Hi!

Some points for discussion concerning:

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Improving_the_Calendar_Views

First of all: this locks great to me - please go forward in this 
direction! And thanks for this nice little ASCII arts!

1. I think its great to have just one surface, either Calendaring or 
Mail (including all toolbar buttons and so on) exposed at one time, and 
easily switch between them by just klicking one button (what will hide 
all non usable toolbar buttons and so on).

2. In Respect to the agreement (Toronto) that Lightning will be a 
Calendaring program with some Task capabilities and not a Project 
Management Software, would it not be better to just split the left Pane 
into two parts - Mail and Calendaring and using Joeys Proposal 
(http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Task_View) for a Task View in the Main 
View Area? This one you could switch easily like day/week/month view 
(perhaps tabs)! And the user would not have to care about whether he is 
dealing with Tasks or Events. They are exposed alongside, on the same 
level: And additional this also could provide some searching 
capabilities that are still missing in Lightning.
But this is not my main point - just for discussion!

3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! You loose very much horizontal 
space (what is very precious!!!) and I don't want to have all my tasks 
(ToDo) appearing when I'm reading Mail!
Why would you always expose ToDos? You wouldn't do this for Events, 
wouldn't you? I think they should be somehow on the same level of 
Exposure to the user.
If Someone wants to read mail he uses the mail modus, and if he wants to 
see his Agenda or ToDos/Events he should switch (press one button) to 
Calendaring and/or Task view (meaning the from me so called "Modus").
So from my point of view it would be a good solution to take the 
lefthand Pane from Sunbird and modify it in the way that you pull out 
the Tasks (to a separate "modus" or into an additional view - see above) 
and use vertical space to arrange the calendar list (groupable), the 
Minimonth and the Agenda somehow! And in this way (if you win the space 
from the docking windows on the right side) the width of the Agenda 
could even be a little bit increased, what makes it more informative.

But, why not, if the user feel comfortable he could dock an additional 
Agenda and/or ToDo list (then perhaps minimizing/hiding the standard one 
   on the left hand pane. Additional, what would be very interesting, is 
another "Modus" (perhaps called Today) grouping some overview 
Information like how many new Mails, the Agenda, important ToDos,... 
whatever you could think of. See Outlook, Evolution,...

Best regards and happy discussions!

Matthias

Hi Matthias,
thanks for your feedback. Please find my comments below.

Regards,
Christian

Matthias Sch�fer schrieb:
> Hi!
> 
> Some points for discussion concerning:
> 
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Improving_the_Calendar_Views
> 
> First of all: this locks great to me - please go forward in this 
> direction! And thanks for this nice little ASCII arts!
>
:-)

> 1. I think its great to have just one surface, either Calendaring or 
> Mail (including all toolbar buttons and so on) exposed at one time, and 
> easily switch between them by just klicking one button (what will hide 
> all non usable toolbar buttons and so on).
> 2. In Respect to the agreement (Toronto) that Lightning will be a 
> Calendaring program with some Task capabilities and not a Project 
> Management Software, would it not be better to just split the left Pane 
> into two parts - Mail and Calendaring and using Joeys Proposal 
> (http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Task_View) for a Task View in the Main 
> View Area? This one you could switch easily like day/week/month view 
> (perhaps tabs)! And the user would not have to care about whether he is 
> dealing with Tasks or Events. They are exposed alongside, on the same 
> level: And additional this also could provide some searching 
> capabilities that are still missing in Lightning.
> But this is not my main point - just for discussion!

This sounds interesting. Having a Tasks Tab would be a nice option, but 
with the disadvantage that same thing would behave different.

For example. Switching from Mail to Calendar could be done by a single 
click. But for switching from Mail to Tasks users need to click the 
"Calendar" button, followed by the Task tab. Why shouldn't this behave 
in the way like switching from Mail to Calendar? Or are task 
intrinsically tied to events?

> 3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
> I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! 

Yes, these would be optional. As shown in the mock-up these panes 
provide a closer, so it is very easy to get rid of them.


You loose very much horizontal
> space (what is very precious!!!) and I don't want to have all my tasks 
> (ToDo) appearing when I'm reading Mail!

16:10 is your friend ;-)


> Why would you always expose ToDos? You wouldn't do this for Events, 
> wouldn't you? I think they should be somehow on the same level of 
> Exposure to the user.

> If Someone wants to read mail he uses the mail modus, and if he wants to 
> see his Agenda or ToDos/Events he should switch (press one button) to 
> Calendaring and/or Task view (meaning the from me so called "Modus").

For me (personally) it is very convenient to have the Agende pane always 
visible. Most of the time I'm working with e-mail not with calendaring. 
But I agree, todos seem to be to unimportant to have them displayed 
initially.


> So from my point of view it would be a good solution to take the 
> lefthand Pane from Sunbird and modify it in the way that you pull out 
> the Tasks (to a separate "modus" or into an additional view - see above) 
> and use vertical space to arrange the calendar list (groupable), the 
> Minimonth and the Agenda somehow! And in this way (if you win the space 
> from the docking windows on the right side) the width of the Agenda 
> could even be a little bit increased, what makes it more informative.
> 
> But, why not, if the user feel comfortable he could dock an additional 
> Agenda and/or ToDo list (then perhaps minimizing/hiding the standard one 
>   on the left hand pane. Additional, what would be very interesting, is 
> another "Modus" (perhaps called Today) grouping some overview 

Yeah, an overview/welcome page, cool designed, would be really nice.

> Information like how many new Mails, the Agenda, important ToDos,... 
> whatever you could think of. See Outlook, Evolution,...
> 
> Best regards and happy discussions!
> 
> Matthias

Hi!

Please see comments

Matthias

Christian Jansen schrieb:
>> 2. In Respect to the agreement (Toronto) that Lightning will be a 
>> Calendaring program with some Task capabilities and not a Project 
>> Management Software, would it not be better to just split the left 
>> Pane into two parts - Mail and Calendaring and using Joeys Proposal 
>> (http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Task_View) for a Task View in the 
>> Main View Area? This one you could switch easily like day/week/month 
>> view (perhaps tabs)! And the user would not have to care about whether 
>> he is dealing with Tasks or Events. They are exposed alongside, on the 
>> same level: And additional this also could provide some searching 
>> capabilities that are still missing in Lightning.
>> But this is not my main point - just for discussion!
> 
> This sounds interesting. Having a Tasks Tab would be a nice option, but 
> with the disadvantage that same thing would behave different.
> 
> For example. Switching from Mail to Calendar could be done by a single 
> click. But for switching from Mail to Tasks users need to click the 
> "Calendar" button, followed by the Task tab. Why shouldn't this behave 
> in the way like switching from Mail to Calendar? Or are task 
> intrinsically tied to events?

Why???
You have one Application with two parts: each one is handling its 
special purpose. One for Mail (handling communication based topics), and 
one for Tasks and events (handling time/planning related topics).
I think there would be no difference between Tasks and Events, they are 
just on the same level!!!
If you switch from Calendaring to Mail, there is no guarantee that you 
are already in the folder you want to see! So if you came from 
Calendaring and want to mails in Folder XY you have to switch maybe from 
the Inbox to the desired folder! Same would be with Calendar. Maybe you 
have to press a second button to change to the desired day view!!!
So in general you always have to klick twice to change to your desired 
view, if you only need one klick, it's just luck!!!

And the big win would be some kind of search capability!!!

>> 3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
>> I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! 
> 
> Yes, these would be optional. As shown in the mock-up these panes 
> provide a closer, so it is very easy to get rid of them.
> 
OK, but where would my agenda appear if I close this additional pane???
It should be possible to display it in the left hand pane (maybe bottom 
or top), if I want to!
Then I have all time/planning related things if I switch to Calendaring 
and all communication related things in the Mail Component.
> 
> You loose very much horizontal
>> space (what is very precious!!!) and I don't want to have all my tasks 
>> (ToDo) appearing when I'm reading Mail!
> 
> 16:10 is your friend ;-)
> 
> 
>> Why would you always expose ToDos? You wouldn't do this for Events, 
>> wouldn't you? I think they should be somehow on the same level of 
>> Exposure to the user.
> 
>> If Someone wants to read mail he uses the mail modus, and if he wants 
>> to see his Agenda or ToDos/Events he should switch (press one button) 
>> to Calendaring and/or Task view (meaning the from me so called "Modus").
> 
> For me (personally) it is very convenient to have the Agende pane always 
> visible. Most of the time I'm working with e-mail not with calendaring. 
> But I agree, todos seem to be to unimportant to have them displayed 
> initially.
> 
If you prefer, why not! Use this "dockable" pane, but please do not 
force all users to do so!!!
> 
>> So from my point of view it would be a good solution to take the 
>> lefthand Pane from Sunbird and modify it in the way that you pull out 
>> the Tasks (to a separate "modus" or into an additional view - see 
>> above) and use vertical space to arrange the calendar list 
>> (groupable), the Minimonth and the Agenda somehow! And in this way (if 
>> you win the space from the docking windows on the right side) the 
>> width of the Agenda could even be a little bit increased, what makes 
>> it more informative.
>>
>> But, why not, if the user feel comfortable he could dock an additional 
>> Agenda and/or ToDo list (then perhaps minimizing/hiding the standard 
>> one   on the left hand pane. Additional, what would be very 
>> interesting, is another "Modus" (perhaps called Today) grouping some 
>> overview 
> 
> Yeah, an overview/welcome page, cool designed, would be really nice.
> 
>> Information like how many new Mails, the Agenda, important ToDos,... 
>> whatever you could think of. See Outlook, Evolution,...
>>
>> Best regards and happy discussions!
>>
>> Matthias
> _______________________________________________
> dev-apps-calendar mailing list
> dev-apps-calendar@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-calendar

Christian Jansen wrote:
> 
> This sounds interesting. Having a Tasks Tab would be a nice option, but 
> with the disadvantage that same thing would behave different.
> 
> For example. Switching from Mail to Calendar could be done by a single 
> click. But for switching from Mail to Tasks users need to click the 
> "Calendar" button, followed by the Task tab. Why shouldn't this behave 
> in the way like switching from Mail to Calendar? Or are task 
> intrinsically tied to events?

I have mixed feelings about this.  Often times, tasks are really 
unscheduled events (iCal's ease of scheduling by dropping from the task 
list into the calendar is really nice).  On the other hand, they are 
currently stored as part of a "Calendar".

>> 3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
>> I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! 
> 
> Yes, these would be optional. As shown in the mock-up these panes 
> provide a closer, so it is very easy to get rid of them.

I think it's important that the user should have a good user experience 
without having anything in the right column so that we can play nicely 
on smaller screens.  The main implication of this in the current mockups 
is that it strikes me that the Agenda should stay in the left-hand pane 
of mail mode.

> You loose very much horizontal
>> space (what is very precious!!!) and I don't want to have all my tasks 
>> (ToDo) appearing when I'm reading Mail!
> 
> 16:10 is your friend ;-)

We do need to make some sort of decision on the minimum screen size we 
support.  Without any particular data in hand, I speculate that we need 
to do well at least on 1024x768, maybe on even smaller screens.  It 
would be interesting to get some sort of understanding of the 
distribution of laptop screen size as well what Thunderbird claims to 
support.

One thing we need to do is decide what we think about the various 
different Thunderbird layouts.  Right now, all we support is the default 
layout, and we could certainly stick to that.  However, a reasonable way 
to address some of the space questions that we're discussing right now 
might be to have different behaviors for the three different Thunderbird 
layouts.

>> Why would you always expose ToDos? You wouldn't do this for Events, 
>> wouldn't you? I think they should be somehow on the same level of 
>> Exposure to the user.
> 
>> If Someone wants to read mail he uses the mail modus, and if he wants 
>> to see his Agenda or ToDos/Events he should switch (press one button) 
>> to Calendaring and/or Task view (meaning the from me so called "Modus").
> 
> For me (personally) it is very convenient to have the Agende pane always 
> visible. Most of the time I'm working with e-mail not with calendaring. 
> But I agree, todos seem to be to unimportant to have them displayed 
> initially.

Worth keeping in mind is that the Agenda does display Todos, though not 
ones that don't have any dates.  So I tend to agree that a separate ToDo 
box is less important here.

Dan

Matthias Sch�fer wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Some points for discussion concerning:
> 
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Improving_the_Calendar_Views
> 
> First of all: this locks great to me - please go forward in this 
> direction! And thanks for this nice little ASCII arts!

Agreed; these mock ups feel like they're on the right track.  Nice work, 
Christian!

> 1. I think its great to have just one surface, either Calendaring or 
> Mail (including all toolbar buttons and so on) exposed at one time, and 
> easily switch between them by just klicking one button (what will hide 
> all non usable toolbar buttons and so on).

Whatever affordance is used for mode switching, I think this is in many 
ways equivalent to how tabs are used in Firefox.  I tend to feel that we 
should go one step closer to Firefox, and make it easy for the user to 
open the appropriate view in its own OS-level window.  This would be 
handy for users with larger screens to view both the Calendar and Mail 
views simultaneously (something I often want to do).

A few other random thoughts about the wiki proposals:

* calendar mode probably (eventually) wants a notifications box, a la 
iCal.  Mail mode might want this too, or it could just be a separate 
node in the Agenda tree.

* the work vs. home may want to eventually be consistent across all 
views (i.e. if I'm on vacation, I may well not want to see any 
work-related calendar entries, mail or tasks).

* I almost wonder if "Tasks" mode really wants to be "List" mode.  In 
particular, the bigger tasks view is always going to be a list, much 
like the unifinder already is today.  This goes back to Joey's wiki 
proposals, IIRC.  I'm not sure what the right thing here is.

Anyway, I'm now back to vacationing; I plan to be back to work a week 
from today (Monday, December 4).

Dan

Dan Mosedale wrote:
> Christian Jansen wrote:
>>
>> This sounds interesting. Having a Tasks Tab would be a nice option, 
>> but with the disadvantage that same thing would behave different.
>>
>> For example. Switching from Mail to Calendar could be done by a single 
>> click. But for switching from Mail to Tasks users need to click the 
>> "Calendar" button, followed by the Task tab. Why shouldn't this behave 
>> in the way like switching from Mail to Calendar? Or are task 
>> intrinsically tied to events?
> 
> I have mixed feelings about this.  Often times, tasks are really 
> unscheduled events (iCal's ease of scheduling by dropping from the task 
> list into the calendar is really nice).  On the other hand, they are 
> currently stored as part of a "Calendar".
I agree with Dan's position here, and it doesn't strike me as 'the same 
thing behaving differently'.  My calendar is at least half 'tasks' 
(mostly homework, review requests, and household chores) that I then 
schedule around the fixed events (classes, meetings, etc).  Breaking out 
tasks as separate from my calendar would seem very weird to me.

> 
>>> 3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
>>> I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! 
>>
>> Yes, these would be optional. As shown in the mock-up these panes 
>> provide a closer, so it is very easy to get rid of them.
> 
> I think it's important that the user should have a good user experience 
> without having anything in the right column so that we can play nicely 
> on smaller screens.  The main implication of this in the current mockups 
> is that it strikes me that the Agenda should stay in the left-hand pane 
> of mail mode.
> 
Let me add another vote strongly in favor of this.  I find the 
right-panel quite distracting and a case of information overload.  I'd 
want to be able to use the calendar effectively without having it turned on.

-Joey

Joey Minta wrote:
> I agree with Dan's position here, and it doesn't strike me as 'the same 
> thing behaving differently'.  My calendar is at least half 'tasks' 
> (mostly homework, review requests, and household chores) that I then 
> schedule around the fixed events (classes, meetings, etc).  Breaking out 
> tasks as separate from my calendar would seem very weird to me.

Let's not have this discussion here. There is a thread for discussiong 
what a task is. Repeating all the arguments here won't make things any 
easier to follow...

Michiel

Then perhaps that's a sign that this discussion is a bit pre-mature, 
absent a conclusion from the tasks/events thread.  If we are to only 
have Mail and Calendar (without Tasks), then the arguments made against 
a tabbed interface disappear and suggest that we should move away from 
this weird rectangle-control widget suggested.

In other words, I'd submit that the event/tasks discussion has a very 
important effect on this discussion, and that trying to resolve it 
without a conclusion on events/tasks could easily lead to problems later on.

-Joey

Joey Minta wrote:
> Dan Mosedale wrote:
>> Christian Jansen wrote:
>>>
>>> This sounds interesting. Having a Tasks Tab would be a nice option, 
>>> but with the disadvantage that same thing would behave different.
>>>
>>> For example. Switching from Mail to Calendar could be done by a 
>>> single click. But for switching from Mail to Tasks users need to 
>>> click the "Calendar" button, followed by the Task tab. Why shouldn't 
>>> this behave in the way like switching from Mail to Calendar? Or are 
>>> task intrinsically tied to events?
>>
>> I have mixed feelings about this.  Often times, tasks are really 
>> unscheduled events (iCal's ease of scheduling by dropping from the 
>> task list into the calendar is really nice).  On the other hand, they 
>> are currently stored as part of a "Calendar".
> I agree with Dan's position here, and it doesn't strike me as 'the same 
> thing behaving differently'.  My calendar is at least half 'tasks' 
> (mostly homework, review requests, and household chores) that I then 
> schedule around the fixed events (classes, meetings, etc).  Breaking out 
> tasks as separate from my calendar would seem very weird to me.
> 
>>
>>>> 3. Concerning the additional Windows on the right side:
>>>> I hope this solution would be OPTIONAL!!! 
>>>
>>> Yes, these would be optional. As shown in the mock-up these panes 
>>> provide a closer, so it is very easy to get rid of them.
>>
>> I think it's important that the user should have a good user 
>> experience without having anything in the right column so that we can 
>> play nicely on smaller screens.  The main implication of this in the 
>> current mockups is that it strikes me that the Agenda should stay in 
>> the left-hand pane of mail mode.
>>
Ok, but our users are telling us something different. They' are saying 
(even in this ML) that the tabbed interface (Agenda, Todo, Calendar) + 
plus the mini month consumes too much vertical space.


> Let me add another vote strongly in favor of this.  I find the 
> right-panel quite distracting and a case of information overload.

Having the mail tree visible while working in the calendar is no 
information overload?

-Christian

> -Joey

Matthias Sch�fer wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Some points for discussion concerning:
> 
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Improving_the_Calendar_Views
> 
[...]

Hi,
I would like to thank all of you for your valuable feedback.
But I have to say that my overall impression is that we're not moving 
really forward.

The discussion moves more and more into a details discussion. But I'd be 
happy to see some agreement on higher level first, before we start 
talking about the details. For example:

- Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
   between Mail & Calendar?
- If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable

- Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?

- Is there willingness to move the tabs (Agenda, Todo/Calendar)?

Thanks,
Christian

Christian Jansen wrote:

> Hi,
> I would like to thank all of you for your valuable feedback.
> But I have to say that my overall impression is that we're not moving
> really forward.
>
> The discussion moves more and more into a details discussion. But I'd be
> happy to see some agreement on higher level first, before we start
> talking about the details. For example:
>
> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>    between Mail & Calendar?

Definitely. This is a *very* common user suggestion that we should
definitely integrate.

> - If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable

You probably mean "expandable", right?

Yes, this should be expandable.

> - Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?

I don't like the tab approach, since you lose too much vertical space
with that approach. I really think that moving to a tabbed interface
for the different views is like solving a problem that does not exist,
since having the view options in the toolbar seems to be a perfectly
usable situation for me.

Looking at your ascii mockups on the wiki, I don't really like the
situation with the agenda in the mail and task screen and the todo
list in the mail and calendar screen. Therefore I added my slightly
edited own version to that page.
 
Cya
Simon

Christian Jansen wrote:
> I would like to thank all of you for your valuable feedback.
> But I have to say that my overall impression is that we're not moving 
> really forward.
I also feel this is true.

> The discussion moves more and more into a details discussion. But I'd be 
> happy to see some agreement on higher level first, before we start 
> talking about the details. For example:
> 
> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>   between Mail & Calendar?
Yes, absolutely.
We likely also want the ability to see an email while looking at a 
calendar view, so a user can determine when whatever's being proposed 
(not via iMIP/iTIP) in the email can fit into their schedule.

> - If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable
If you truly mean expendable, as in "throw-away", I think the lack of 
agreement in this thread already points out that we're very unlikely to 
come up with a solution that pleases everyone on our first attempt. 
Anything is expendable, and user feedback would go a long way to helping 
us make better decisions.

If you mean expAndable, I'm not sure I understand how expandability 
plays into this decision.

> - Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?
Tabs are one way to do it. Another is adding buttons to the Tb toolbar 
by default. I wouldn't mind seeing how this looks with tabs.

> - Is there willingness to move the tabs (Agenda, Todo/Calendar)?
I think we _should_ move that in some fashion. The minimonth is 
obviously a vertical space eater.  I'm open to proposals here.

-lilmatt

Christian Jansen wrote:
> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>   between Mail & Calendar?
Ofcourse. Else you would be stuck in calendar forever. In other words, I 
don't really understand the question.

> - If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable
What do you mean with expandable? You mean like the sidebar you 
proposed? I think that looks good. It saves a lot of space.

> - Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?

I'm not so sure about that. Switching to a different view is like 
zooming in or zooming out. The different views are not independent. But 
in for example firefox, the tabs are independent. So i'm afraid that 
using tabs for the views breaks the usual model used in tabs.

For now, we could stick to toolbar buttons, right? Especially if we 
create a way to have the toolbars in tb/ltn depend on the choosen 'mode' 
(calendar or mail/news)

> - Is there willingness to move the tabs (Agenda, Todo/Calendar)?

Yes. Very much. They are not placed logically at all at the moment.


Michiel

Christian Jansen wrote:
> Ok, but our users are telling us something different. They' are saying 
> (even in this ML) that the tabbed interface (Agenda, Todo, Calendar) + 
> plus the mini month consumes too much vertical space.
Yes, because it's occupying space for calendar items where they are 
trying to manage their mail folders.  That tells me that perhaps we 
should be hiding 1 or the other (or both of these) when the user is in 
mail mode, not that we should move them to another sidebar, where I 
suspect we'll have users equally complain about it taking up too much 
horizontal space.

My suggestion would be: Hide the agenda/tasks/calendar list when in 
mail-mode, leaving the minimonth in the bottom left.  This minimonth 
then can be a drop-target for mails.  Coloring the minimonth, based on 
availability, then gives the needed calendar-context while viewing mail, 
while reducing vertical space occupied.  Once a calendar view is shown, 
the agenda/tasks/calendars can return.  (And perhaps the calendar list 
should then replace the mail-folders list)

> Having the mail tree visible while working in the calendar is no 
> information overload?
If by mail tree you mean the list of accounts/folders then my answer is 
that I find it virtually useless in the calendar mode, but not 
information overload, because it conveys almost no information at all.

-Joey

> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>   between Mail & Calendar?
> - If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable
> 
I want to correct this Freudian slip ;-) I meant exTendable. For example 
adding another button for switching into a third or fourth mode.

- Christian

> - Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?
> 
> - Is there willingness to move the tabs (Agenda, Todo/Calendar)?
> 
> Thanks,
> Christian

Simon Paquet schrieb:
> Christian Jansen wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> I would like to thank all of you for your valuable feedback.
>> But I have to say that my overall impression is that we're not moving
>> really forward.
>>
>> The discussion moves more and more into a details discussion. But I'd be
>> happy to see some agreement on higher level first, before we start
>> talking about the details. For example:
>>
>> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>>    between Mail & Calendar?
> 
> Definitely. This is a *very* common user suggestion that we should
> definitely integrate.
> 
>> - If yes, do we want to have a solution which is expendable
> 
> You probably mean "expandable", right?
> 
> Yes, this should be expandable.
> 
>> - Should it be possible to switch between Day/Week/Month by using tabs?
> 
> I don't like the tab approach, since you lose too much vertical space
> with that approach. I really think that moving to a tabbed interface
> for the different views is like solving a problem that does not exist,
> since having the view options in the toolbar seems to be a perfectly
> usable situation for me.

Ok. We make the toolbar items visible by default.

> 
> Looking at your ascii mockups on the wiki, I don't really like the
> situation with the agenda in the mail and task screen and the todo
> list in the mail and calendar screen. Therefore I added my slightly
> edited own version to that page.

Thanks :-) I'll take a look at these.

- Christian
> Cya
> Simon
> 

Matthew Willis wrote:

>> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>>   between Mail & Calendar?
>
> Yes, absolutely.

I agree.

> We likely also want the ability to see an email while looking at a
> calendar view, so a user can determine when whatever's being proposed
> (not via iMIP/iTIP) in the email can fit into their schedule.

This would not fit into our mode switching model. What we could do
is adding the minimonth to the mail mode.

Simon Paquet wrote:
> Matthew Willis wrote:
> 
>>> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>>>   between Mail & Calendar?
>> Yes, absolutely.
> 
> I agree.
> 
>> We likely also want the ability to see an email while looking at a
>> calendar view, so a user can determine when whatever's being proposed
>> (not via iMIP/iTIP) in the email can fit into their schedule.
> 
> This would not fit into our mode switching model. What we could do
> is adding the minimonth to the mail mode.
> 

I think a mini-month would not really help in that case. The mini-month 
only tell me that have an events at day XYZ. It neither provides 
information about the event duration, nor about the number of events at 
day XYZ.

May, we want to have something like a mini calendar....

  <    This Week     >
-----------------------
    8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 5
MO |X| |X|X| | | | | |
-----------------------
TU | | | | | |X|X| | |
-----------------------
WE | | | | | |X| | | |



Regards,
Christian

Simon Paquet wrote:
> Matthew Willis wrote:
> 
>>> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>>>   between Mail & Calendar?
>> Yes, absolutely.
> 
> I agree.
> 

Ig you all agree on this, can you please explain to me what it means? 
What would not being able to switch between mail and calendar mean? That 
you are stuck in mail and can't view your calendar? I just don't get it.

Michiel

Matthew Willis wrote:
> We likely also want the ability to see an email while looking at a 
> calendar view, so a user can determine when whatever's being proposed 
> (not via iMIP/iTIP) in the email can fit into their schedule.

That's easy. Double-click the email in the thread pane, and it opens in 
a new window.
And even if that's not perfect UI, it means that we can punt on solving 
this issue, because there is a quite easy workaround.


Michiel

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:

>>>> - Do we want to have a the possibility to switch
>>>>   between Mail & Calendar?
>>> Yes, absolutely.
>>
>> I agree.
>
> If you all agree on this, can you please explain to me what it means?

For me it means that we have a clear distinction between a mail mode
and a calendar mode (different toolbars, different menus, etc.). It is
similar (although not equal) to the current situation with mail and
addressbook in Thunderbird.

Have you looked at the wiki proposals? I think they make this
distinction pretty clear.

> What would not being able to switch between mail and calendar mean?

It would either mean that you are stuck or that you have some kind of
mixup (current situation) with some UI elements that are
calendar-oriented and some that are mail-oriented. I believe that a
clear distinction is absolutely desirable.

Simon
-- 
Sunbird/Lightning Website Maintainer:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Sunbird/Calendar blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar

Simon Paquet wrote:
> For me it means that we have a clear distinction between a mail mode
> and a calendar mode (different toolbars, different menus, etc.). It is
> similar (although not equal) to the current situation with mail and
> addressbook in Thunderbird.

If it is distinction, that sounds like something we _don't_ want. The 
entire idea of lightning was to create integration. If you want 
separation, you can use sunbird.

Michiel

And on the seventh day Michiel van Leeuwen spoke:

>> For me it means that we have a clear distinction between a mail mode
>> and a calendar mode (different toolbars, different menus, etc.). It is
>> similar (although not equal) to the current situation with mail and
>> addressbook in Thunderbird.
>
>If it is distinction, that sounds like something we _don't_ want. The 
>entire idea of lightning was to create integration. If you want 
>separation, you can use sunbird.

I don't think that we're at odds here. What we want is an integrated mail
& calendar app (a personal information manager if you want to call it
that) under the hood of Thunderbird.

But inside Thunderbird there needs to be some deeply integrated parts
(the proposal for the integration of calendar subscription into the TB
account manager comes to mind here) and some more clearly separated
parts. 

For example I don't think that having the mail folders view on the left
and the calendar views to the right is the optimal UI solution as other
apps and user feedback seem to suggest.

Simon
-- 
Sunbird/Lightning Website Maintainer:
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar
Sunbird/Calendar blog: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/calendar

Simon Paquet wrote:
> I don't think that we're at odds here. What we want is an integrated mail
> & calendar app (a personal information manager if you want to call it
> that) under the hood of Thunderbird.

Yes, I agree with that. I was a bit confused when i wrote my previous 
post. But that made me thing that we should define what we want with 
lightning. So far, it mostly is 'an integrated calendar app inside 
thunderbird'. But what does integrated mean? How does it play with 
Thunderbird?

But to get back to the original question: I do like the proposed UI 
changes. We do need to get work done here. And I now agree that we can 
split the UI between mail and calendar (to some level)

Michiel

Michiel van Leeuwen wrote:

> But to get back to the original question: I do like the proposed UI
> changes. We do need to get work done here. And I now agree that we can
> split the UI between mail and calendar (to some level)

As far as I can see we seem to have an agreement that the proposal
from Christian moves us to the right direction and that we should
definitely start development on it.

Does anyone disagree?

Simon Paquet wrote:
> As far as I can see we seem to have an agreement that the proposal
> from Christian moves us to the right direction and that we should
> definitely start development on it.
> 
> Does anyone disagree?

Not I.
Patches welcome.

-lilmatt

I've created a HTML-mockup [1] which illustrates the tab-box much better 
than the ascii art [2]

To start the demo click the "Calendar" Tab.

Depending on the view, the toolbar should also change its content, but I 
left this out for this demo.

Regards,
Christian

[1] http://cjansen.com/lightning-demo/accordion.htm
[2] 
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Improving_the_Calendar_Views#Simon.27s_.28sipaq.29_approach

Matthew Willis wrote:
> Simon Paquet wrote:
>> As far as I can see we seem to have an agreement that the proposal
>> from Christian moves us to the right direction and that we should
>> definitely start development on it.
>>
>> Does anyone disagree?
> 
> Not I.
> Patches welcome.
> 
> -lilmatt

Christian Jansen escribi=F3:
> I've created a HTML-mockup [1] which illustrates the tab-box much bette=
r
> than the ascii art [2]
>=20
> To start the demo click the "Calendar" Tab.
>=20
> Depending on the view, the toolbar should also change its content, but =
I
> left this out for this demo.
>=20


Wow, nice demo! :-)

I see a problem, though (not with this solution, but with the overall
design approach). It seems that it is taken for granted that no one
will be using the "wide" view, in which the message content pane
expands from left to right in Thunderbird window. With the wide
layout, Calendar view would still be too tall.

The only solution I can think of would be to allow two simultaneouly
opened Thunderbird windows, in which one would be used for mail and
the other one for calendaring, like it can be done with SeaMonkey.

And, to be honest, this is not a problem for me right now, because I
use SeaMonkey and so I'm forced to use Sunbird instead of Lightning,
but when SeaMonkey 1.5 gets released using the new toolkit, this could
become a problem if the sliding bars (Mail, Calendar, Summary) are too
thick.

JMO

--=20
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?

agreed, it doesn't seem other Tb 3 pane views are handled well by=20
Lightning.  the wide message list view (experimental in Tb2) for another =

example.

it's a rather important, and preliminary, design issue to get figured=20
out - how Lighting behaves in the Tb 'box'.

---On 2006.Dec.13 12:27 PM, Ricardo Palomares Martinez wrote:
> Christian Jansen escribi=EF=BF=BD:
>> I've created a HTML-mockup [1] which illustrates the tab-box much bett=
er
>> than the ascii art [2]
>>
>> To start the demo click the "Calendar" Tab.
>>
>> Depending on the view, the toolbar should also change its content, but=
 I
>> left this out for this demo.
>>
>=20
>=20
> Wow, nice demo! :-)
>=20
> I see a problem, though (not with this solution, but with the overall
> design approach). It seems that it is taken for granted that no one
> will be using the "wide" view, in which the message content pane
> expands from left to right in Thunderbird window. With the wide
> layout, Calendar view would still be too tall.
>=20
> The only solution I can think of would be to allow two simultaneouly
> opened Thunderbird windows, in which one would be used for mail and
> the other one for calendaring, like it can be done with SeaMonkey.
>=20
> And, to be honest, this is not a problem for me right now, because I
> use SeaMonkey and so I'm forced to use Sunbird instead of Lightning,
> but when SeaMonkey 1.5 gets released using the new toolkit, this could
> become a problem if the sliding bars (Mail, Calendar, Summary) are too
> thick.
>=20
> JMO
>=20