ActionBar Ideas

To Do - First Version

• hide subject in MessageView when it's not ellipsized in the actionbar ** I don't think this is necessary -- Jesse
• new message on the right top corner not refresh
• get the reply/forward/... options back in the messagelist, in what way? ( if selection is 1 message have them in the context actionbar )
• find better icons for: archive, sort, single message options?, spam, emtpy trash (account page)
• hide action bar on Accounts activity if it displays the welcome message
• do a version check and remove "select text" option from menu in messageview if possible ** -- Not a blocker to merge
• add action bar icons for the dark theme (the ones for the light theme are too dark) ** -- Not necessary to block merging since it's just assets

To Do - Next Version

• cketti: Change the layout of the message header to look more ICSish
• cketti: Make the dropdown in the top action bar do something useful, e.g. display the folders in the top group.
  • dzan: I like the GMail approach a lot. Allow it to switch accounts on top and select the first class folders of the active one below.
  • cketti: Agreed. Once we have that we should make MessageList the root activity
• cketti: I don't like the "go to previous/next message" buttons in the action bar. Those are navigation buttons, not operations your perform on the message.
  • dzan: I totally agree. I want them to be swiped at all times but this is hard to get right in combination with panning the webview I think? The GMail app does a pretty good job. If you tell me how to get it right I will spend the time on doing so.
  • cketti: This probably requires a lot of WebView trickery. I guess until we get to that having the buttons in the action bar is the next best solution.

Ideas

• cketti: Make the "search" action available in all screens
• dzan: Make use of ABS's force overflow menu option, even if it's against Google's guidelines.
  • cketti: We could make this an option. But I think it's a good idea to show it by default.
  • dzan: The only problem is that it only works on 2.x and 3.x since for 4.x it uses the default action bar an that one doesn't have the option of course.. It would create an inconsistency but it would get rid of the ugly 2.X menu's.
• dzan: Have consistent selection on all activities. The Accounts and FolderList should have swipe-to-select and show an extend chip on selection.
  • cketti: I don't really like the checkbox in the chip. I believe we should display Holo checkboxes (look nicer) by default because neither long-press nor swipe left-to-right is a very discoverable way to select a message
  • dzan: I'm not really opposed to checkboxes but how would you then make the distinction between accounts? Or would you have checkboxes on the Accounts and FolderList activity but chips on the MessageList? I am opposed to that kind of inconsistency.
• dzan: We could make the folderlist work as a multi-selection thing.

MessageView

• Moving all actions to the actionbar. The order being ( ranked always -> if room ): next, previous, delete, {reply, reply all, forward, share}, archive, star, move, copy, select text, show full header
  • obra: remove 'show full header'
• Get rid of move/copy/add star since starring icon is on the top and the other ones make more sense in the MessageList
• cketti: The menu item "Share" should go to the "Message options" sub menu.
• cketti: "Toggle (un)read" should be either "Mark as unread" or "Mark as read" depeding on the current read state of the message. Same with "Add star".

MessageList

• achen: If push is on, keep the refresh button in the menu, not in the action bar. It probably won't be frequently used. Given that we're down to 2 icons now, could this by merged into the top action bar to save screen space?
  • dzan: I think we'll add a search button later? So then we'd have still 3. Also I use refresh even with push.. when I'm checking my mail I want to be sure I guess.
• cketti: I don't like the archive icon. Why not use the one achen created?
  • dzan: Me neither, where can I find the one achen made?
  • cketti: res/drawable/ic_button_archive.png
• cketti: The toggle actions (mark as (un)read, (un)star) should have different icons for each state so the user knows what action will be performed.
  • dzan: This was the initial plan but the way it works now, when you have multiple messages in the selection and some of them are read/starred and others the inverse then the actions will inverse them. So read/starred ones become unread/unstarred and unread/unstarred ones become read/starred.Then the current icons make more sense no?
  • cketti: I don't believe we inverse the current state. If we do, the current behavior needs to be changed. The icon should indicate what action will be performed on all messages.
• cketti: Use the "pretty" folder name in the top action bar (e.g. "Inbox", not "INBOX").
• cketti: Display the number of unread messages next to the dropdown in the top action bar. Update that number when the unread count changes
• cketti: Search views don't have a bottom action bar which creates an inconsistent user experience. Especially in "selection mode".

FolderList

• cketti: Do something useful with the dropdown in the top action bar or remove it.
  • dzan: Could we do the same as for the messagelist ( see ToDo ) or wouldn't that make any sense since we are in the folder list already?
  • cketti: If we make MessageList the root activity, FolderList would effectively disappear and be replaced by ChooseFolder, i.e. you would only see it when you click on "Show all folders" in the MessageList dropdown. Maybe we could put the "find folder" (filter) input box in the top action bar.
• cketti: We should probably get rid of the long-press menu and make all those actions batch actions accessible through the context sensitive action bar (long-press = select folder).

Accounts

• cketti: Get rid of the long-press menu.
• cketti: Don't show status in action bar (e.g. "Syncing disabled").

Questions

FolderList

• Do we want a bottom bar? What's on it?

Accounts

• Do we want a bottom bar? What's on it?

Bugs

• "Inbox" item in dropdown doesn't work when e.g. in Drafts folder

MessageList

• Swipe to select a message shows "1 selected". Tapping on that message to unselect still shows "1 selected".