Several balsa bugs I'm about to submit to bugzilla.

[Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels cistron nl>]

Hello,

	I've made a list of several bugs I want to submit to bugzilla,
but I thought I'd send them here first.

There's still the annoying behaviour of the composer that sometimes causes
from/to/cc fields to empty the moment you click "Send" but I haven't been
able to reproduce it on-demand (ofcourse it just happened when I tried to
send this message) so that will come later.


Here we go:


bounce-forward-message

Currently it is not possible to 'bounce' a message to
someone else. 'Bouncing' is also known as 'resending'.
Basically you add 'Resent-' headers and send the message
on to another recipient basically without changing it.
See also RFC2822: 3.6.6. Resent fields

It is also not possible to forward a message including all the
headers, something that is very useful when complaining
about spam.

I suggest that 'Resend to' and 'Forward with headers' are
added to the right-click menu on the message-list window
and the message-text window, and to the "Message" menu in
the menu bar.



save-message

There should be a way to save a single message in raw format
to a file, preferably in mbox format (meaning it should have
an initial From_ line, that's all)

This should probably be added to the Message menu in the menu bar,
since "save current part" is already there. Another logical
place would be the File menu.


message-window-menu

When right clicking in the message-text window, you get an
edit menu, with "select input method", "paste" etc. That
doesn't make much sense.
 
It would be better if you would get the same menu you get
when right-clicking on the message in the message-list window.
Perhaps with an extra "copy" option.


imap-timeout

If you don't access an opened but non-selected mailbox for a while
and the remote IMAP server times out and closes the connection, balsa
show an error if you try to open that mailbox again.
 
It shows an information box saying:
 
"Information - Balsa
 Disconnected for inactivity
 Connection to <imap-server> closed
 Mailbox closed
 CLOSE failed."
 
On top of that, it display and error box saying:
 
"Error
 Unable to Open Mailbox!
 Please check the mailbox settings"
 
In my case it's even worse, my window manager handles mouse-over
as "select window and raise" so if I move to the error message
box to close it I pass over the information box, which is getting
raised over the error box as a result, and you have to click on
the error box first before you can close the information box - AARGH


imap-subscribe

Right now the only way to subscribe to new IMAP folders is
to go settings -> preferences -> modify -> un-select
"subscribed folders only". Or you can right-click on the
top container of the IMAP account and select "properties".
 
Then Balsa becomes very slow as it scans the entire IMAP
hierarchy and all folders and messages in it, before it
comes back to life.
 
It would be better if you could just right-click on the
top container of the IMAP account and find a
"subscriptions" menu that popped up a window with all
the IMAP folders on the server and you could just
select which folders are subscribed and which are not.


folder-menu


The options you get in the folder window when right clicking
are confusing and should be more context-dependent. Right now,
for example when selecting "new IMAP subfolder" it doesn't
even remember where in the tree you clicked on it and you have
to enter manually "create as subfolder of". And you can click
on a local folder and get "new remote IMAP mailbox".
 
First, the local folders should all be in a "local folders" tree,
just like remote folders are in a "remote folder" tree. It
would be more logical and it would allow one to keep multiple
folder collections. You would also be able to set the folder type
for that tree (i.e. mbox, maildir, MH).
 
Then the right-click menu should just show:
 
* When top-level or a folder is selected:
 
- new subfolder   (for something that contains mailboxes)
- new mailbox     (for a mailbox)
 
* When a mailbox is selected:

- rescan
- properties
- edit filter
- delete
 
- mark as Inbox/Sent/Drafts
 
As you can see I left out the "new local mailbox / IMAP subfolder etc".
That doesn't make sense. That should be in a seperate menu (see above).
 
Same goes for "mark as Inbox/Sent/Drafts". That should also be in
a seperate menu (settings -> preferences -> mail options -> outgoing),
no need to clutter up the mailbox menu with that.
 
The "File -> New" hierarchy should look like this:
 
- Local mbox folder set
- Local maildir folder set
- Local MH folder set
- Remote IMAP account
- Remote POP3 account
 
For the "local mbox folder set" the INBOX should be special
cased, since unlike MH and Maildir the INBOX is usually not
located in the directory all the other mailboxes are in.
 
Also, perhaps the folder-tree should have a root common to all local
and remote folders/accounts that, when right-clicked on, shows
the same File -> New menu.



imap-new-folder

If you create a new folder on an IMAP server you are not
subscribed to it. If the IMAP account is set to show only
subscribed folders, the new folder should be subscribed
to automatically, otherwise you can't see it.


compose-prefs

When composing a new message from the "compose" button, Balsa should
use the properties (identity, etc) of the currently active folder.


folder-prefs

The folder preferences menu should have some extra options:
 
- Standard Cc: / Bcc: / Reply-To: header settings
- Possibility to add customized headers (X-whatever: yes)
- (perhaps) Location of drafts / sent folder


composer-include-file

If you're in the message composer, and you open a file with
File -> Include (or attach), Balsa doesn't remember the directory
you selected. So if you select a directory 10 levels down your
homedir, and you later want to attach another file from that
directory, you need to navigate to that directory all over again.
                                                                                
Balsa should return to the last directory selected.



external-editor

It would be great if Balsa could run an external editor in the
standard compose window.
 
I'd be happy if it was somehow possible if, instead of the balsa
editor, that window would include the 'zvt' terminal emulator
and a text editor (for me, "vi", for others, perhaps pico, emacs or joe).
 
The "plugger" for mozilla appears to be able to embed one X
application in the window of another. Perhaps that is a viable
sample implementation to follow (so vim-gtk would work ;) )
 
Or perhaps there is a standard Gnome way to do this kind of thing.
I don't care, as long as I can use "vi".