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

[Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels cistron nl>]

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 18:52:09, Carlos Morgado wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 14:21:25, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> > 
> > 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.
> >
> 
> This is a good observation however in IMAP doing what balsa does and what you  
> are proposing is the same thing. Also, some imap servers are better than  
> others at this.

But it appears that balsa also gets the number of read/unread messages in
the folder, which means the IMAP server has to scan the whole folder.
And I have a "spam" folder with thousands of messages.. Also, you then 
need to expand the whole tree to see all the mailboxes, which messes up
the current view I had. The point is, it should only get the list of
mailboxes and nothing else. Compare with subscribing to newsgroups in a
newsreader. Well actually this was inspired by the way evolution handles
this. In case you didn't notice, most of the useability bugs I reported
were inspired by using evolution for an hour or so ;)

> > 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
> 
> That is anoying yeah.
> 
> > on a local folder and get "new remote IMAP mailbox".
> >
> 
> You start with local folders only - how do you add an IMAP mailbox ?

So the folder tree should have a root on which you can right click
to add mailboxes / folders.

> > First, the local folders should all be in a "local folders" tree,
> > just like remote folders are in a "remote folder" tree. It
> 
> remote folders aren't in a remote folder tree, each imap server is a tree of  
> its own to represent the folder organization on server

That is what I meant ofcourse. You're right, it is very hard to express
my ideas on this in a coherent way.

> > 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).
> >
> 
> you can't just set the folder type! that means recreating the folder from  
> scratch!

I mean when adding it. Say "add local mailbox" or "add local mailbox folder"
where you can select the type (mbox, mh, whatever).

> > 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).
> >
> 
> You need to able to add single IMAP mailboxes, as oposed to folders. You also  
> need to be able to create new folders in servers.

Okay I'll adjust that.

> Maybe the folder/subfolder nomenclature is a bit confusing and yes, it would  
> be a bit better if the new subfolder item was more context sensitive
> 
> > 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.
> >
> No. Inbox doesn't have anything to do with outgoing. Nor does Drafts.

True. So there should be a settings -> preferences -> mail options ->
special mailboxes tab.

> "Mark as special mailbox" belongs in the mailbox menu.

Why, there are only 4 of those and if you have 100 folders why should every
menu have those 4 options in it ? It's dangerous too, it's way too easy to
accidentally mark a folder as Trash for example (then empty Trash .. argh).

> > The "File -> New" hierarchy should look like this:
> > 
> > - Local mbox folder set
> 
> this doesn't make sense, a "mbox folder set" is just a directory with mboxes.

Exactly. This is to get consistent naming.

> > - Local MH folder set
> 
> Some MUAs can't see nested MH folders

But we're using balsa which can.

> > - Remote IMAP account
> 
> see above.
> 
> > - 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.
> >
> 
> Are you trying to group local folders by type ? I don't get it.

I'm just proposing to do this the way almost every other MUA does it,
like evolution, mozilla, outlook.

> I think have a hierarchy for local folders makes stuff harder to find. I'm a  
> great fan of alphabetical order.

Okay so there should be a common folder root under which you can add
a local or remote mailbox, or a local or remote folder where folder
means directory instead of mailbox.

> > folder-prefs
> > 
> > The folder preferences menu should have some extra options:
> > 
> > - Standard Cc: / Bcc: / Reply-To: header settings
> 
> this is all part of identities

Okay, true. But folder-specific settings should override the
identity settings, because I have groups of folders that use
the same identity yet need slightly different customized headers.

Oh and ofcourse the default To: should be settable for mailinglists.
That's something that doesn't really belong under an identity
(unless you want to have 1 identity per list).

> > - Possibility to add customized headers (X-whatever: yes)
> 
> this might be usefull for RIPE mail :)

Exactly. Not only that, I want to add an "X-Sent-Folder" header to every
outgoing message. Together with an automatic Bcc: to myself, I can then
filter mail to the Sent mailbox on the server. Why you ask? Well because
otherwise all mail I send is transfered to the remote server twice:
once as outgoing SMTP, and another time when saving that mail to the
Sent mailbox on the IMAP server (IMAP should /really/ have included
a way to send messages /and/ save them in a Sent box!).

> > - (perhaps) Location of drafts / sent folder
> >
> 
> Ok, Sent could be a Identities thing

Both. I like to have my sent messages in the same folder as the
message itself, so the whole discussion can be read back.

> 
> > 
> > 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.
> >
> 
> Works for me (2.0.15-cvs)

In plain 2.0.15 it doesn't work. Neither for file -> include nor file -> attach.
Perhaps it's a gnome/gtk thing ?


> > external-editor
> > 
> > It would be great if Balsa could run an external editor in the
> > standard compose window.
> >
> 
> eeek!

Again evolution inspired. Check the "gnome-vim" project.. *awesome*

Thanks for your comments. I'll rewrite the bug reports, esp. the
folder-prefs stuff. That was pretty unclear. Mind, it's still a
wishlist. If noone likes it noone will implement it .. that's life.

Mike.