Mail: Reply function is not intuitive

[StCyr]

Feature Request

The "Reply" function ("Send" button) is not intuitive.

This issue has been reported multiple times.

IMHO, the following issues relate to this single problem:

• https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/1513
• https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/192
• https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/issues/287

I've upgraded to mail 0.15.1 yesterday and I'm now experiencing yet another new strange behaviour:

Now, the "Send" button is not greyed out anymore before one starts typing an answer to the email.

I understand the validity of this change, but, unfortunatelly, now, I've experienced the following:

The first email I was reading after the upgrade was quite long. At least long enough that I was not seeing the reply part of the screen. Here's a screenshot of what I mean:

Noticing that the "Send" button was not greyed out, I tried clicking on it and was very surprise to get a "sending reply" message from nextcloud (because I didn't type anything in the reply yet).

And, that's how I've discovered that the "Send" button's behaviour had changed with my upgrade to mail 0.15.1

Summary

The "Send" button should be made less error-prone:

1. When it's greyed out before the user starts typing a reply, users tend to believe that replying to email just doesn't work (see linked issues here above)
2. When it's not greyed out before the user stazrts typing a reply, users may send empty replies erroneously (this issue)

Something better should be implemented. For example:

1. A "Reply pane" that would always be visible could be implemented at the bottom of the email details component;
2. The "Send" button could scroll down to the reply part of the email details component when the user clicks on it without having typed anything in the reply part yet.

Could you please consider the validity of this feature request?

Thanks

[StCyr]

this PR solves the issue I believe: https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/pull/1774

[el3ctrician]

seems like the PR is ready but not accepted yet, any updates on the issue ? i think it is not even worth it to start a new PR if this one is already there right ?

[StCyr]

there are 2 things left todo:

1. Position actions at the top right
2. Expand the popover menu to a vertical group of buttons

[el3ctrician]

should i clone your fork @StCyr and start working there or start my new fork ?

[ChristophWurst]

2\. Expand the popover menu to a vertical group of buttons

This has to be decided yet, @jancborchardt has other ideas/opinions on that

[StCyr]

hi @el3ctrician

should i clone your fork @StCyr and start working there or start my new fork ?

I don't think so: For me, exception made of the icons which are not the correct ones, the PR was completly done. And, I can still work on this if needed.

For what regards the 2 additional TODO's that @ChristophWurst mentions, I believe (1) was already implemented, and (2) seems to be subject of internal discussion.

So, I don't think there's much left the community can do here (Except creating the 3 missing icons).

Cyrille

==============

For the record, here's a screenshot of this PR's result (as of commit https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/pull/1774/commits/83226e021bd0313417dfa77240927a3ad17b2cb3):

[el3ctrician]

Thanks a lot. Unfortunately i have no experience with icons design so i can't help much on that so i'll just be waiting for the nextcloud guys to accept the PR. Thanks a lot for all of you

[jancborchardt]

Hey, nice work! :) Some pieces of feedback for the design:

• One action definitely needs to be directly visible as a button with class="primary" left of the 3-dot menu. And that main action is "Reply" (that is "Reply all"). The actions in the menu should be "Reply to sender only" and "Forward".
• If it’s a mail with 1 other person only, the main action is "Reply" (being reply all, as in only the sender) and the only action in the menu is "Forward".
• Icon for reply is: https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/blob/master/img/reply.svg
• Icon for forward, I could rotate .icon-download 90 degrees and it would fit. Works?

Makes sense?

[StCyr]

Hi @jancborchardt

Thanks for your answer. I'll implement your "primary button" request.

For the rest, I've already proceed with icons "reply all" and "forward" but I can't figure out how I should call/use them from js. I've posted a question at https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/pull/1774#issuecomment-526231084. Could you help?

Cyrille

[StCyr]

hey @jancborchardt

I think I've implemented answers wrt your feedback.

Could you have a look at https://github.com/nextcloud/mail/pull/1774 ?

[jancborchardt]

This was fixed through #1774, :tada:! :)