Bug 102123

The reasoning is simple: if up/down scroll the preview pane, what keys can you use to select messages forward and backwards?

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 96301 ***

No, I'm afraid that reasoning is very thin on the ground and totally flawed - whatever it is. Sorry to be pedantic, but this is a cast-iron obvious usability issue. It *should not* be closed, but I don't want to re-open as I feel we'll get a flame-war over something so ridiculously simple.

Can you explain why up/down scrolls the view pane and not the e-mail list?

Up/down *should not* scroll the view pane, it should scroll through your e-mail list because that is where the user's focus is. The use of the up-down arrow keys is more important to the e-mail list as users scroll through them, briefly scanning at their e-mails as they go. They do not need to scroll through the view pane because users simply scan the first few sentences when they do this, and many e-mails are not long enough to need this. If a users wants to scroll down to look in more detail at the e-mail, then they'll spend some time doing it.

I'm sorry to say that whatever hard work the KMail/Kontact developers put in, KMail together with Kontact will be rejected out of hand as a serious e-mail client.

Can you provide some more detailed usage information on this current behaviour please?

> I'm sorry to say that whatever hard work the KMail/Kontact 
 > developers put in, KMail together with Kontact will be
 > rejected out of hand as a serious e-mail client.


Those arguments are all nonsense. I'm pretty sure that you will cry 
about Thunderbird's keyboard handling once you've got familiar with 
KMail's key bindings. They are highly efficient. Use KMail and it's key 
bindings exclusivly for a high traffic mailbox for a month or so. Then 
start the experiment. You'll see.

Using the TAB key twice or more just to jump from the message list to 
the preview pane (and follow the focus with your eyes to get the moment 
when the arrow keys will apply to the preview) is just brain dead. It's 
stupid following the Win* way of working.

BTW, the same problem arises on people working on GUI-ified financial 
accounting systems. Using the TAB key is a killer in the booking 
workflow. All better solutions redefine the keys of the numeric key pad 
to allow fast access to the most important steps.
There are also people out there who complain about that. But if you can 
afford the time to do it the slow and stupid way, than you can take the 
mouse as well and click your commands.

But hey, don't blame the software or it's developers then.

PS. OTOH, I see indeed the need to add a "slow, simple, stupid" 
keybinding mode and the ability to switch between them to KMail. People 
won't stop to complain, and people just want what is good enough. They 
would even use OL as THE killer application if it only were available on 
Windows.

> Those arguments are all nonsense. I'm pretty sure that you will cry
> about Thunderbird's keyboard handling once you've got familiar with
> KMail's key bindings.

Not interested in all of the key bindings - I'm interested in one aspect. The ability to scroll through a *vertical* list with *vertical* arrow keys. It is logic - plain and simple.

> Then start the experiment. You'll see.

Already have. Scrolling through a vertical list of items with horizontal arrow keys is like "something from a lunatic asylum" (actual words from a user).

> Using the TAB key twice or more just to jump from the message list to
> the preview pane (and follow the focus with your eyes to get the moment
> when the arrow keys will apply to the preview) is just brain dead.

Given the usage patterns of users and how they try to scroll through their e-mails, this is the most logical way to getting to how the vast majority of users try to use this. Users want to scroll through a *vertical* list of e-mails with their *vertical* arrow keys - nothing more nothing less.

You can also do this through mouse follows focus quite easily. There is nothing broken about this approach at all because it follows logic. You're stirring around trying to paint a picture of something that is different from Windows for the sake of it, but not realising that it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

> It's stupid following the Win* way of working.

Flawed thinking. I'm interested in what makes sense, and if Windows happens to do that or not I'm not bothered. Rejecting something sensible because Windows or Outlook implements it is just simply bizarre.

> BTW, the same problem arises on people working on GUI-ified financial
> accounting systems. Using the TAB key is a killer in the booking
> workflow.

In any of these systems, do users scroll through a vertical list of items with their horizontal arrow keys?

> All better solutions redefine the keys of the numeric key pad
> to allow fast access to the most important steps.

How is this better?

> But if you can afford the time to do it the slow and stupid way

There's nothing slow and stupid about browsing each e-mail and scrolling through a *vertical* list of e-mails with your *vertical* arrow keys. No user is going to take the trouble to find out about doing this with their horizontal keys (it wont't enter their heads, as this is a vertical list after all!), and they won't care why - they just won't use it.

> But hey, don't blame the software or it's developers then.

Unfortunately I can't help but blame them. This isn't a complex problem, it is simple, simple, simple, simple.

> I see indeed the need to add a "slow, simple, stupid" keybinding mode and the 
> ability to switch between them to KMail.

Quite right. People won't use it ;).

> People won't stop to complain, and people just want what is good enough. They
> would even use OL as THE killer application if it only were available on
> Windows.

What?

It is no less intuitive to scroll a vertical text, than to sroll a vertical list, so there is not perfect solution, as the focus of the user shifts from the lsit to the pane when reading email. Up/down is certainly intuitive, when the message is on its own. Yet, this is a dilemma between two vertical objects, so there will not be a perfect for everyone solution. One should certainly not introduce the need for more keystrokes, i.e. TAB to change focus before being able to navigate, or CTRL+DOWN, as one needs both hands for that!

> Given the usage patterns of users and how they try to scroll through their
> e-mails, this is the most logical way to getting to how the vast majority
> of users try to use this. Users want to scroll through a *vertical* list of
> e-mails with their *vertical* arrow keys - nothing more nothing less.


You miss the most important point. Up and Down arrow keys are already bound. 
The tabbing to switch the focus is not very helpfull here, because it 
introduces additional key strokes.
Look, we could as well have defined F5, F6 or Comma / Colon etc. to do the 
scrolling in the list. Maybe nobody would complain because the function keys 
are free available to be bound to any function (okay, there are some 
standards as well).
However this would mean to go far distances on your keyboard. Why can't people 
abstract that the arrow to the left means the previous message?

How would you try to explain Ctrl-A to people in Russia? What do you associate 
with such a key? What do people in Japan or China associate with the keys?

And finally, the usage pattern of users of mail programs has been influenced 
by the overwhelming installation base of OL. So I'm certainly right when I 
say that people think this is the only natural way to handle e-mails in a 
program.

> > People won't stop to complain, and people just want what is good enough.
> > They would even use OL as THE killer application if it only were
> > available on [...]


on *Linux* was meant.

Anyway, if time of the developers permits, there will be different key 
bindings. People not able or willing to learn can use what they want to wast 
their time.

> You miss the most important point. Up and Down arrow keys are already bound.

Then change the binding, because it isn't logical, and the binding for the up/down arrow keys currently isn't where the primary task that a user wants to perform is.

> The tabbing to switch the focus is not very helpfull here, because it 
> introduces additional key strokes.

More key strokes for what? You're not thinking of how people actually use this. They go through their e-mails one by one, looking at the first few sentences of the e-mail, and if it is something they want to do about they'll take action. Taking that action is inevitably going to require use of the mouse and additional keystrokes anyway. The vast majority of users are not going to tab down to the view pane to see the rest of *every single* e-mail because:

a) They only view the first few sentences, as I've said, before deciding whether to leave it. Scrolling down through the mail isn't necessary.
b) The vast majority of e-mails are not long enough to actually need the immediate facility to scroll through.

The more I think this through, the more the current behaviour just doesn't make sense.

> Look, we could as well have defined F5, F6 or Comma / Colon etc. to do the
> scrolling in the list.

Because those keys are even more, completely unrelated.

> However this would mean to go far distances on your keyboard. Why can't
> people abstract that the arrow to the left means the previous message?

Because a user's e-mails are listed *vertically*. It is simple human nature and logic. If the e-mails were listed horizontally, then the 'next' and 'previous' e-mail terminology would make sense.

> And finally, the usage pattern of users of mail programs has been influenced 
> by the overwhelming installation base of OL.

Can you leave Outlook out of this please? I'm interested in what works - if that means doing things the same or differently to Outlook, I certainly don't care.

I think peoples' thinking on this has been coloured by the thought of "doing things differently to Outlook and Windows", whether that actually makes sense or not. I just find that a bit silly to be honest, but there you go.

> So I'm certainly right when I say that people think this is the only natural
> way to handle e-mails in a program.

No. In this case it is simply plain logical, whether that is the way Outlook does things or not.

> Anyway, if time of the developers permits, there will be different key
> bindings.

Well I certainly wasn't talking about changing the whole structure of KMail or some really complicated change. As a whole, KMail and Kontact are quite complete and solid technologically - that's what is a bit frustrating. There's just a bit of thinking that needs to be done on how users actually use the application and some tidying up. I'm trying to help you all here in getting KMail and Kontact as a whole where you'd like it to go.

If you can do this, I guarantee you, with how solid KMail and Kontact technologically are right now you'll have a very, very, very, very popular e-mail and groupworking application. No question.

> People not able or willing to learn can use what they want to wast their
> time.

If most people were doing things, performing the same tasks and browsing their mail in the way that you do that might be true - but they're not. I fail to see why a user should have to learn something illogical (that is so simple as well - it doesn't entail massive changes), but there you go.

Still in 3.5.1