Re: [Evolution-hackers] Re: Attachment UI Improvements

[Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com>]

On Fri, 2005-05-06 at 09:32 +0530, Not Zed wrote:
> The reason we can't drop into the main view is multi-fold.  One, there
> is a mixing of semantics of what a drop means in a text area.  But of
> course the other thing is bonobo - we simple cannot access the
> required information from the editor component.

We should fix that then. Whatever that means. If Bonobo is the
bottleneck in the end, then we should fix the composer to be usable
without needing Bonobo, so that we can do this. Or, we can add
appropriate APIs to the editor control, so that we can get the
information that we do need, from the control.

> > > Another issue that we've seen in some of our usability tests here is
> > > that people are confused by the file selector in the context of
> > > attaching a file to a mail they are composing.  
> > > 
> > > First they click the 'Attach' button in the composer's toolbar, then
> > > select a file using the file selector.  Then, they hit the '+' button in
> > > the file selector to add the attachment to the mail.  Of course, this
> > > button is for adding bookmarks to the file selector, not for adding
> > > attachments to mails.
> 
> > > It would help if the button in the file selector said "Attach" instead
> > > of "Open," and if the icon were attachment-appropriate.
> > 
> > I actually have a patch for this. I forgot about it, and it is included
> > in the latest version of the mailer menus redux patch that I just sent
> > to the list. I'm not sure what the current state of the evolution tree
> > is for being able to commit things, given the maintainership changes.
> > If it is open for me to commit though, I am glad to do that. :)
> > 
> > > >   - Use attachment icon list area for display instead of buttons
> > > 
> > > This will require that we add a "Save attachment" menu item to the
> > > right-click menu on the attachment area.
> > 
> > The context-menu for the mail display will have to be entirely different
> > than it is for the composer attachment area, anyway. We will probably
> > want to have "Open with..." and other such menu items as well.
> 
> What is this?  The display of attachments in the mail display???

Yes. To get rid of the ugly buttons inside the mail display, and place
the icon list area at the bottom of the mail display, for accessing the
attachments.

> Where is the original email that started this discussion?

Somehow, evolution decided that I wanted to attach a 108K patch to the
message, presumably because I just sent another mail with a 108K patch,
just before the original mail for this thread. So, it ended up in the
moderation queue for the list. I've just re-sent a copy without the
patch attached.

> Also note that "save all attacments" is just a hacked up plugin
> demonstration.

Noted. We should then make it not a hacked-up plug-in, and fix it to
be usable and easily accessible by users.

-- dobey