[Design][Chandler][Sum] focus in the sidebar

[Mimi Yin]

I'm going to attempt to summarize this briefly and attempt to wrap up  
this issue (for 0.7) with a proposal/decision.

Given that we think most of the time users have their focus in the  
summary pane and not in the sidebar, BUT

Keeping in mind that there are times when they will want to focus  
their attention and therefore the keyboard in the sidebar AND

Given that computers still can't read minds,

Let's try the following design in 0.7 (and flag this as an issue we  
want to keep on top of when it comes time to collect and process  
dogfood feedback).

1. Single click in the sidebar does NOT shift keyboard focus to the  
sidebar
2. Click and then click again to shift focus to the sidebar AND/OR
3. Use the Tab key AND/OR
4. Click on sharing or info (if the collection isn't shared) icon AND/OR
5. Select menu item: Collection>>View details

to shift focus to the sidebar and replace item detail view with  
collection detail view.

Mimi

On Jan 9, 2006, at 9:36 PM, Katie Capps Parlante wrote:

> Mimi Yin wrote:
>> Has anyone used both clients and noticed the difference? If you  
>> have any personal anecdotes, please share.
>
> I was recently cursing Thunderbird -- here was my scenario:
>
> 1. Initially, the "Inbox" was selected, focus in the summary pane.
> 2. I hit the down arrow key repeatedly to change the selected  
> message, walking through each one in order.
> 3. Some message would cause me to want to look in another folder,  
> so I'd  use the mouse to select the other folder.
> 4. I'd look for a message in the other folder, selecting various  
> messages in the summary pane.
> 5. I'd use the mouse to select "Inbox" again, and notice that it  
> remembered my selection ("yay!")
> 6. I'd hit the down arrow key to move to the next message.
> 7. The focus had remained in the sidebar, so "Inbox" changed to  
> "Drafts"
> 8. Thunderbird crashed.
>
> Ok, so the crash has nothing to do with the focus issue, just a  
> problem with Thunderbird and the state of my Drafts folder :). The  
> sad/embarassing part is that I repeated the exact same steps 4  
> times! Even though the mistake was costly, and even though I had  
> *just* been through the same sequence, I kept unconsciously making  
> the same cognitive error. I believe the variants that Mimi and Alec  
> have described where the focus remained in the summary pane (most  
> of the time) would have more closely matched what I wanted/expected.
>
> Cheers,
> Katie
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