<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
</head>
<body smarttemplateinserted="true" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="smartTemplate4-template">
<p>Dear Jim,</p>
<p>I think the general move to a correspondent column may be a
good one, the problem is that it is not very obvious which of
the emails are by me (having the mere direction of a light gray
arrow pointing one way or another is actually very hard to parse
at a glance). I would therefore have liked a more obvious
metaphor for "my personal emails", which may have been easier to
adopt; even if it was something simple like a special hue for
the arrow or a different icon. An extended UAT phase for
fundamental changes like this would be great; that would have to
be separate from "finding" the change in a bug. <br>
</p>
<p>Would it be possible to recruit some people for voluntary UAT -
this means a more focused effort than just relying on beta users
to report. It would mean working with the new features for a
period of time (e.g. 2 weeks) within test cases created by the
patch author and then gathering the results and reporting them
back to the patch owner; either directly or via Bugzilla
comment. Also a link to a compiled UAT build would have to be
available.<br>
</p>
<p>I would volunteer for being a UAT tester, if it wouldn't
include code review or having to compile my own version.<br>
</p>
<p>thanks<br>
Axel<br>
</p>
<p></p>
-- <br>
<style type="text/css">
.myName:hover, .myName a:hover { font-size:13pt; text-shadow: 3px 3px 4px rgba(200,250,200,0.7);}
.moz-signature {opacity: 1.0 !important;}
.myName a { cursor: pointer !important; transition:font-size 0.5s;}
.myLogo {
transition: all .4s ease-out;
}
.myLogo:hover {
transform: scale(3) translate(-30px,-5px);
}
</style>
<div id="mySignature" style="width: 65%; padding: 0.8em 1.2em;
font:x-small verdana; color: #444; box-shadow: 4px 4px 9px -2px
rgba(0,0,0,0.65); border-radius: 1em; padding: 0.4em 2em;
border: 1px dashed #444; background: rgb(230,240,163);
background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(230,240,163,1)
0%,rgba(210,230,56,1) 50%,rgba(195,216,37,1)
51%,rgba(219,240,67,1) 100%);">
<b class="myName" style="text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px #DDD;
transition:font-size 0.5s;"><a
href="mailto:axel.grude@gmail.com">Axel Grude</a></b>
<br>
Software Developer
<br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer
<span style="color:#666666; font-size:xx-small">(QuickFolders,
quickFilters, QuickPasswords, Zombie Keys, SmartTemplate4)</span>
<br>
AMO Editor <img style="margin-top: 1em; float: right;
box-shadow: 1px 1px 2px rgba(20, 20, 20, 0.4);"
moz-do-not-send="false" class="myLogo"
src="cid:part2.6C542544.7619A4A3@gmail.com" alt="Get
Thunderbird!" height="15" width="94">
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div id="smartTemplate4-quoteHeader">
<style type="text/css" scoped="">
#newHeaderAG1 b { font-weight:bold; color: #990033; min-width: 4.5em; max-width:none; display:inline-block;}
</style><br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="margin-bottom: -20px !important;
padding-bottom:20px !important;">
<div id="newHeaderAG1" style="font-size: x-small; padding:1em;
background-color:rgba(220,220,240,0.4); border-radius:3px;"> <b>Subject:</b>Changes
to review policy<br>
<b>From:</b>Jim Porter<br>
<b>To:</b>Tb-planning <br>
<b>Sent: </b>Thursday, 28/04/2016 06:33:52 06:33 GMT ST +0100
[Week 17]<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote class=" cite"
id="mid_d56a7633_10d9_6151_1ba0_19c39a9886de_gmail_com"
cite="mid:d56a7633-10d9-6151-1ba0-19c39a9886de@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Given the user outcry around the upgrade from the From/Recipients column
to the Correspondents column (see
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1152706"><https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1152706></a> for example), I'd
like to propose some new guidelines to our review policy to prevent this
from happening again. To be rather blunt, I don't think we're upholding
the minimum standards of quality that people should be able to expect
from us.
It's an especially stark contrast when you compare the Correspondents
column issue to another change in 45.0: the new default in composition
to create new <p> elements every time you hit enter. A number of people
have also been dissatisfied with the latter, but the fix for that is to
uncheck a single checkbox.
Undoing the Correspondents column upgrade, on the other hand, involves
setting a hidden pref and then fixing all the folders that were
"upgraded". Worse, we can't automatically roll the column state back
because we've actually destroyed data! If a user had *both* the From and
Recipient columns shown, the upgrade code hides them[1], and there's no
way I know of to look at the current state to determine this.
Therefore, I'd like to propose the following: any change to
Thunderbird's defaults should have a super-review before landing.
Super-reviewers would be especially focused on making sure that changes
meet most or all the following conditions, in descending order of
importance:
1) No data/program state should be lost.
2) Before changing a default, we should be sure the new default is
fully-operational.
3) Users should have an easy path to roll back to the previous UI/UX if
they don't like the new version. If possible, ask the user *before*
upgrading them.
4) It should be easy for users to find out what's changed, along with
instructions for how to adjust the new behavior to their liking.
Of course, I understand the desire to ship new features, especially if
we think they're better than the old ones, but we need to be very
careful. Email is mission-critical for many people, and as such, we have
a responsibility not to break things. Hopefully with a few more eyes on
changes like this, we can come up with ways to satisfy existing users'
needs while still working to modernize Thunderbird.
Thoughts?
- Jim
[1] Full disclosure: this is based solely on inspection, not actually
running the code.
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:tb-planning@mozilla.org">tb-planning@mozilla.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning">https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>