On beta, actions performed on intersection of searched & view & selected
 

On the regular server, when you select an action on the mailbox screen and click "Do", it's performed on ALL selected messages in the folder.

Currently on the beta server, when you select an action on the mailbox screen and click "Do", it's performed on the intersection of selected messages, viewed messages (eg the All / Unread / Read / Flagged / Selected), and any search criteria currently in operation.

This has been discussed previously, and I think this is quite a good idea, especially because the current approach seems to result in unexpected messages being deleted.

One odd result of this that messages actioned automatically have their selected removed. So if you do:

1. Select the current page of emails
2. Do a search which say only returns 2 emails on the current page
3. Perform a "mark flagged" action
4. Clear the search

Then you'll have 2 emails marked as flagged, and the remainder of the emails on the page still marked as selected. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, or if performing an action should always unselect all messages in the current folder. I'm open to opinions.

Rob

I'm keen to get some feedback from people on what to do after an action is performed on only a subset of selected messages due to the current view/search.

Should we leave any selected email not actioned still selected, or should we deselect all messages in the folder regardless?

Rob

Is it possible to include selected messages in the search result (sorted at the bottom)? If no then I prefer the selected messages get cleared before the search begins.

No, not easily, and I don't really like that logic. Search is a search, not a "search for x OR selected".

Also I don't like starting a search to clear selected messages. What if you've selected a bunch you're trying to delete, and to get that last one you want you do a search to find it. That shouldn't loose all the items you've just selected IMHO.

Rob

Rob, I think I like your new method currently on beta (unselecting only the messages which have just been acted on). In some cases, it allows you to perform one action on a small subset of selected messages, then another operation on the remaining larger set. It doesn't limit you (since you can always perform the deselect all in folder Action), and in some cases might do something useful.

Bill

I agree.

I agree too with this, I cant wait for this to migrate to live.

Jason
:D

That particular idea seems like a very good thing.

However, looking at the bigger picture, any time that the user changes the view, I think that all messages should be unselected. I think that there should *never* be invisible selected messages. It's too confusing and not immediately obvious. It seems that people would have to read the help pages to understand how it works and that seems like a bad thing to me.

In general, I think that the user should first choose which messages to display by searching and/or choosing Unread, etc., and only then, after finishing refining the search in every possible way, select the desired messages. If we then do an action on the selected messages or do a new search or change the view in any way after making the selection, then I think that all selected messages should become unselected in all cases without exception. This behavior, I believe, is what most computer users would expect.

The only time that I can think of when all selected messages should remain selected when the view changes is when 300 messages are selected but the interface is only showing 100 messages per webpage. Then I think that all 300 should remain selected as long as the user is only going to the next or previous page of selected messages.

I think that the interface becomes too complicated with this. I think that people expect to simply search/select/delete rather than select/search/delete.

This leads me to a somewhat related feature request. What I currently do every week is:

1) Use the drop-down box to use my saved search to search for all messages older than two days. Click "Do".

2) Use the drop-down box to "select all in search". Click "Do".

3) Use the drop-down box to "delete permanently". Click "Do".


What I would prefer is that when I use a saved search, that all messages in the search results are automatically selected so that I can more quickly perform actions on them such as delete them. Any messages that I had selected before the search would lose their selection.

Bah no, I hate magically deselecting all messages when you don't expect it.

It's one of the annoying things in things like Windows Explorer, or standard list boxes. You've spent 2 minutes carefully holding down CTRL and clicking items to select a set, then accidentally click somewhere else and loose your selected. Uggg.

When you select a message, I think it should really remain selected unless you explicitly perform an action it, why else would you have selected it?

Rob

I've rolled this change out now as it is, namely

1. Actions are performed on the intersection of selected & searched & viewed messages
2. Messages selected, but not actioned because of the current view/search are left selected

I'm happy to keep having debates about this, but I thought I'd get it out now because I think it will still save support headaches or "messages went missing" requests.

Rob

I would suggest that confirmation messages after any action that only affects a subset of selected messages[list=1][*]indicate that the action was applied to nn of mm selected messages;[*]indicate, if appropriate, that nn messages (not currently viewed) are still selected.[/list=1]
Some users might still be confused about what is going on, but this would be crystal clear to me (where I might be surprised by the results without appropriate messages).

Good suggestion - I'll second it.

I've been trying to follow this discussion but don't use the feature much and so lack a working familiarity with it. I tried to imagine how I might use either it's old or it's proposed implementation and just got confused. I imagine I'd have the same reaction (confusion) to the proposed behavior. BritTim's suggested confirmation/warning messages would give me good heads-up! that all might not be as I expected.

-jeff-

Try out the beta server. It now adds a message like:

Note: The action was performed on 1 message(s), but due to the current view and/or search, there are still 1 message(s) selected in this folder that aren't currently visible and haven't been actioned.

Rob

1. The message doesn't show if all selected messages are invisible when action is applied (just says that no message was selected).

2. There should be a way to convey the message in less words. It's way too long right now! (and I'm not the one who can come up with the right words. My specialty is saying simple things in too many words...)

Yes well a shorter text would be:

Note: Still x selected but unactioned messages in this folder.

But without a full explanation, it might leave people just as confused...

Rob