K-9: Ability to edit contact name / email address in reply tokens

[LeftPinkie]

Prior to v5.201, I could edit the contact name after I pulled it from my contact list. However with this new version I can no longer edit the email (display name or address) once I have selected from my contact list. Also I cannot copy the email address to my clipboard any longer.

K-9 Mail version: 5.201

[philipwhiuk]

Pressing delete (backspace) should turn the token into an email address I think.

[LeftPinkie]

Nope, backspace just delete the address token

[LeftPinkie]

Also... when I type a partial email address & tab to the next field, it will automatically select the first contact. This is not what I want and can lead to accidentally sending to unintended contact. Is there a way to disable this feature in the settings?

[AliakseiKruk]

Two additional comments:

• It is impossible to change address in field "To:". For example if there is "[email protected]" in "To:" and i want to replaces it with "[email protected]" i cannot do it by replacing "1" with "2" (just type it), but it was very usefull in previous versions.
  
  
  
  • If there are "[email protected]" and "[email protected]" in my Contacts and i type "[email protected]" then app selects first entry from contacts and i cannot send email to "[email protected]". Previous versions allowed me type address and select one from suggestions if i want.
  
  

[cketti]

@AliakseiKruk: Please create a new issue for the second problem. The first one is an annoyance we'll get to eventually. The second one is a bug we should get to rather sooner than later. As a work-around enter a space after the email address, then a comma. That will create a "[email protected]" box instead of using the first suggestion.

[LeftPinkie]

@AliakseiKruk @cketti

I've opened new issue #1950 for the second problem.

[Dave-Rado]

The inability to edit the display name is not an annoyance, it is so serious that if it is not fixed soon, I will have to find a new email app for my phone. To understand why, please see my recent posts in the K-9 Mail Google support group here. Please could you reconsider your priorities. I love K-9 Mail's other features, have been using it for many years, and I am very reluctant to switch to another app, but I find this new lack of functionality that you have just introduced simply intolerable. I will stick with K-9 Mail if this problem can be addressed in the near future, but not otherwise.

Dave

[philipwhiuk]

I looked at this briefly - I thought that a text field appearing on tapping the display name might work.

Unfortunately the code is currently not built allow changes to be saved back to the selection. Getting the soft keyboard to display was also a problem I was unable to resolve - it's some kind of conflict between the To' field's EditText still having focus at the same time as the ListPopupWindow's.

This isn't a feature that Gmail's mobile app tries to support with their tokens. It behaves the same as ours. In general applications don't give you the option.

That isn't to say we shouldn't try of course.

[njeyaakili]

... but the gmail app does let you go back and directly edit an address that you entered manually (as opposed to one from your contacts).

it also lets you copy a tokenized address (brought in from your contacts or when replying to a message). you can then paste this into the same or a different of the recipient fields and can edit it in the process.

i think that these two capabilities are what people are after.

[i'd like for the placeholder letter/picture to go too, but that may be asking too much ... ]

[philipwhiuk]

When I wrote 'Pressing delete (backspace) should turn the token [back] into an email address I think.' I think that was what I thought ought to happen, not what does happen. I'll try and look at that idea tomorrow.

Valodim's got a PR for copying the tokens around. It's not completely ready for merging yet but it's a nice start.

[Exaeta]

Can't you just revert the changes that caused this? This kind of bug is blocking... this is why free software will never compete with proprietary software...

[philipwhiuk]

1. Removing features because they aren't perfect means the app never changes. This change was in beta for ages.
2. It's not trivial to back-out this change, especially as provides some secondary information to PGP/MIME.
3. There is a work-around - delete the token and correct the email address. It's not a blocker.

On the actual issue, I was just looking at Gmail web. Double clicking on the token changes the token back into text. So for changing the address that's one approach we might take.

[Exaeta]

It's better that the app doesn't change instead of changes to be broken. Especially since you cannot copy the address to edit it. If you fixed it where you could at least copy it, then paste and edit, it would be fine. As is you have to copy the address by hand becuase the copy function does not work.

Change for the sake of change is a very bad thing.

[rancidfrog]

@philipwhiuk Does not work all the time, though.
Many cases where it does not work that way which is expected. I believe it only works when you type the email address yourself and the token gets created, versus copying and pasting email addresses or replying/fwd etc

Also,
This seems interesting: https://github.com/hootsuite/nachos
Since current tokens do not work well.