[imp] Another UI question for IMP development

[Kevin M. Myer]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, Jon Parise wrote:

> > after N characters?  Or at the very least, only allow one address per 
> > line?  I've had users complaining that this is clumsy and confusing and in 
> > my opinion, it is.
> 
> No, that would require us to use a textarea instead of an input
> line.  If we do that, you'll have users complaining that the
> headers are taking up too much screen real estate, forcing them
> to scroll down to start their message text.

I'd rather have users complain about having to scroll down the page, past
a few headers, using the window's scrollbars to get to the message text,
than have users complain that they don't know where to add an address 
because their list of To: addresses has scrolled off the right side of the 
screen.  This is most obvious when using the Expand Names function.

For example:

Open the compose window.  Enter a name, expand the name.  Enter a second 
name, expand the name.  Depending on your address length, your addresses 
may be off the screen AND instead of the text box being scrolled all the 
way to the right so you can see your last address entered, its reset all 
the way to the left so you see the first address entered.

like so:

To: Kevin Myer
<expand names>

What the user sees:
To: Kevin Myer <kevin_myer@iu13.k12.pa.us>

Now add another name:
To: Kevin Myer <kevin_myer@iu13.k12.pa.us>, Kevin Myer2
<expand names>

What the user sees:
To: Kevin Myer <kevin_myer@iu13.k12.pa.us>, Kevin Myer2 <kevin_my

Now with two addresses, maybe its intuitive for the user to use their
arrow keys to scroll in that window.  But what if there's twenty
addresses?  And the user wants to view them all?  And how are they going
to know where to add additional recipients?  Scroll twenty addresses
right?  Thats extremely cumbersome.  Where is someone who doesn't
understand address syntax going to put the comma (if they know to use a 
comma) in the last above To: address?  Answer:  anywhere they want and 
they'll be baffled why an email addressed like:

To: Kevin Myer <kevin_myer@iu13.k12.pa.us>, Kevin Myer2 <kevin_my, 
Another_user@somedomain.com

fails and can't be delivered.

As a compromise, why not do this:  just like when an ambiguous name is 
found when expanding names, create a second text field for entering new 
addresses. For example:

To: Kevin
<expand names>

this becomes:

To: <Popup menu with all available addresses>  Kevin
    |And this is a new text entry field             |

If no ambigious names are found, this becomes:

To: kevin_myer@iu13.k12.pa.us, <lotsa addresses that have scrolled far to 
the right of the screen>
    |And an empty field to add new addresses to     |
CC:
BCC:

Why not have the To: line be a two field entry area after the first 
address is entered.  New addresses can be entered in either one but the 
top one contains all the addresses.  Addresses entered in the second line 
are concatenated with the list on the first line each time names are 
expanded.  But there's always either a blank field to enter new names or 
you're at the end of the list of names, if you're typing in a long list.

Add to that a mouseover for the To: field that lists all the addresses in 
that field and this UI problem is solved.  And I only label it as a 
problem because in training five department directors recently, the 
majority of them had trouble with this area.

Thanks,
Kevin
-- 
Kevin M. Myer 
Systems Administrator
Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13
(717)-560-6140