This is a very long-standing bug that goes back many years. It might not seem like much, be we get support calls regularly about this issue: When you compose a new Email, you can actually click inside the "To:" label area and type because it looks and acts like a text entry field. Many newer users accidentally type the destination address in that "box" and then are completely puzzled when an error comes up and says "Error: Recipient is not specified". At a minimum, the label area should not allow clicking into or typing. A better solution would be to somehow combine the "down arrow selection button" and the "To:" label area into a single control.
This is not a bug, it's a feature, and the feature is being able to enter custom headers directly in the compose window. The cursor is, by default, automatically placed in the correct field when a new compose window is opened. It is already combined with the down arrow selection button, the label/header allows typing and clicking as a feature.
LOL! That is a funny but classic -"it is a feature not a bug". But now I understand what you are saying. It never even occurred to me to use that for entering non-typical header parts! I can tell you is that I am responsible for 180 people that use the software every day. Many have had issue with the current design. It causes occasional support headaches for my department. I think you can probably understand why from my description of what people are doing (even though I, personally, have never had a problem with it). Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to improve it now that I know exactly why it works that way. Except maybe to make it a preference setting to not allow custom header entry, forcing just the use of the listed options on a pull-down-only button. Thanks for the clarification. Do you think my "preference" suggestion should turn what was a bug report into an enhancement request?
I've also seen people make the same mistake, people who are not that savvy I think it is fair to say. I'm not against the idea of this being a (hidden) preference.
Reopening, re-titling, and restructuring as an enhancement request. Hope I am not overstepping the rules :)
I think it's a good idea as well to have it as hidden pref...I might propose a patch if someone else isn't faster than me..
To me, making this an option sounds like the last resort when we really can't come up with a proper design. With an option, you can then choose between having a feature-cripled UI, and having one that is easy to misuse. Choose your poison. Ugly. But I totally agree that something should be done. Having descriptive text in the field that you're supposed to type into has become really common (e.g. in Firefox), so I can see where the misuse comes from. And setting random headers on-the-fly is quite an exotic feature anyways, so I guess an having option to disable that would be better than the current situation.
Why not making it a read-only combobox with an entry, to add an entry "custom header". When it is selected, the combobox changes such that you can enter your custom header. This would have the advantage that you know that it is totally legal to add a custom header, and people wouldn't be able to enter a mail address there. Unfortunately I do not know, if GTK allows this behaviour easily.
Why not do the following then: 1) Make the combobox select-only 2) Add a button labeled "Add custom header"
Yes- both Andreas and Michael hit it. Make the left side a pull down with just To, CC, BCC, Newsgroups, Reply to, Followup to, and CUSTOM. If "custom" (however it is worded) is selected, then the existing right side text-entry box would just be literally whatever the user wants to insert. They could type "X-CT-Spam: 0" or whatever they like. That change would make the UI far more intuitive and clean. It also has the bonus of making the left side pull down area take up considerably less space, giving the user more space on the right side in which to type more addresses, headers, whatever! It is fun to watch people collaborating to improve the best Email program, Claws-Mail ;)
personally I still favour keeping the compose window as it is, but adding a hidden option.
Created attachment 1545 [details] combo box I am pinging this very old issue. With the new 3.12, the problem is even worse now because it no longer even looks like a combo box... the "To:" field can still be typed in, but the arrow/selector box to the right is separate from the To: field, unlike in claws 3.11. This will even more confuse non-savvy users.
Changes related to this bug have been committed. Please check latest Git and update the bug accordingly. You can also get the patch from: http://git.claws-mail.org/ ++ ChangeLog 2015-08-09 11:41:02.287093738 +0200 http://git.claws-mail.org/?p=claws.git;a=commitdiff;h=42d52be34a0ceb63b080979d0b77d63b9bb00860 Merge: c96ac03 5ef1df1 Date: Sun Aug 9 11:41:01 2015 +0200 http://git.claws-mail.org/?p=claws.git;a=commitdiff;h=5ef1df1e1b1b977407504f664eb6029ef045f429 Author: Ricardo Mones <ricardo@mones.org> Date: Sun Aug 9 01:19:32 2015 +0200 Fix bug 2458 “Option to force header type to pre-defined-only” As suggested by the comments in the report this adds a new hidden preference namely 'type_any_header', which controls the editable status of the compose header entries. For RELEASE_NOTES: the option is set to FALSE by default, so it changes current default behaviour. http://git.claws-mail.org/?p=claws.git;a=commitdiff;h=c96ac033e4fb9e3c9eadfee3ac3f3d2f47da7e37 Merge: d92be0b 2780845 Author: Colin Leroy <colin@colino.net> Date: Tue Aug 4 12:35:02 2015 +0200 Merge branch 'master' of file:///home/git/claws