Additional email address used as default

[dempseyvv]

TB3.0 RC1 -- I have in my address book several persons with two email addresses (email address and additional email address). When I compose a message and type in the beginning of such a person's name in the to-address it does list both email addresses correctly, however it always takes the additional email address as the default. This means that I constantly have to select the primary email address. In my opinion the primary email address should be used by default.

I could not find a bug report for this or did I overlook it?

[tanstaafl]

I don't think you can customize Auto-completion that way. You might find it easier to use the contacts pane in the compose message window instead since "search for" as you type works differently. With 3.0RC1 you'll have to customize the toolbar to restore that button. However, its sticky.

[dempseyvv]

tanstaafl, I don't think that we are talking about the same thing. I am not talking about auto-completion.

When writing an email I typically start by typing the first name of the person I am writing to in the "to" address bar. That results in a drop-down list of possible addresses. When that list is narrowed down to the "email address" and the "additional email address" of one person then I expect the "email address" to be in the address bar, however TB always put the "additional email address" in the address bar and I have manually to click on the "email address" to get that in the address bar.

To me this is counter-intuitive as the "email address" is a person's main address, while the "additional email address" is a less used/special occasion/away from house email address.

[tanstaafl]

That is "address auto-completion". Its enabled in tools -> options -> composition -> addressing. Its a combination of providing you a list box of possible matches that you can select from plus defaulting to the best match if you stop typing for a second.

Its behavior differs depending upon whether you type the display name or the email address. I'm using 3.0RC1 where it seems to default to the email address that is the closest match to the display name if you type the display name. In my case that just happened to be a primary email address. I think it would have worked the same way with 2.0.0.23

[dempseyvv]

We are on the same wavelength now and I see what you are saying. Obviously the display name for both the primary email address and the additional email address are the same. I have 22 of those persons in my address book and all of them list the additional email address before the primary email address when I type (part of) their display name.

BTW, I have no experience with TB 2.x as I came on board with TB 3.0b4.

[JohnnyHighGround]

This behavior persists in 3.0 release -- autocomplete suggests the "Additional email" entry before the main email entry.

TB2 would always suggest the main email address before the Additional address.

Anyone know if there's a user-side setting I'm missing on this or is this a bug? (It's most definitely not a feature as it's completely counter-intuitive to the way the human brain works.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.
-j.

[tanstaafl]

I don't think its as simple as that. I used emoore@some_domain as the main address and eric.moore@some_other_domain as the other email address in a contact and auto-complete listed the main address first when I started to type "er" (in Thunderbird 3.0). That email address also happened to be in a domain that would normally be listed first when sorting alphabetically.

I suspect it might treat the "additional email" and "email" fields identically, and what you're seeing is due to it sorting the results of the "display", "additional email" and "email" fields.

[diggeryo]

I suspect it might treat the "additional email" and "email" fields identically, and what you're seeing is due to it sorting the results of the "display", "additional email" and "email" fields.

I just upgraded to v3.0 this past week, and I am experiencing the same problem. Tanstaafl--I agree with your reasoning as to why it's happening. However, I do think that it shouldn't be happening. This behavior was not happening in v2.x. Unless a user-changable setting got changed that I haven't noticed somewhere along my upgrade path to v3.0, then I would think this is most definitely a bug, as it does go against common sense to list the "additional email" before the "email."

[Alan Isaac]

I can confirm this behavior and join in wishing the primary email always be reported before a secondary email when two emails are taken from the same record. Current behavior is unexpected (and annoying).

Thanks,
Alan Isaac

PS Btw, when will Thunderbird join FireFox in adopting MozStorage format? Ithought this was planned for version 3.

[tanstaafl]

You can file a bug report at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ . If you do that please post a link to it.

MozStorage for messages was never planned for 3.0 as far as I know. They did make a commitment (in a bug report) to someday implement a API that hides whether mbox files, maildir , MozStorage etc. is being used but they didn't commit themselves to actually implementing another storage scheme.

[rmbrme]

I would like to add, since it was mentioned previously more than once and not really answered; are we missing a setting in either options or config to change this behavior?

[tanstaafl]

I'm not aware of any setting or add-on to control whether the secondary email address is used in auto-completion.