Please check new attachment functionality in your localised version of Thunderbird 60 ESR RC1

[Jorg Knobloch]

Dear l10n localiser and friend of Thunderbird,

We have recently discussed the access/command key localisation for the new attachment functionality in Thunderbird 60. We have made adjustments to eliminate some problems and we need your help to verify it all works in your localisation. Can you please try out our new build Thunderbird 60 ESR build 3 which is the release candidate, available from:

https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/candidates/60.0-candidates/build3/

On Windows/Linux, every locale already has a pre-existing, unique, localised access key for the attachment pane, attachments.accesskey, the underlined character in the "N attachments" header label. Users are already familiar with this key combo to focus the attachment pane when it is shown (which requires this local access key to be unique). For users' convenience, the localised access key of the attachment pane (e.g. Alt+M for English, for example Alt+N for German) now also works to show the bucket when it's hidden, and to hide the bucket when it's shown and focused. So with a single known key combo, users can now access and toggle the attachment pane, which is easy to use and easy to remember (high mnemonic value). In other words, users can now conveniently use the extended access key to do more. This feature now works out of the box without requiring further localisation.

As Mac does not have localised access keys, we are now using Ctrl+M as a key combo to access the attachment pane, toggleAttachmentPaneCmd.key, which only applies to MAC. This means that you should not localise toggleAttachmentPaneCmd.key, "m" by default, unless there are specific reasons in your locale to do so, e.g. when "m" is not available on your locale's keyboard layout or such. For many locales, there's no change as they already have "m". We can't localise the Mac key combo because it's likely to interfere with Mac system-wide keyboard shortcuts. E.g., we noticed that Polish currently has toggleAttachmentPaneCmd.key set to "a", which conflicts with Mac's Ctrl+A for moving to the beginning of the line or paragraph. Please verify that your localisation has toggleAttachmentPaneCmd.key as the letter "m", or, if it doesn't, make sure that your chosen key combo works on Mac.

For similar reasons, and in accordance with your feedback, we have changed the modifier of the key combo to show the "Reorder Attachments" panel, reorderAttachmentsCmd.key, from Alt+X to Ctrl+Shift+X (Cmd+Shift+X on Mac) which again shouldn't be localised. This was necessary since again the key combo with the Alt modifier conflicted with other localised access keys, for example in German Alt+X was for already taken for the tools menu (E_x_tras). Please double-check your locale to make sure that Ctrl+Shift+X/Cmd+Shift+X works to show the "Reorder Attachments" panel. If you localised that key, please make sure it works.

Please accept our apologies for the excessively late changes. Only as localised builds of Thunderbird 60 have become available, were we able to detect these problems. Most locales should not be affected at all. We haven't made these changes without a lot of (very late night) deliberation. This is the best we could do to ensure that the new functionality works as it should.

Thanks a lot for your cooperation which is much appreciated.

Jorg K and Thomas Düllmann (who kindly redacted this text).