Bug 204625

Summary:	please change the default "Select All" (text) shortcut to Ctrl+A
Product:	[Unmaintained] kmail	Reporter:	kavol <kavol>
Component:	keys and menus	Assignee:	kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	bluedzins, finex
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description kavol 2009-08-21 09:36:35 UTC

Version:            (using KDE 4.3.0)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Fedora RPMs

This is basically bug #203088 that was closed as INVALID. As I have no rights to reopen, I report this new bug. The resolution of the bug #203088 is itself invalid as the bug *is* present, if you're not going to fix it properly then the resolution has to be WONTFIX.

The current kmail behaviour is:

the main window:
Ctrl+A selects all messages within the selected folder
Ctrl+Shift+A selects all the text within the selected message

opening separate mail window (doubleclicking a message in the list):
Ctrl+A does nothing
Ctrl+Shift+A selects all the text within the message

the message editor:
Ctrl+A selects all the text within the current field
Ctrl+Shift+A does nothing

This is inconsistent, using different shortcuts for the same actions within one application is a bug.

I'd suggest to use this scheme instead:

the main window:
Ctrl+A selects all the text within the selected message
Ctrl+Shift+A selects all messages within the selected folder

opening separate mail window (doubleclicking a message in the list):
Ctrl+A selects all the text within the message
Ctrl+Shift+A does nothing (optionally: select just the text of the message body)

the message editor:
Ctrl+A selects all the text within the current field
Ctrl+Shift+A does nothing

The reasons for this choice of shortcuts assigments are:

* it prevents regression from the previous version
* it is consistent with other applications (Ctrl+A to select all the text lives with us a long time, and is still actively used, try it in Kwrite, Konqueror ...)
* the more complex shortcut is used just once while the simpler one is used in all the cases
(it'd be tempting to talk about frequency of the usage, but I have no statistic data, except my own example that I select all the text quite often while I have used "select all messages" just once, in error, because I wasn't aware of the new Ctrl+A meaning)

Comment 1 FiNeX 2009-08-21 09:58:53 UTC

I completely agree with kavol.

Comment 2 Maciej Pilichowski 2009-08-21 17:48:00 UTC

/me too agrees, plus ctrl+shift+a could be used for messages (single):
ctrl+a -- selects focused message part, if none, body of the message (w/o headers)
ctrl+shift+a -- selects entire message (with headers), no matter which part is focused

So it would be slight backward compatibility break, but since ctrl+a was annoying for single message before, this break would be useful actually.

@Finex, thanks for CC, but about votes -- I am out of any for such popular programs as KMail for loooong time ago :-)

Comment 3 Jaime Torres 2009-09-07 20:55:02 UTC

SVN commit 1020986 by jtamate:

BUG: 204625
Interchange Ctrl+Shift+A and Ctrl+A shortcuts.

 M  +1 -1      kmmainwidget.cpp  
 M  +1 -1      kmreaderwin.cpp  


WebSVN link: http://websvn.kde.org/?view=rev&revision=1020986