user interface niggles

[David Scotson <davidscotson mac com>]

Hi,

I very recently began using your mail client and, while overall very 
happy with its simplicity and ease-of-use, my status as a new user 
means I am well placed to spot UI niggles that may cause unnecessary 
confusion for your end-users.

I hope you can use this information to further improve Balsa. Note that 
I am new to both Balsa & Linux, so some of these issues may be more 
general. For example,  I have heard cut & paste can be hit & miss on 
Linux.

Here are some of the things I have noticed:

-------
When trying to paste into the To, Subject or Cc fields the text to be 
pasted appears in the main message body area instead. Your FAQ mentions 
a similar problem where the text appears after you press return but 
this appears to be a separate issue.

There is a 'grippy' on the separator between the To, Subject etc. 
fields and the main body of the email that appears to have no real 
function.

When new mail arrives the window listing emails updates in a strange 
manner. If the window was showing the most recent 10 emails before the 
new mail arrived I would expect it to show the most recent 10 emails 
taking into account the new arrivals rather than continue to display 
the exact same emails.

When cancelling an email, the confirmation dialog is confusing. 
According to the Gnome HIG [Don't Save] [Cancel] [Save] would be better 
than the current [No] [Yes] [Cancel] with the default being [Save] as 
it is non-destructive, rather than the current [No]. There are a few 
other issues with this dialog, e.g. it is a question, rather than a 
standard confirmation alert, and it's message reads poorly if the email 
does not have a destination address.
-------

I would like in time to be able to offer patches, even if only for 
trivial interface issues, but that will have to wait till I am more at 
home with Linux and have investigated Gnome development.

In the meantime, do you find such 'superficial' bug reports useful, or 
are you fully aware of these issues and merely waiting for someone to 
find the time to make the necessary changes?

regards,

david scotson