Shift focus to message window if message window scrollbar has been used.
(1) I click on a message in the scan-line window, and it opens in the message window. (2) I begin to read the message. I click on the vertical scrollbar and the message pages down. So far, everything is fine. (3) For my next page down, I use the PgDn key. This causes a page down in the scan-line window, not the message window. In fact, it opens a new message, corresponding to the new scan line. I have lost my place in the original message.
The problem is that the scan-line window has the focus, and keystrokes are applied to that window.
Note that, if I click in the message text before step (3) above, the focus is moved to the message window, and subsequent uses of the PgDn key scroll the message, not the scan lines.
It seems reasonable that using the scroll bar for a window should mean that window has focus for keyboard purposes. The scrollbar is part of the window assembly, and should attract focus just as clicking in the window's text area does.
All Replies (5)
What OS?
You could be describing Windows Explorer which also requires a tiresome and irrational click into a pane to set focus. I've never noticed this behaviour in Thunderbird, which I use in both Windows 7 and Linux.
I believe you are talking about what we normally call the "thread pane".
Thanks for the terminology. Threads pane it is.
I am using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Does that mean I'm viewing something that is just a problem due to some peculiarity of my machine, not Thunderbird nor the OS version?
The behavior in Windows Explorer is similar, but not as annoying. That's because the PgDn key will scroll the folders pane, but not open the new folder in the contents pane; it leaves the old folder on-screen in the contents pane. Opening the folder into the contents pane requires an explicit click or an additional key press, the Enter key.
Thanks so far.
I confirm that under Windows 7 it behaves erratically as you describe. It's the same under Linux, where in general we expect focus-follows-mouse behaviour without extraneous clicking. Indeed, scrolling using the mouse wheel does follow the cursor in Thunderbird both in Windows and Linux (which is why the Windows Explorer behaviour trips me up.)
I hadn't noticed the page up/page down issue myself, since I habitually scroll with the mouse wheel. To me, it seems easier to use the wheel my finger is resting on rather than aiming at the comparatively small target of a scroll bar. In general, I have given up on trying to work Thunderbird via the keyboard; there are too many items that require a mouse click, such as buttons with no accelerator equivalent, right-click actions and so on. So I hadn't tried page up and page down.
Thank you for checking that out.
So we confirm that it does behave as described. This is clearly a bug. Probably not high priority, but a bug. Even if I agree that your work-around (always use the mouse, never the keyboard), something needs to be done to either disable the keyboard's control keys or make them do the right thing.
BTW, a little testing shows that the focus moves correctly for the scroll-wheel on the mouse. It goes exactly the way the keyboard keys SHOULD go. So we know how to do it; we have to apply it to the keyboard as well as the scroll wheel. We should fix it!
So how do we get it on the worklist as an acknowledged bug?
dtutelman moo ko soppali ci
You can report a bug here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org
You will need to create an account there if you don't already have one. It would be polite to do a search and see if your bug has already been reported, but that's not an easy matter. If you do find an existing bug, it's best to vote for it rather than post a "me too" kind of message, unless you have some additional information about the issue.