Giving "focus" to a folder in Mail: only with the keyboard?

Question

Hello everybody,
I've found that in Mail, you can choose a folder with the mouse, but that you cannot activate it, you cannot give it the focus.
When you click on a folder, it becomes pale blue and the arrow keys do not allow to go from one folder to the other. The focus is in the mails pane.
The only way to give the focus to a folder is through the keyboard, using Shift-Tab (or Tab several times): the folder then becomes dark blue, it "has the focus", and the arrow keys allow to go from one folder to the other, or to open and close folders.
This is an interface issue, and is highly unusual. Am I the only one to observe this?
If I am the only one, then I have a bug somewhere. If not, Mail has an interface problem that I will report to Apple, hoping for the best.
Thanks for your input, and Cheers!
Roger the Photographer
G5 1.8Dual, 2GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   20" App Dsplay, ext. Lacie, iPod, Bach on Al-Lansing, Canon 5D, Canon L glass

Answer 1

Hello Roger.
What you’ve described is exactly how it works.
Although I agree that this is non-standard behavior,
I have the feeling that it’s intentional, not a bug.
There are other situations in Mail where the view
that handles the keystrokes is what the user is most
likely to want rather than what has focus.
If you have the preview pane visible, for example,
and the view that has focus is the message list, the
arrow keys let you select another message, but the
Page Up/Down keys are handled by the preview instead,
regardless of whether it has focus or not. Only if
the preview pane is hidden does the message list
respond to Page Up/Down keystrokes.
Hi David,
I've just discussed the thing rather extensively with an ex-senior scientist at Apple. I think that he is right - as you are -, this is intended behaviour.
Whether it is a good idea or not is a different matter however. Apple's keyboard commands have never been as complete, or precise, as Microsoft's. Remark that this is not a compliment to Microsoft whose interface is at times simply terrible! But here, it's not the keyboard command policy that is not systematic, it's the response of the mouse. And this I find very surprising. I have 51 mailboxes in Mail and the more control I have, the happier I am, that's for sure!
On the other hand, what surprised me is the fact that the mouse does not respond in the same way in, say, Mail and iTunes. In iTunes, if you click on a "folder" (they call them playlists, which is fine, but this is about the same as a folder is it not?), not only you select it, but you activate it: you give it the focus plain and simple.
Look at Font Book: here also, you have what a power user is waiting for: clicking on a "folder", or a list or group, you give it the focus plain and simple. Idem in Address Book. iPhoto also, but then it's the tab key behaviour that's strange.
I can see from here programming teams clashing over points like this one. I would greatly prefer that Apple's applications adopt a predictable behaviour from one app to the other.
"Behaviour by design", all right. I will nonetheless send to Apple what we could call an "enhancement request".
Cheers!
Roger the Photographer
G5 1.8Dual, 2GB RAM   Mac OS X (10.4.8)   20" App Dsplay, ext. Lacie, iPod, Bach on Al-Lansing, Canon 5D, Canon L glass