K-9: Attachment indicator / scroll to bottom button

[Valodim]

Given the amount of feedback we have received about the new placing of attachments, I think it makes sense to do something about it.

The two obvious choices are 1) reverting or 2) ignoring the feedback. Neither of those seem particularly attractive, so I'd like to offer a third choice: Adding a "scroll to bottom" indicator, I imagine something like a little indicator on the top or bottom right that shows a clip icon and a little number, in a design that indicates that a click on it will scroll to the bottom of the page.

Thoughts? I would also very much appreciate a design mockup for this indicator, if anything would be up for that (@moctodot maybe?)

[philipwhiuk]

Do we need to scroll to bottom or do we just need to be smarter and have a little button with a paperclip system that shows a drop down list of attachments. I feel like hijacking scroll is a bad idea.

But I agree that we probably need mock-ups for this to make an informed choice.

[Valodim]

It's not really "hijacking", it just scrolls to the part of the view where attachments are. If I understand your suggestion correctly, the list of attachments in the drop down would be redundant to those displayed below the mail, wouldn't it?

[ArchangeGabriel]

@Valodim What @philipwhiuk says, which is also what I’ve proposed in another thread, is to completely replace attachments at the bottom by a clip icon at the top (in the “headers” part), which would either shows a drop down list of attachments or replace content view with attachment one.

Attachments at the bottom serve no purpose.

[Valodim]

I would argue that attachments at the bottom are the default. It's what gmail does in both web interface and app, as does Thunderbird. You're not on the side arguing the obviously accepted way of things here, you're arguing that we should deviate from the default. Statements like that last one are not helping me see your cause.

The header view is borderline overloaded already, and attachments are not metadata I don't see why the button to access them would go in the header.

[cketti]

I'm with Valodim here. Most of the time you'll read the text then get to the attachments. Placing them at the end of the text seems like the thing to do.
Now I can understand that it's super inconvenient when there is a ton of quoted text between the end of the current message and the attachments. But I think we should fix that problem by hiding the quoted text by default (see #763) rather than moving attachments somewhere else.

We only moved attachments to the top for technical reasons. Now that we're using WebView in a ScrollView again there's no reason for that anymore.
We did have a feature that allowed scrolling to attachments by double tapping the lower third of the screen. Double tapping the upper third of the screen would scroll to the top. I'm not sure if we should re-introduce this behavior. It probably interferes with the double tap zoom of the WebView. Maybe we can accomplish the same with some kind of overlay buttons. A 'scroll to bottom' button at the top seems a bit less useful but would work for me, too.

[ArchangeGabriel]

@Valodim Never used GMail web interface or app, so don’t know about them. I’ve just searched for screenshots, but obviously couldn’t find one showing what it does with very long quoted conversation. Which is…? And Thunderbird is a desktop app, so I wouldn’t make all UI decisions in K-9 based on this app if I were you. Because if you go that way, attachment are always displayed at the bottom, which is indeed something you don’t want in K-9 AFAIK. ;)

That being said, @cketti seems to have the better solution indeed, #763. And apparently, this is what GMail does, which both answer my above question and should suits you @Valodim. :)

[DarkerSideUK]

Stumbled across this yesterday when someone added an attachment to a vaguely long email thread, that had also had some weird rendering to only display one character on each line for the earlier emails (something to do with the other person's client indenting each quoted email repeatedly).

It took 25 seconds to scroll to the bottom (I've just timed it). Not ideal!

Could something be bodged relatively quickly whilst a neater solution is found? 763 would certainly sort it, but it also seems slightly more complex to implement.

Cheers!

Rob

[BrianCarlsen]

First of all there is ABSOLUTELY no way of telling there is an attachment until you reach the end of the thread.

For usability you will need an indicator in the header to make sure that the user is aware about attachments.

• This could be in the form of a button that lists attachments ( or scrolls them into view... )

I agree - Attachments at the bottom are useless - This is not a desktop-app.

/Brian

[jimimaseye]

A thought for those that think needing to scroll to the bottom to see attachments are a good idea:

It is entirely possible (and indeed I come here with my own personal experience of this in mind) that people can receive regular emails from the same source (maybe because they are system admins receiving monitor feedback emails or notifications, or regular subscription emails, etc) where the body of the email may contain a lot of 'nothing important' and that the only thing that is important and changes is the contents of the attachment that is sent. Such regular emails, as K9 used to offer, were simply to read - they came in, the body was unimportant and not read, and we simply read the attachments as at the top without the needing to waste time scrolling. You can imagine that having many emails of the same requiring constant scrolling just to get to the end can _seem_ like scrolling is all we are doing and becomes an endless annoyance.

I personally dont see anything wrong with them appearing at the top (behind an 'reveal attachments' button if necessary). Any claims to make K9 'the same as' desktop email clients is unfounded for the following reasons:

1, desktop clients run on much LARGER screens and display space is not so much as a premium
2, desktop clients do not require scrolling down to see them (the attachments often appear in an attachment bar at the bottom irrespective of where you are in viewing the email body)
3, if necessary, scrolling on a desktop is a lot easier (less thumb action required and each scroll covers a much larger content area)

Please seriously consider putting the 'reveal attachments' button back at the top of the screen if attachments are attached. (Im still unsure what the reasoning was behind removing it in the first place. What was wrong with the old way?)

Thanks.

[ArchangeGabriel]

I thought the reasoning was “space lost for actual mail display”, but not sure about that. However, I consider this as an extremely valid argument, while still considering the current situation far from ideal.

[GrandTitus]

I do not pretend to have read all threads concerning this feature, but I still do not understand why attachments have been moved from the top to the bottom of emails.

@Valodim, you said "it is a standard in GMail".
But
1) I am precisely using K9 because I hate the GMail app or web site presentation
2) Many other desktop email clients exist that display attachments on the top. So, GMail is NOT a standard.

Some proposals have already been provided:

• add a button on the top (my preferred)
• collapse nested quote (personally I do not like this feature in the GMail app)
• add a button to scroll down/up (it seems like a workaround?)
• and maybe others...

I would like to add another proposal (maybe not a new one, but I did not see it):
K9 has so many configuration settings (that is one of many reasons I love it), why do not add an option to let the user decides where he wants to display attachments?

I do not know if it is easy or not to implement. However, it seems less expensive than other proposals (but I may be wrong).

To end with a positive note:
Thanks to all developers for this really great application!

[ANEast]

@Valodim and @cketti
Thanks for your work on k-9. It is my much preferred mail client on Android. However, I would really appreciate a resolution to this inconvenient change.

Whilst I hear the arguments of a user reading text and then reaching the attachments, I think this only works in a few e-mails. As soon as you start receiving e-mail chains from those involved in large organisations it becomes impossible. @Valodim - you correctly state that Thunderbird shows attachments at the bottom, however, this is at the bottom of the display port, NOT the bottom of the message. Therefore the attachments are always displayed on the screen. This would not work on a phone due to the limited screen real estate.

When looking at a message I have received: I read the message (traditionally at the top). Below that is usually a personal signature, followed by a corporate signature, followed by multiple messages, personal and corporate signatures. I don't want to read any of that, except when I am referencing something previously said. However, the attachments do not go back and forth - I want to just open the attachments sent on the latest e-mail. Why must I scroll all the way to the bottom to see them?

Regarding the suggestion of a scroll to bottom button - why not make this a show attachments button, and save the slightly hacky fix of auto-scrolling?

I think if there are different desires for where attachments are shown (which is suggested by the reports and discussion here) then @GrandTitus 's suggestion of a user configuration option seems the ideal solution.

Overall, excellent app. However, I would be very grateful for a better solution for attachments.

[KNejad]

Any updates on this? I love K9 mail. In fact it’s the only email app I like (desktop or mobile). But this has been a huge annoyance with me lately. Every day I receive emails from an artist and I have to scroll to the bottom of a large quoted email thread to view the images. I’m honestly considering getting another email app just for communications with this 1 person and use K9 mail for everything else. I really don’t want to do that though.

I think a button to view attachments would be the best solution here.

[ANEast]

The developers seem aware of this (@cketti referenced this thread in February), but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any progress with it. I would implement it myself as an option if only I had the time and skill. This frustrating 'feature' has caused me to look elsewhere, but I just can't find a replacement. Now that "everyone" has footers which are longer than their e-mail and replies to all, the file I want can be a long way down. I would be very keen for the developers to revisit the option of a user configuration option as per @GrandTitus

[kojid0]

Any news on this? Is this functionality available in v5.7?

[ANEast]

Any news on this? Is this functionality available in v5.7?

Your post led me to download 5.7 to try, but sadly it is still not an option as far as I can find.

[deutrino]

Having a button at the top to scroll to the bottom to see attachments which were placed at the bottom in order to save space by not having buttons at the top is not a good solution. Please just put a UX-sane method of accessing attachments at the top.

[ANEast]

Having a button at the top to scroll to the bottom to see attachments which were placed at the bottom in order to save space by not having buttons at the top is not a good solution. Please just put a UX-sane method of accessing attachments at the top.

@Deutrino - the way you phrased this is great. Beautiful summary! Made me laugh though!