Talk:Thunderbird:Preference Settings

I have added the Deprecated and New Options areas, because I think we should keep track of those changes, as needed. It will prevent confusion if something disappears from one build to the next, and provide a good discussion point for them. Tyler 01:34, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I removed the New, but the Deprecated should stay. New can be added as needed. Tyler 17:16, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what your intent for the "New/Depreciated" section is, meaning, what exactly should it track? Assuming that everybody uses the current nightlies as a reference, as recommended below, such changes would be obvious at the current stage. It would only become relevant when specific panes are (re-)designed, and any options become depreciated or are added by other bugs afterwards, which would require a respective adaption of that pane. This would be local to the pane in question though, thus not needed as a global section. If you want to follow any additions, removals, or changes of preferences since the 1.8.1 branch was established, you would need to add a lot more bugs than just the most recent one. --Rsx11m 00:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I put the deprecated in because of Milestone 3. It will be a good refrence for options that need to be removed. It is not meant necessarily to be a list of removed (although it could be). It is a list of options that need to be removed. The one in there is to show how it will work, and we may as well list them as we go. I do not have the New right now, but it may be useful later as well, to list needed options.Tyler 00:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Rsx11m, what do you think needs to be done to the Deprecated section to make it useful? I would like to work this out so there is a consensus on this issue. I think the Deprecated section is useful 9see my comments above). Also, I will try to discuss these things more on this page.Tyler 01:39, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

My reasoning was that we have milestone 2 first in which the prospective new tabs are populated by combination of or split-off from the existing tabs. At this point, during milestone 3, preferences specific to that new pane should get a "keep" or "remove" label, after identification of the reasoning why they were introduced. Possible candidates for preference UI in currently open bugs for a pane may come in with an "add" label. During milestones 4 and 5, preferences may get a "move to" in one pane and a "move from" label in the new pane. I see this all being rather pane specific, thus a global section would be of limited value. In fact, we may very well end up handling each pane and their mockups in individual Wiki pages... --Rsx11m 01:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

For now, we should probably replace the "Deprecated" section by a section with links to the individual suggestions in the private user spaces (thus far clarkbw and myself), since those will definitely differ between proposals. --Rsx11m 02:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've done so as suggested, given that the "Deprecated" section is now really deprecated by itself. --Rsx11m 16:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

See comment #45/46 for some suggestions how to proceed with organizing the current inventory for subsequent scoring of the preferences. --Rsx11m 16:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to stage this on User:Rsx11m/Thunderbird:Preference Scoring, which will need a bit of manual editing as the inventory table has a couple of errors and needs to be extended with the currently active bugs. This would also incorporate the "Deprecated" section. Once I'm done, we can discuss moving it to a subpage here, or how to come up with a different procedure. --Rsx11m 21:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added remarks and scores now to that page. I'm not sure though what is easier/better: either to have separate score sheets for each proposal, or a single combined sheet. Also, that tabular format can be used then to rearrange the individual preferences into the new panes by copy-pasting them from the score sheet. --Rsx11m 02:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Please make sure to use the 3.0b1pre nightlies as a reference for your proposals, not the current 2.0.0.x releases. --Rsx11m 04:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I am using the current nightlies.Tyler 14:19, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Good, but I had noticed that some of the mockup pictures in the related individual bugs were not. --Rsx11m 15:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

And I did not creat the mockups. I do think Martin should use those nightlies though. Tyler 17:13, 16 August 2008 (UTC) - (I know, that was directed at Martin and future contributors)

Should we link to this page from Thunderbird:Thunderbird3? Tyler 01:34, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read the introductory sentence on that page, but you could refer to this page from Talk:Thunderbird:Thunderbird3 instead. --Rsx11m 00:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

That is why I had asked on this page. I will do something from the Talk.Tyler 01:05, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Number of panes and prefs per pane or tab?

From my comments #23 and #25,

• Which number of panes is considered "healthy" - currently we have six?

• What is the threshold for the maximum number of preferences per pane or tab?
  • The "Single window version mock up" proposal for the Global Account Settings looks quite overwhelming, to name an example.

--Rsx11m 04:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

As for the "Single window version mock up" it may not be that bad as it looks?

We haven't discussed it explicitly, but maybe the Global Account Settings menu should be the first account in the Account Settings. If that's the case, then the window size is might larger than the Preference window size. --D2xdt2

The Global Account Settings should probably reflect the settings available that each account could override (and yes, should be on top of the list). Thus, it would (may?) follow the structure of the regular accounts, but modify the defaults inherited by any account which did not explicitly set them. Those can be overridden in the corresponding account-specific tabs, where some mechanism would be needed to identify those boxes where the global setting is taken versus those which were modified for this specific preference. Window size: The Account Settings are larger already than the Options window, so that's probably ok. The concern is how many buttons and menus are acceptable before it's getting confusing for the user. --Rsx11m 15:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Milestone approval

I do not see any major issues with the proposed changes (other than the size of the windows). Are there any major issues that should be addressed before we move to milestone 2? Or, should we consider this milestone 1 Version 1, and work on Milestone 1 Version 2 (with adjustment made for the windows size issue). Tyler 21:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be consensus on that the primary preferences should be collected in individual panes without multiple tabs, and that secondary preferences should be in an Advanced pane with multiple tabs. I would not sign off on the absolute number of tabs needed at this time, which depends on the overall "filling" strategy I tried to motivate in my 04:54, 16 August 2008 comment, and any removal or addition of preferences. --Rsx11m 00:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC)