impossible to navigate with keys

[JethroUK©]

Vista has a very serious problem with object focus - makes it very
difficult/ nay totally impossible to operate with a keyboard so i suspect
it's lost a lot of customers for this reason alone

Live Mail also seems to have a focus issues & i'm not sure which is to blame

when you attempt to move (up/down) folders in the folder pane using
keyboard - if there is news/mail download, the folder loses focus to the
mail/message window - if not it takes two presses to activate the folder -
?????????? - again this peculiar behavior makes it impossible to navigate
with keys

 

[Michael Santovec]

I've noticed similar things under XP.

It seems erratic. When using down arrow to move down a newsgroup, the
focus may move to the message list window even when no messages are
downloaded. Usually it doesn't but sometimes it does.

As for moving down a folder, usually I have to press it twice (first
time highlights the folder, second moves down), but once in a while, one
press moves to the next folder.

As for moving up a folder, that never works until I tab though the
message list and reading pane back to the folder list.

It's annoying, but I still mostly use the keyboard to navigate. It's
faster than the mouse.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Vista has a very serious problem with object focus - makes it very
difficult/ nay totally impossible to operate with a keyboard so i suspect
it's lost a lot of customers for this reason alone

Live Mail also seems to have a focus issues & i'm not sure which is to blame

when you attempt to move (up/down) folders in the folder pane using
keyboard - if there is news/mail download, the folder loses focus to the
mail/message window - if not it takes two presses to activate the folder -
?????????? - again this peculiar behavior makes it impossible to navigate
with keys

No, you just have to watch the presentation areas like a hawk
to look out for changes. If focus switched out of the Folder pane
into a Message list you can tell by a change of highlighting, etc.
So then you have to press Backtab to put focus back where
you would have preferred that it had stayed.


You can get some control back by setting Work Offline
but then if you are configured to use a Live ID while online
be prepared to be peppered with prompts about that.

The keyboard user is only being served by WLMail as an
afterthought IMO.


---

 

[Not Me]

WLM slows my machine considerably.
Why they wrote such a POS and call it a replacement for OE is a mystery.
If you like that type of behavior when reading mail, you can always use
webmail.
WLM doesn't work as well as many online mail services.

 

[...winston]

The tag line doesn't necessarily indicate a 'replacement' for OE.
"Microsoft's free e-mail program, with the familiar features of Outlook Express, plus more."

--
...winston
ms-mvp mail


.... and call it a replacement for OE is a mystery.

 

[Not Me]

They will eventually stop Hotmail access with OE (they already had planned
to, but public outcry delayed it), thus forcing you to use WLM or reading
mail in the web interface.
I suppose one could buy Outlook (but I don't like the new version of that
either) use a third party reader.

 

[JethroUK©]

No, you just have to watch the presentation areas like a hawk
to look out for changes. If focus switched out of the Folder pane
into a Message list you can tell by a change of highlighting, etc.
So then you have to press Backtab to put focus back where
you would have preferred that it had stayed.


You can get some control back by setting Work Offline
but then if you are configured to use a Live ID while online
be prepared to be peppered with prompts about that.

The keyboard user is only being served by WLMail as an
afterthought IMO.

I dont think the keyboard user has been considered at all in the development
of WLM - any keyboard support it does have just 'happen' to be in the code
lifted from Vista Mail

 

[BCP]

I agree that WLM is really difficult to navigate with the keyboard, and I
think this is really bad. There are many keyboard users around (some of
them blind and therefore they can't watch the screen like a hawk), people who
can't use a mouse for all sorts of reasons, and people who just prefer to use
the keyboard. More Microsoft programs now seem to be harder to use with the
keyboard (WLM, Vista, Office 2007), the annoying thing is that previously
Microsoft programs worked pretty well using keys, Outlook Express for
instance works really well with the keyboard and is easy to use and to teach,
Winodws XP was/is pretty good and Office versions up to 2003. Why are MSoft
going backwards in this resepect?