GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 730712
Refine the folder list
Last modified: 2021-07-05 13:27:01 UTC
Created attachment 277138 [details] mockup The current sidebar design is a bit inefficient and visually complex. Issues I can see with it: * Expanders aren't an inefficient way to switch between accounts - they require several clicks to show one account and hide another. They are also very small click targets, and can get a bit complex to use when you have several accounts. * With more than one account, inboxes are included twice, creating duplication of UI and even more complexity. * Indentation of rows within expanders isn't visually elegant, making it harder to read, and eats horizontal space. * Symbolic icons for every item create visual noise. * Large (minimum and default) width takes space away from the more interesting and important parts of the UI (the conversation list and message preview). * Visually, the rows would benefit from greater height. I've attached a mockup that attempts to address these issues. Changes from the current UI: * Removes expanders in favour of a separate account toggle at the top. This will often result in less work to switch between accounts, both in terms of number of clicks and distance the pointer has to travel. It also uses less width and is simpler to use. * Removes the symbolic icons, giving it a cleaner appearance (less noise!) * Increases row height, just to let things breath more easily. * Reduces the minimum and default width of the sidebar, to give more space to the rest of the UI. I'd argue that the result is much more elegant and attractive.
I feel like you're first set of bullet points should be ticketed against GtkTreeView, my least favorite widget in all of GTK-dom. B-) I like the mockup and totally see the benefits and where you're going. However: * I'm unfamiliar with any widget that works like this (perhaps it's landed in 3.14 and I've missed hearing about it?) Is there a common widget we can use or is your thinking we need to custom build this? * I like the color swatch for the folders, but that's a Gmail-ism and not exposed via IMAP. * What is your suggestion for a folder hierarchy that's more than one level deep? * Although the separate Inboxes sidebar branch does duplicate folders, it serves three important purposes: (a) one-click to navigate between the most important folder in each account, (b) always-present visual indicator of new messages (boldfaced label), and (c) always-present visual indicator of unread messages. In your mockup, the Inboxes are hidden, meaning the user has to click to see if there are new messages waiting. Is there some way to special-case the Inbox in your concept?
(In reply to comment #1) ... > I like the mockup and totally see the benefits and where you're going. > However: > > * I'm unfamiliar with any widget that works like this (perhaps it's landed in > 3.14 and I've missed hearing about it?) Is there a common widget we can use or > is your thinking we need to custom build this? GtkListBox to the rescue! https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.9/GtkListBox.html It's been around since 3.10, and we use it for sidebars in other GNOME apps. > * I like the color swatch for the folders, but that's a Gmail-ism and not > exposed via IMAP. One approach could be to assign colours on the Geary side. There's a risk of having a mismatch with the Gmail web interface. Still, it could be worth it though. > * What is your suggestion for a folder hierarchy that's more than one level > deep? I think you'd have to use indentation for that. > * Although the separate Inboxes sidebar branch does duplicate folders, it > serves three important purposes: (a) one-click to navigate between the most > important folder in each account, I've tried to preserve that in this design - you can switch between an account with one click, and the previously displayed folder will be displayed. This will allow jumping between inboxes. > (b) always-present visual indicator of new > messages (boldfaced label), and The label on the account button could be bold when there are new messages there? > (c) always-present visual indicator of unread > messages. In your mockup, the Inboxes are hidden, meaning the user has to > click to see if there are new messages waiting. Is there some way to > special-case the Inbox in your concept? You could certainly indicate the number of unread messages for the account, although I'm not sure how useful this is for a whole account. Also, I'm a little hesitant about showing unread counts in general, tbh - in some workflows you naturally build up unread messages, and the indicator can become burdensome or even stressful there. Perhaps showing unread counts should be a setting. Are there cases where you need to be able to see unread counts for all inboxes all the time?
(In reply to comment #2) > GtkListBox to the rescue! https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.9/GtkListBox.html So, to carry through with the thought, we would dynamically add/remove (or hide/make visible) the "children" widgets as each account is selected (I use scare quotes because GtkListBox isn't truly hierarchical)? > One approach could be to assign colours on the Geary side. There's a risk of > having a mismatch with the Gmail web interface. Still, it could be worth it > though. Yeah, we could do that. If we're going to go that route in the sidebar, it would make sense to use them elsewhere in the application. For example, we want to at some point display which folder(s) a conversation belongs to, either in the conversation list (which might be too cluttery) or in the conversation viewer itself (bug #713027). I suspect if we offer this, users will want to assign colors to folders. > The label on the account button could be bold when there are new messages > there? Yeah, that makes sense. > You could certainly indicate the number of unread messages for the account, > although I'm not sure how useful this is for a whole account. I think that would be overkill and not real useful. > Also, I'm a > little hesitant about showing unread counts in general, tbh - in some workflows > you naturally build up unread messages, and the indicator can become burdensome > or even stressful there. Perhaps showing unread counts should be a setting. We had some very strong opinions about showing unread counts in the past -- as in, Geary needs to show them. Some people they're vital, some people don't care. I don't believe I've heard from anyone (yet) that they want them turned off. We could make it a preference, but that's just one more set of alternate code paths to deal with. > Are there cases where you need to be able to see unread counts for all inboxes > all the time? Not a total count of all Inboxes, but the people who feel strongly about unread counts probably feel the most strongest about them per-Inbox. For some folks, an unread count next to an Inbox is like a to-do reminder, a sign that something requires immediate (or near-immediate) action.
*** Bug 743526 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I like the mockup, but I have only two comments: 1. I don't think that symbolic icons create visual noise. Images help to find the special folders more quickly than text. If you imagine an account with many folders, symbolic icons can clearly distinguish special folders from regular folders. Also, the icons are small and fit into the space available. 2. I like the unread count. As Jim wrote, it's like a to-do reminder. A setting to disable it may be helpful to some, but I'd keep it active by default, since this is what most of people probably expect. Actually, my favorite setting would be the unread count of conversations and not messages (bug #713612), as in Gmail.
There was a suggestion on the mailing list <https://mail.gnome.org/archives/geary-list/2016-September/msg00057.html> that people should be able to browse through contacts in the way as they can browse through mailboxes, and select and view conversations by contact, which is an interesting idea. So the sidebar could for example have a view switcher or similar at the top, for switching between the mailbox list and the contacts list. It might also provide a means of addressing bug 714696, instead of using a more traditional, separate address book window.
See also Bug 771849.
(In reply to Michael Gratton from comment #6) > There was a suggestion on the mailing list > <https://mail.gnome.org/archives/geary-list/2016-September/msg00057.html> > that people should be able to browse through contacts in the way as they can > browse through mailboxes, and select and view conversations by contact, > which is an interesting idea. Browsing is slow and painful for contacts. Search is much more effective and common, and is what I'd personally focus on. > So the sidebar could for example have a view switcher or similar at the top, > for switching between the mailbox list and the contacts list. > > It might also provide a means of addressing bug 714696, instead of using a > more traditional, separate address book window. Could it not use the GNOME Contacts app instead?
(In reply to Allan Day from comment #8) > > Browsing is slow and painful for contacts. Search is much more effective and > common, and is what I'd personally focus on. This is true. My unstated assumption was that it would be ordered in some way (starred/frequency/recency?) so that more useful contacts would be up the top, but having a decent story for search here is obviously important too. > > So the sidebar could for example have a view switcher or similar at the top, > > for switching between the mailbox list and the contacts list. > > > > It might also provide a means of addressing bug 714696, instead of using a > > more traditional, separate address book window. > > Could it not use the GNOME Contacts app instead? In which way? In terms of managing contacts? GNOME Contacts or other interfaces to EDS/folks should definitely be the way people maintain their desktop contact list, and Geary should use folks to access that. However people do frequently send and receive email from people not in Contact's various stores, and Geary also stores its own data about such contacts (remote image loading prefs, etc), hence needs a story about how to let people manage these. Part of that is having an improved contextual popover when activating email addresses (Bug 771642). But there does seem to be demand for an interface for browsing/finding non-desktop contacts, which is (AFAICT) is what bug 714696 is about.
Can I bring into also the discussion I've just started here? https://mail.gnome.org/archives/geary-list/2017-December/msg00044.html The mockup *seems* to suggest a visual distinction between folders and labels, right? I guess that we should make it clear what's the difference between them, which server support each of them, etc.
Bump tickets to 0.14 that aren't going to make 0.13.
Created attachment 373607 [details] email address selection I'd like to submit this idea for the selection of the email address in use. What you see in the picture is mockup for the top-left area of the UI. - The blue circle shows the total number of unread emails - The check mark indicates the current email address whose folders are shown in the UI - Although the email address is shown, the idea is to show the names the user gave to his email addresses - The sidebar could be exactly as the one shown in the mockup by Allan Day except for the fact that the item 'Inbox' mustn't have any sub-items, AND there must an 'All Inbox' item above that (with a separator in between) which contains the emails from ALL the email addresses: ──────────── All Inbox ------------ Inbox 11 Outbox 12 Drafts 16 Sent 31 Spam 20 Trash 34 ------------ ■ Label1 41 ■ Label2 51 ■ Label3 26 ────────────
Created attachment 373609 [details] email address selection I'd like to submit this idea for the selection of the email address in use. What you see in the picture is mockup for the top-left area of the UI. - The blue circle shows the total number of unread emails - The check mark indicates the current email address whose folders are shown in the UI - Although the email address is shown, the idea is to show the names the user gave to his email addresses - The sidebar could be exactly as the one shown in the mockup by Allan Day except for the fact that the item 'Inbox' mustn't have any sub-items, AND there must an 'All Inbox' item above that (with a separator in between) which contains the emails from ALL the email addresses: ──────────── All Inbox ------------ Inbox 11 Outbox 12 Drafts 16 Sent 31 Spam 20 Trash 34 ------------ ■ Label1 41 ■ Label2 51 ■ Label3 26 ────────────
*** Bug 714683 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 770882 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 735000 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 714736 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
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