Add an access key to 'Subject' label in the 'Compose message' window. Perhaps underlined 'S'. Besides this, maybe an 'Up arrow' should take me to the Subject line, when the text cursor is on the first line of body. (From the Subject line a Down arrow takes me to the body.)
Tab moves from field to field, Shift+Tab moves in the opposite direction. Shift+Tab will move the cursor from the body to the Subject field.
No, in my ClawsMail if I press Tab then a Tab character is inserted to the text. ShiftTab is the same. The keyboard behaviour is a bit of mess. Not consistent. Down&Up: "move between fields [and the tabs line at top]" - almost, but some combos (in some direction!) are skipped, and reaching the combo there is no way out, they change the combo index instead. Reaching the body, there is no way back to headers. [Shift]Tab: "move between fields (icluding the small buttons) [and the tabs line at top]" - almost, but in the From field Tab becomes address completition.. Reaching tha Body, Tab and ShiftTab becomes: inserting Tab characters, there is no way back to headers.. Ctrl[Shift]Tab: "move between tabs-line, subject header field, and body" - almost, but CtrlShiftTab from Subject: moves to the last "clear" button (of the headers).. Yes, with CtlrShiftTab one can reach the Subject line.. but: why just the Subject line? Why not - e.g. - the last edited header line? And a quite bit more keys than AltS.
> [Shift]Tab: "move between fields (icluding the small buttons) [and the tabs > line at top]" - almost, but in the From field Tab becomes address > completition.. Reaching tha Body, Tab and ShiftTab becomes: inserting Tab > characters, there is no way back to headers.. Shift-tab goes back to subject, and more shift-tab to headers. True, stopping in clear buttons, but that's expected. Shift-tab should not insert tabs in body. Maybe you can try with a more up to date version instead of 3.7.9? At address completion you have to double the tab to go next widget. That's a limitation of using tab for completion or GTK using tab for navigation. > Yes, with CtlrShiftTab one can reach the Subject line.. but: why > just the Subject line? Why not - e.g. - the last edited header line? > And a quite bit more keys than AltS. That would be quite surprising, and absolutely against conventions for human interface design, as widgets are expected to have fixed navigation order. Jumping to the last edited header would mean your navigation could be different on every window depending on how you edited fields... And you say current is a mess?? :-)
Perhaps someone could write a plugin which would add alt+number shortcuts to reach various header lines in compose window. :) That someone is not me, though, this is not my itch to scratch.
I use ClawsMail "3.7.9-1ubuntu2". In the Ubuntu repos there is no fresher than that. Sorry guys, I am disappointed. You do not believe me (that, for example, what does ShiftTab), you misundersand me (CtrlShiftTab, switching only between big parts of the window, not every small element; parts have focus, and it is not expected to forget is), perhaps I would next time install Thunderbird or something else.. (I did not mention so far: I cannot even navigate easily (with 'n' and 'p' and/or 'N' and 'P') between messages when not preview mode but 'opened in new window'. How could lack sunk a basic feature?..)
> I use ClawsMail "3.7.9-1ubuntu2". In the Ubuntu repos there is no > fresher than that. You can install latest release from our Ubuntu PPA: https://launchpad.net/~claws-mail/+archive/ppa > You do not believe me (that, for example, what does ShiftTab), That the people which has Ubuntu installed doesn't have your problem doesn't mean they don't believe you, it's just they cannot reproduce it. Don't take it personal. > you misundersand me (CtrlShiftTab, switching only between big parts > of the window, not every small element; parts have focus, and it is > not expected to forget is), True, don't even understand what you say here. Do you expect ctrl-shitf-tab to switch only between "big parts"? What's is a "big part"? Which focus is forgotten? > perhaps I would next time install Thunderbird or something else.. I don't think that's going to fix your problems with Claws Mail, but sure you can install whatever you want. > (I did not mention so far: I cannot even navigate easily (with 'n' and 'p' > and/or 'N' and 'P') between messages when not preview mode but 'opened in > new window'. How could lack sunk a basic feature?..) It works here ('n' for next, 'p' for previous) though this is not Ubuntu, at least with the default keyboard preset, maybe you have changed it. Try to reset it in Configuration menu, Preferences option, Other/Miscellaneous branch, Choose preset keyboard shortcuts... button, select Default and apply.
Note that the "Shift+Tab goes to Subject line" feature was added in version 3.8.1, so that might be why it did not work for you. By the way, I don't think adding "Alt+S" shortcut is a bad idea - that key combination doesn't do anything in the compose window right now, and we already have shortcuts for the notebook pages above it. The Up key suggestion is an interesting one too.
Created attachment 1370 [details] An innocuous patch Attached patch implements both of aforementioned little features.
Patch applied.