2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Discussion of features in Mozilla Thunderbird
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Tom Austin
Posts: 141
Joined: December 17th, 2005, 5:19 pm

2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by Tom Austin »

When adding recipients and you want to change TO to CC or BCC, the behavior of that part of the screen has changed such that it results in deleting the email address I just entered. The X for delete is now at the far left of that entry box and the other choices (CC, BCC) are to the right of the box. None of these choices are visible until I hover over the selection box.

Until I move the cursor over the selection box, only the V arrow is visible. The problem is that it's positioned right over where the X is hidden. So when i mean to click on the V arrow, it moves over to the right, revealing the X, so that's what I actually click on. It happens so fast I can't stop myself in time. That immediately deletes the recipient and have to enter them again. This could be solved if the V arrow was moved more toward the middle of the box so that my cursor is not on the X before the menu of choices shows up.

With this problem happening daily, I thought I could get used to it, but I can't. It's just too normal and intuitive to move my cursor to hover over a symbol (V arrow) than hover over a blank box. is there a setting where I can return to the previous way of doing it? That worked fine and I wonder why anyone felt the need to change it.
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WaltS48
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Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by WaltS48 »

I think they felt the need to change it because a bug report was filed requesting an easier way to delete mistakes or unwanted addressees. Can't find that report at the moment.

What is wrong with your composition window that you only see the V arrow?

I see the whole message header with From: (my address), the address line for the recipient with To: already selected. Two more address lines and the Subject line under those.

The To: and V arrow are surrounded by a border. Hovering anywhere in that box displays the Delete X on the left, outside the box. If you stay to the far right (over the To:) and click you get the drop down for CC:, BCC: and so on.

I suggest you try resizing the composition window so the full header displays,

AIUI this will be fixed in the next major release and the Delete X will not be hidden like it is now.
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Tom Austin
Posts: 141
Joined: December 17th, 2005, 5:19 pm

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by Tom Austin »

WaltS48 wrote:The To: and V arrow are surrounded by a border. Hovering anywhere in that box displays the Delete X on the left, outside the box. If you stay to the far right (over the To:) and click you get the drop down for CC:, BCC: and so on.

I suggest you try resizing the composition window so the full header displays,

AIUI this will be fixed in the next major release and the Delete X will not be hidden like it is now.
Yes, the problem is that the X is hidden under the V arrow until I hover, and by then it's too late because I've already clicked where the V arrow was when I moved to it. I would need to train myself not to let my pointer hit the V arrow, but that is SOOO counterintuitive and opposite any common user interface.

Here's what mine looks like, before and while hovering:
Image
morat
Posts: 6405
Joined: February 3rd, 2009, 6:29 pm

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by morat »

Try this:

Code: Select all

/* Thunderbird userChrome.css */

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

.deleteAddress {
  margin-inline-end: 3px !important;
  width: 18px !important;
}
http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css
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WaltS48
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Joined: May 7th, 2010, 9:38 am
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by WaltS48 »

Tom Austin wrote:
WaltS48 wrote:The To: and V arrow are surrounded by a border. Hovering anywhere in that box displays the Delete X on the left, outside the box. If you stay to the far right (over the To:) and click you get the drop down for CC:, BCC: and so on.

I suggest you try resizing the composition window so the full header displays,

AIUI this will be fixed in the next major release and the Delete X will not be hidden like it is now.
Yes, the problem is that the X is hidden under the V arrow until I hover, and by then it's too late because I've already clicked where the V arrow was when I moved to it. I would need to train myself not to let my pointer hit the V arrow, but that is SOOO counterintuitive and opposite any common user interface.
I can see how that can happen. I don't usually have any recipients address added and have never accidentally deleted any I have entered.

Doing a quick test. If I use the "x" to delete an address, then right click in the empty address field, select "Undo" from the context menu, I get the deleted address back.

The "x" will not be hidden in the next major Thunderbird release.

When fast-clicking To/Cc/Bcc selector dropdown arrow, easy to accidentally delete recipient because delete button unexpectedly appears
Linux Desktop - AMD Athlon(tm) II X3 455 3.3GHz | 8.0GB RAM | GeForce GT 630
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Tom Austin
Posts: 141
Joined: December 17th, 2005, 5:19 pm

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by Tom Austin »

I can wait until the next release if that fixes it. Meanwhile I'll check Chrome.css. Thanks, All!
JohnStanley
Posts: 1
Joined: September 13th, 2019, 8:13 am

Re: 2019 change in recipient TO, CC, BCC

Post by JohnStanley »

Can I please support this request. I click on the down-arrow and whoops! it's turned into an X to delete. Basically the down-arrow should not move! I hesitate to suggest anything, but it could be stationary positioned to where it moves to currently when you hover over it.
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