. I still work on extending the new Accounts, it currently can manage all the account types, but it cannot create collection accounts, which is the main feature of it (apart of being able to configure everything at one place). > How are non-mail accounts shown in this dialog? Is there a 3.25 screenshot? No screen shot, private data all around there. It shows a tree like this, with nodes collapsed by default: GOA account 1 | Mail Accounts | [ Add | v ] Name of the mail accounts | [ Edit ] Address Books | [ Delete ] Book 1 | Book 2 | Calendars | ... | Memo Lists | ... | Task Lists | ... | EWS Account 1 | ... | EWS Account 2 | ... | Mail Accounts (the same level as the GOA accounts) | Mail 1 | Mail 2 | ... | Address Books | CardDAV | Book 1 | Book 2 | ... | LDAP | ... | On This Computer | Personal | ... | Calendars | CalDAV | ... | On The Web | ... | On This Computer | Personal | ... | Memo Lists | ... | Task Lists | ... | [ Close] There will be more buttons on the right, I work on a 'Browse' button for WebDAV/CalDAV/CardDAV accounts at the moment. > > + N_("_Accounts"), > Does this mnemonic collide with "Select _All" in the "Edit" main menu? Yes, it does. Similarly as 'P' for Plugins and Preferences. The thing is that the other letters are either taken of "not so great", thus I made it collide. I'm willing to change it, of course.