The way the “reply-all” button works in Thunderbird is noticably worse than the way it works in GMail.
The difference might seem trivial, but the GMail version saves me a lot of aggravation, because the following scenario happens at least twice a day:
I hit “reply” and start writing an email. A few sentences in, I discover that the message I’m writing applies to all the people in the original thread, not just the sender. I want to change my “reply” to a “reply all”.
In GMail if I hit “reply all”, it does the right thing: adds the addresses of the other people on the thread to my composition already in progress.
In Thunderbird (as of version 7.0.1), the Reply and Reply All buttons spawn new windows. If I switch from a “Reply” composition window back to the main window and hit “Reply All”, I get a brand-new composition window. To save what I’ve already written, I have to copy-paste my words from the original window to the new one, then close the first window.
It’s just a few extra steps, but it’s annoying in a way that disrupts my train of thought, which should be focused on the content of my writing, not the mechanics of sending it.
It would be nice to get the GMail reply-all behavior in Thunderbird. But it would be even nicer if designers everywhere could more consistently embrace the design principle behind the GMail reply-all button. That principle is:
Let me change my mind without having to start over.
We need to recognize that humans change their minds about what they want all the time. If I’m on Step Four and I realize I should have gone right instead of left at Step One, I should not have to re-enter the same information for Steps Two and Three. And yet too many interfaces (I’m thinking multi-stage web forms, “setup wizards”, and the like) still force users to make decisions in an arbitrary sequence dictated by the implementation details of the code.
Doing it right is more work for the programmer, of course. The implementation must be more complex. You can't simplify by throwing away data related to paths not immediately taken. But respecting the reality that users change their minds is more important than cutting corners in your code.
October 14, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Amen.
October 14, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I love the idea for this. What if we left the reply button in the compose window along with reply-all and even forward. This “feature” comes up for me several times a week!
October 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Whoops, looks like the link got eaten. That’s https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=525070
October 14, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Fantastic! Glad someone is working on it. Thanks, Squib!
October 14, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Yeah, this is one of my most needed features! Actually, I almost always want reply-all vs reply. The latter is the exception for me
October 14, 2011 at 11:00 pm
This is already possible in Thunderbird Conversations, and was also requested by gerv a long time ago: http://blog.gerv.net/2007/03/reply_reply_to_all/ 🙂
October 15, 2011 at 1:20 pm
I was about to come over and do a round of self-promotion, but I see someone mentioned Thunderbird Conversations already. Thanks Gijs 🙂
October 17, 2011 at 10:14 am
@Gijs
Yep, me like that feature also in Thunderbird Conversation. It’s a must have addon!
October 19, 2011 at 4:48 pm
You know where else Thunderbird really sucks? Double click on a saved draft to open it for editing. Modify it. Double click on the saved draft again to open ANOTHER copy for editing, in ANOTHER window. Modify that and save it.
D:<
November 2, 2011 at 5:50 am
And to think that just some years back, nobody had even heard of e-mail. lol
Times change, technology moves, quality demands increase and the product that doesn’t adapt quickly (uhmm… Thunderbird? :D) gets a lot of flak.
That’s why even though I hate to do so, I’ve conditioned myself to copy everything I write online — like this — and paste it in a notes plug-in first, before attempting to send. Being conditioned that way has made things easier for me.
When I get so dang frustrated… (go to paragraph 1… it helps put things in some kind of grateful perspective for me).
hehehe 😀