Email logs overflow admin-container requiring horizontal scroll

Contribute UX

AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around a recent update causing email logs in the admin container to overflow horizontally, requiring a horizontal scroll. Users omarfilip, chapoi, and ToddZ note the change, with chapoi confirming it’s intentional due to a design update (pull request #34735). While the change aims to improve layout, users prefer a more compact, squashed look over horizontal scrolling. ToddZ and tkforbes highlight the usability issues, particularly in the Sent and Received logs, where losing visibility of key columns like Post & SMTP details is problematic. ToddZ suggests a CSS workaround to make the admin pages full-width, and tkforbes proposes compressing the Reply Key column to reduce width. The core issue is balancing design improvements with user experience, especially for those with smaller screens or specific viewing preferences.

1

I’m pretty sure this stems from a recent update — it used to be contained.

The Received email log is nicely contained because it has fewer columns:

received-email-log
received-email-log1000×568 42.9 KB

The Sent and Rejected logs overflow:

sent-email-log
sent-email-log1000×596 40.4 KB

rejected-email-log
rejected-email-log2216×1300 142 KB

Admin pages should be full width
2

Im not sure I see the problem, are you saying they are overflowing the page? They seem to have a horizontal scrollbar, so I think not?

3

Perhaps ‘overflow’ is not the best way to describe the issue. Previously there was no need for a horizontal scroll bar - everything used fit in the container.

4

There has been a recent change indeed

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/34735

So this is the intended design. The alternative is a more squashed look.

Eventually, at a small enough width, the table is going to overflow horizontally and you need scroll. I guess you are reaching that point a bit quicker on your viewport now.

1 Like
5

I see, thanks. I still prefer a squashed look over horizontal scrolling. Perhaps smaller text and less white space?

6

I noticed the change too – it’s especially awkward in Sent. Things seemed fine before the update.

The width of the Default/Foundation theme, at least, is constrained by design – not by viewport. I can only expose more of the table with CSS mods:

:root {
    --d-max-width: 1310px;
}

It would be neat if we could enable/disable columns, but short of that:

  • In Sent, I’m much more interested in surveying the Post & SMTP Details column than the Reply Key – I’d rather scroll right if I need a particular Reply Key.
  • Rejected is infrequently used, but I wouldn’t mind if To and Subject were wrapped a little tighter again, since they usually wrap anyway.
1 Like
7

I posted this earlier over at Admin pages should be full width:

It seems a bit too easy, but I’m having good luck with this CSS tweak:

// expand admin pages to full width
.admin-interface {
  --d-max-width: 100%;
}

It doesn’t affect internal dialogs of course, and on some admin pages it’s overkill, but gosh it makes logs nicer.

2 Likes
8

I’d been meaning to report this. Happy to see others are noticing the same issue.

IMO, losing the ability to glance at the Post & SMTP details column without side-scrolling is really annoying.

image
image1097×210 19.3 KB

I’m wondering if the Reply Key could be squished (perhaps a middle segment of it dropped). It’s a 32 char hex string. The first eight and last eight chars would be enough uniqueness to identify the record and save a lot of space

59e6a6c3ca31f7405d7c234d6d73bf53

vs

59e6a6c3…6d73bf53

Maybe some nice feature like hover displaying the entire 32 chars and Ctrl-V (copy) grabbing the whole thing.