Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby therentabrain » Tue May 23, 2023 3:59 am

Hi, still testing the current version. Is there a way to open more than one message at a time in browser tabs? In older versions of AMS, we were able to hold down the ctrl key and click on several messages to load priority messages in tabs and handle them, closing each tab as they were completed.

In the current version, ctrl-clicking doesn't work, right-clicking doesn't bring up the context menu, and manually copying the URL of a message into a new tab requires that we log in again; I guess the session is tied to the tab somehow.

I can program javascript and am happy to try a tweak or two if you know what that would be!

Thank you so much.
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby Code Crafters » Tue May 23, 2023 8:51 am

From the email view you can click printable and source views which open in another tab and these pass a session id in the url but this isn't possible for the normal text / html views from email view or from the folder view. Session storage is used to store the session id so this is per tab rather than for all tabs. This is so the session information is discarded when you close the tab or browser. When the session id is passed for source / printable views, there is code that then stores this in the session appropriately. The new webmail uses angular whereas the old webmail used vanilla html / javascript with some custom scripting. I'll add a feature request to open emails in a new tab from folder view though and we'll try to add this in a future update.
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby therentabrain » Wed May 31, 2023 1:13 pm

I really appreciate it! It is a show-stopper for us right now. We're talking about what to do. Other projects have stolen my time so I haven't done anything for a bit.

I am not seeing any definitive info, but I think cookies could solve the problem:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/109 ... -angularjs

As long as the cookie expires usefully, I imagine, and doesn't persist if the browser is closed (assuming you want it to log the user out, even before the session timeout). If it were up to me, I might have a cookie store the session id and expiration timestamp, and the web page ping the server every few seconds to refresh the cookie. If the browser is closed or the computer goes to sleep, etc, the cookie expires and the browser is logged out.

Just in case that is a useful thought. *shrug* I suppose it'd be a bit easier to pass the session the same way that view source does, but that seems a little kludgier, and less secure if you want the user to then be able to start replies to various messages in each tab, etc, like we can with the old webmail.

Thank you for your kind engagement with this.
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby Code Crafters » Thu Jun 01, 2023 9:04 am

We use session storage now which is per tab and automatically cleared when the tab is closed. To allow multiple tabs, we'd simply use local storage which is persistent but then as you say add an expiration time to this. This does mean that you couldn't use multiple tabs to log into different accounts though. Instead you'd have to use incognito mode in chrome for a second session, use another browser or log out.
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby therentabrain » Thu Jun 01, 2023 9:31 am

That's a fair point, but I think that's fine. I don't think anyone expects to be logged into the same website under different tabs in the same browser. In fact, I think that'd be confusing, especially if the color scheme/skin is the same, and especially if your browser memorizes your credentials (which, sadly, is a default situation for most I think).

It seems like a very specialized need, to have multiple tabs open to different accounts (and to be able to keep them straight). I can imagine a very small subset of users loving it. But nearly all the common websites people use log you in browser-wide. google/gmail, youtube, ebay, facebook, amazon, imdb; I'm hard-pressed to think of a site that limits to a single tab, aside from certain very particular developer tools I've used.

Hope that's helpful to say :) Thanks again :)
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby Code Crafters » Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:22 am

Thanks for the feedback. I've added this to our feature request list.
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Re: Open multiple messages in tabs (in webmail)

Postby therentabrain » Tue Jun 13, 2023 8:38 am

Really appreciated! Thank you!
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