17-Jun-2026 — conversation collapse/reply, sort toggle, and content-aware single send #278

build 700 — commit 512c941

Improves the committee inbox conversation view (collapse/expand like other email clients, reply or reply-all to a chosen message, sort order, cleaner summaries and grouping) and makes outbound sends choose between one combined message and per-recipient sends based on whether the content personalises. Part of the Gmail inbox work in #278.

What's new

See https://github.com/nbarrett/ngx-ramblers/issues/278

• Conversation messages collapse and expand like Gmail/Outlook: the newest opens, the rest show a one-line summary (sender, "to ...", a clean preview) and expand on click.
• Reply or Reply all to a specific message, via square icon buttons; on a collapsed message the buttons appear on hover so you can reply without opening it.
• Sort the conversation newest-first (default) or oldest-first with a toggle.
• Maximise the inbox to fill the whole screen, hiding the nav bar, page chrome and banners; Restore to return. The maximised state is kept in the URL (maximise query parameter) and carries through to the email composer when you reply, so the composer opens maximised too; the maximised view shows the site logo top-left.
• The inbox toolbar is a single row with the site logo left-most, and the selected view (all / mine / a specific role mailbox / junk) is kept in the URL, so the chosen mailbox survives reload and can be linked.
• Clicking Reply puts the cursor straight into the message editor so you can start typing immediately.
• Denser conversation list (sender and date share a line) and a toolbar that stacks full-width on small screens instead of overflowing the page.
• Copies of the same send are grouped into a single entry showing the combined recipient list, and an exact duplicate is no longer shown.
• The collapsed preview shows real message text instead of leaking HTML/CSS.
• Sending to several recipients now goes out as one message addressed to all of them when the content has no personalisation; if the content uses member merge fields, it is sent per-recipient so each copy is personalised.

At a glance

Where to find it

• Admin -> Email inbox: conversation view, grouping, sort, reply/reply-all.
• The email composer: the content-aware single combined send.

How it behaves

• Conversation: newest message expanded, others collapsed to a summary (sender + "to " + preview); click to toggle. Square Reply and Reply all icons sit on the message - always shown when expanded, revealed on hover when collapsed. The header Reply still answers the latest.
• Sort: the conversation lists newest-first by default; a toggle switches to oldest-first.
• Maximise: a toggle expands the inbox into a panel fixed over the whole viewport, hiding the nav bar, breadcrumb, title and banners so the conversation and message panes fill the screen; the button reads Restore while maximised and the state is stored in the URL so it survives reload and can be linked. On small screens the toolbar stacks full-width.
• Grouping: copies of one send (same sender and subject within a few minutes) merge into a single entry with combined To/Cc. Exact duplicates are removed, and a server guard stops the same message being stored twice.
• Sending: the content is inspected for member merge fields. With none, all external recipients are sent one combined email (Cc/Bcc applied once); with merge fields, recipients are sent individually so each is personalised. Group members are always sent per-recipient.

How to try it out

1. Open a multi-message conversation in Admin -> Email inbox. Older messages are collapsed; hover one to reveal its reply buttons, or open it and use Reply / Reply all. Flip the sort order with the toggle.
2. Send a committee email to several named people with no merge fields and yourself in Cc. You should receive a single copy, and the inbox shows one grouped entry listing all recipients.

Technical changes

• Reply all carries a flag through to the composer so the original recipients are pre-selected: To is the sender and Cc is pre-filled with the other recipients (minus the sender and own role addresses), rather than offered as a "Cc these roles" suggestion as a plain reply does. The composer's Cc and Bcc panels now render whenever they hold recipients, so the stepper summary and the visible selection can never differ.
• Client inbox.component: collapse/expand state, Reply and Reply all per message (reply-all augments Cc with the original recipients, minus the sender and own role addresses), recipient summary, newest/oldest sort toggle, send-grouping (same sender and subject within five minutes), exact dedupe by Gmail message id, HTML-stripped preview, square hover-revealed reply icons and detail-pane padding; the inbox toolbar is a single non-wrapping row with the maximise/restore toggle inline and the site logo left-most, and the view selector writes the role local-part to the URL (a new StoredValue key) and reads it back on init; the compose editor's TipTap toolbar is sticky while scrolling; the compose editor is focused on reply hand-off (via a ViewChild setter, so it fires when the editor renders); denser conversation rows (sender and date on one line) and a toolbar that stacks full-width below the small breakpoint.
• Maximise is now a reusable app-maximisable-panel component used by both the inbox and the email composer, replacing the duplicated full-screen shell in each. It owns the maximised state (StoredValue.MAXIMISE in the URL), renders the fixed full-viewport overlay with a Restore/Maximise toggle and a 44px SiteLogoComponent, and projects the host content; maximise carries across the reply hand-off and the composer's Back to inbox preserves the maximise (and thread) parameter. The overlay takes its own compositor layer (translateZ) and forces a reflow plus a resize on entering maximised and again once web fonts load, so action buttons paint correctly when maximised on a slow first paint instead of needing a manual refresh. The composer's action-bar buttons also carry their own sizing so they no longer depend on Bootstrap's global .btn winning the cascade.
• Server inbox-message-import: an idempotency guard so a message already on a thread is not stored a second time.
• Server batch-transactional-send: when the content has no member merge fields, external recipients are sent one combined email (Cc/Bcc once); otherwise recipients are sent per-recipient. Members remain per-recipient.
• Requires a server restart for the import guard and the send change; the conversation-view changes hot-reload.

Email composer recipients redesign

The unbranded recipients step is rebuilt around an email-client-style chip field, and the picker that was spread across five stacked panels becomes one collapsible frame.

• "Who is this email going to?" is a single collapsible frame (open by default, and always opened for an unbranded send); collapsed, it summarises who is chosen by name across To/Cc/Bcc.
• To/Cc/Bcc are chip/token fields: type to add, with type-ahead over saved addresses, and Cc/Bcc reveal on demand. Each recipient is a removable chip you can drag between lines, or click to open a small editor to rename it, switch its field, toggle save-for-reuse, or remove it. The suggestion list is keyboard-navigable (arrow keys and Enter).
• Group-member tags and recipient chips share one look, matched to the "Before you can continue" validation summary (peach fill, sunset border, bold maroon name); the member tag shows a shortened, consistent qualifier ("with Head Office consent" / "without Head Office consent", date forms kept). A text filter now survives selecting several matching members in a row instead of clearing after each pick.
• The Sender and Template step shows the banner preview beside its selects in a column instead of full-width, so it is no longer oversized.
• Clicking the Compose step opens the body editor and focuses it.
• The composer notification alert sits directly under the action bar with even spacing and a warning icon and title; membership expiry dates in sent emails use the standard Ramblers date format; and the send progress bar is green throughout (red only on failure).

Technical changes (recipients)

• New app-recipient-field standalone component holds the To/Cc/Bcc chip fields, type-ahead, drag-between-fields, the per-chip editor popover and keyboard navigation; it replaces the five fieldsets in the unbranded flow, whose now-dead handlers and fields were removed from email-composer.
• The shared app-maximisable-panel gained a [panelControls] projection slot, so the maximised row is logo-left, injected-controls, Restore-right, and it shows the site logo whenever maximised regardless of showHeader; the inbox and composer both feed their toolbars through the slot.
• member-multi-select renders selected tags via an ng-label-tmp (name, muted qualifier, remove), styles them to match the recipient chips, sets clearSearchOnAdd to false so a filter survives multi-select, and shortens the consent qualifiers.
• notification-config-selector lays the email-type and banner selects in a left column with the banner preview in a right column.
• email-preview shows a warning icon and title on its error alert.
• Server batch-transactional-send formats MEMBER_EXP with the Ramblers standard DISPLAY_DATE instead of yyyy-MM-dd (needs a server restart).

Email composer in pictures

Maximise and restore

Any maximised admin view now shows the same top row: the site logo on the left, that view's own controls in the middle, and a Restore button on the right. Maximise fills the screen and hides the site navigation and page chrome; Restore returns to the normal layout. The state is kept in the URL, so a maximised view survives a reload and can be linked, and replying from the inbox opens the composer already maximised.

Maximised composer: site logo on the left, the view's own controls in the middle, Restore on the right.

Recipients are chips. Type an address and press Enter; To, Cc and Bcc hold removable tokens, with Cc and Bcc revealed on demand.

Click a chip to open a small editor: rename the person, switch their field, save the address for re-use, or remove it.

Group members shown as tags with a short consent qualifier. A text filter now survives selecting several matching people in a row.

Sender and Template: the banner preview now sits in a column beside its selects instead of spanning the full width.