Highlighting the folder drop-target

[Ross Poulton]

Eliot,



Great change - I haven't tested it out as yet, but I believe the issue of removing the list icons will be fixed up by using the following CSS instead:



#mailboxlist li.rollover

{

  background-color: #D80D0D;

}



This will change just the background COLOR property of the list item - not the entire BACKGROUND property (which I believe controls the folder-specific icons where used).



Regards,



Ross



On Sun, 9 Oct 2005 22:37:40 -0400, Eliot Kristan <eliot.k at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,

> 

> I just discovered RoundCube and jumped on the list last night. What a

> great

> job with the ideas and the code!

> 

> I was thinking the same thing that Mark had about drop targets. I added a

> mouseover / mouseout sequence to program -> steps -> mail ->

> funcs.incbeginning at line 214 when the <li>'s for the individual mail

> folders

> begins. Mouseover gives the <li> a new class called 'rollover' which I

> defined in skins -> default -> mail.css at line 255 with the other

> mailboxlist styles.

> 

> With this the individual mailbox will take on a highlighted background

> color

> (could be other styles too, of course) when you roll a dragged item over

> it.

> The only thing with this is that the inbox and trash png's dissapear

> during

> the rollover. You could of course do individual rollover classes for the

> inbox and trash <li>'s.

> 

> Attached is a bitty text file of these changes.

> 

> It's great to be here!

> 

> Best,

> Eliot

> 

>> - Drag-and-drop targets: I noticed Zimbra changed the dragged item to

> green

>> when over a valid drop-target. A helpful UI clue to assist users if easy

> to

>> implement.

> 

> 

> On 10/9/05, Thomas Bruederli <roundcube at gmail.com> wrote:

>>

>> 2005/10/8, Mark Mackay - Orcon <mark at orcon.net.nz>:

>> >

>> > Hi guys -

>>

>> Hello Mark. Thanks for your long list of good ideas!

>> >

>> > I'm new to the list as I only stumbled across Roundcube the other day,

>> and

>> > can't find any mailing list archives (are there any?); so forgive me

> if

>> I

>> > repeat any feedback/questions. First off - awesome webmail client.

> Been

>> > waiting for a good open source Ajax webmail, and was certainly not

>> > disappointed. Found Zimbra at around the same time, and definitely

> very

>> > cool. but obviously on the heavy side.

>> >

>> > This latest version seems to address some of the previous version

> issues

>> > that I spotted, however there's a few things I'll note here which are

>> > wishlists/feedback:

>> >

>> > HIERARCHICAL FOLDERS

>> > Great to see in the new version, but the current presentation isn't as

>> ideal

>> > when you have lots of folders. I think would be boosted substantially

> by

>>

>> > having sub-folders initially hidden and expandable, although possibly

>> saving

>> > the "expanded" view in a cookie or prefs or something. It also

> truncates

>> > the name of long (or deeply nested folders).

>>

>> Totally agree. The current solution was just added very quickly and

>> surely has to be improved with more functionality.

>> >

>> > NAVIGATION / UI

>> > I watched about 5 people initially try to use Roundcube for the first

>> time,

>> > and everyone seemed to initially struggle with working out the

>> navigation

>> > options. Ajax is new to most, so not everyone's used to the way things

>> can

>> > work yet. Some suggestions:

>> >

>> > - Make the cursor change to an hourglass when you double-click on a

>> message,

>> > or put a progress bar/icon somewhere - so that people know something

>> should

>> > be happening. It wasn't very obvious to double-click (based on the way

>> the

>> > cursor/selection stuff happened) - so maybe make the clicking title

>> > automatically open the message, or provide a location on the line

> where

>> a

>> > single click will definitely work.

>>

>> Because Roundcube does not come up with (ugly) checkboxes on each line

>> to select a message, we used one click for the message selection. Also

>> it was some sort of a test, how a web application using double-clicks

>> will work. I already got lots of feedbacks concerning this topic.

>> We also made some tests with setting the hourglass-cursor and it's

>> possible to do so but if you reset the cursor to 'default' (this has

>> to be done for the whole document) then all buttons will loose their

>> hand-cursor. If someone has a better solution for that, please let me

>> know...

>> >

>> > - Two nav bars: The nav at the top and bottom is a bit confusing to

>> users,

>> > so I'd suggest putting them all in the one location. Feedback from my

>> > initial test users is that some of the icons aren't obvious as to what

>> they

>> > do (the inbox at the bottom, "logout" -- could be confused with delete

>> -- so

>> > maybe make delete a trash can? This is obviously changeable through

> the

>> > skins, but feedback provided in case you think it's worthy updating

> the

>> > default skin.

>>

>> The current skin actually is just for development and was designed by

>> a programmer and not by a real screen designer. The lower nav bar

>> should be some sort of a task list.

>> We have people working on a new skin for RoundCube.

>> >

>> > - Use of alt-tags, window.status messages, etc: For a first-time user

>> > there's no real clue as to what buttons do except their icon. The

>> mouseover

>> > URL doesn't provide much insight, as it's all JavaScript references,

>> etc.

>>

>> All buttons have title-attributes set for the <a> tag but IE prefers

>> to use the empty alt-attribute. Modern browsers all show up the titles

>> set for each button. Also the skin architecture allows to create

>> buttons with a text label.

>> >

>> > - Drag-and-drop targets: I noticed Zimbra changed the dragged item to

>> green

>> > when over a valid drop-target. A helpful UI clue to assist users if

> easy

>> to

>> > implement.

>>

>> Good point. I'll try to improve this.

>> >

>> > - Speed with large mailboxes: The first time I logged in (with 380

>> > messages, but about 40 subscribed folders) took an age. I realise the

>> cache

>> > needs to be built up, but this first-time hit (our imap server is

>> currently

>> > quite slow, which may be contributing to it) is quite unbearable for

>> users.

>> > Perhaps a message could be displayed like "Updating message listing"

> so

>> that

>> > it moves off the initial login screen more quickly? Ditto for loading

> up

>> an

>> > un-cached mailbox, although the "loading" at the top helps.

>>

>> If logging in for the first time, all mailboxes are listed and the

>> client requests a message count for each one. This is what takes a lot

>> of time and it certainly has to be improved.

>> >

>> > - Mysql max_allowed_packet: Encountered a user (with about 3000

> messages

>> in

>> > inbox) exceeding the default max_allowed_packet of 1M. Worked by

>> boosting

>> > it, but there may be some issues with really large mailboxes under the

>> > single-cache-entry for per mailbox. Certainly a read-me note would

> help

>> for

>> > this. When it did encounter the issue, the error was plastered behind

>> the

>> > message list; although I think the changelogs indicates a possible fix

>> in

>> > the latest version for this.

>>

>> I already know this problem. Unfortunately it's not mentioned in the

>> INSTALL or README file. Also for caching messages with large

>> attachments, max_allowed_packet should be increased. I know that the

>> current caching method is not perfect and can be dead slow with more

>> than 5000 messages in one box.

>> >

>> > - Livegrid: You've probably already seen it, but check out

>> > http://openrico.org/rico/livegrid.page. This concept would

>> > be great for dealing with large imap mailboxes. Removes the need for

>> > pagination, and may be possible to reduce loading time by caching

>> on-demand.

>>

>> Live grid is nice but since you are talking about usability, I think

>> the scrolling behavior of the list is a bit confusing. Further I'm not

>> sure how browsers can deal with tables containing > 20.000 lines.

>> >

>> >

>> > ATTACHMENTS

>> > I seem to be having issues with Windows XP service pack 2 (and IE 6)

>> with

>> > attachments. The new window loads but then says files are being

> blocked

>> from

>> > downloaded (PDF doc). when I accept the download file it then asks me

> to

>> > save it rather than view it inline. I think this is something to do

> with

>> the

>> > iframe, and may not be affecting other users (could be a mime setting

> on

>> my

>> > webserver I guess). If sticking with the embedded attachment approach,

>> I'd

>> > put some instructions to trust the website or something (but then

> again,

>> not

>> > necessarily a good idea for webmail where any sort of attachment could

>> be

>> > presented).

>>

>> RoundCube only opens a new window for attachments which could be

>> displayed within the browser (like images and PDFs). Other file types

>> will be downloaded directly. This functionality should be improved

>> with a plugin-checker detecting if the browser can display a specific

>> file.

>> >

>> >

>> > DELETING

>> > - Bug? When viewing a message and clicking "Delete" up the top the

>> current

>> > build displays progress then reverts back to message listing and

> doesn't

>>

>> > appear t delete the message. When you highlight the message in the

>> listing

>> > and do delete, it does quickly disappear though.

>>

>> Probably a caching problem. I'll check that

>> >

>> >

>> > Well that's it for my first post. Thanks for the great work so far.

>> Shaping

>> > up to be a kick-arse webmail client. Let me know if you like the

>> feedback,

>> > and I'll continue to assist with more usability comments.

>>

>> You are welcome to do!

>> >

>> > Regards,

>> > Mark Mackay.

>>

>> Best regards,

>> Thomas

>>

>>

>>

> 

>