Re: [Evolution-hackers] Status of mail-refactor-2 branch todo

[Brett Johnson <brett fc hp com>]

/me notes that the CC list on this thread was getting rather large -- So
I only replied to the list (I assume everyone on the CC list is on the
list as well, right?)

On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 13:34, Ettore Perazzoli wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 15:31, Mike Kestner wrote:
> > I'm assuming he's talking about scrolling the msglist to it, not
> > necessarily selecting it.  We currently open folders scrolled to the
> > top, with no messages selected, when they are first opened.  This would
> > essentially be the same thing, only scrolled to the "likely" first
> > interesting message to select.

Now that would be very nice behavior -- not so in-your-face as actually
selecting and previewing the message, but helpful instead.  I wouldn't
mind this behavior if it wasn't optional (in fact, I think it would be
quite nice).  But automatically selecting and previewing the new message
goes too far, and *really* needs to be optional.

> I am actually talking about selecting it too...

That's OK, as long as it's optional (in fact, I'd even use it on some
folders, if it was optional on a per-folder basis).  But *PLEASE* don't
implement this globally without an option to turn it off.

> If the problem is not wanting to look at spam messages before deleting
> you (which I understand), 

Well, that's one scenario -- but I can come up with a few more where
automatically selecting the message is the wrong thing to do.

Scenario 1) I get a *lot* of mail, and I use procmail to pre-sort it
into 20-30 folders on the server (mailing lists, sysadmin stuff, spam,
etc...).  Many times, I'll want to take a look in a particular folder,
just to see if there are any interesting new threads -- I don't want to
read the messages, or have any of them selected or marked read -- I just
want to scan the subject lines.  Yet later, when I have more time, I'll
want to read some of the mail in that folder (and I like to read mail in
the preview pane BTW).  Automatically selecting the first unread message
(and marking it read immediately, since that's how I set my preferences)
every time I open said folder is going to get *really* irritating.

Scenario 2) I fat-finger the mouse, and select the wrong folder
unintentionally -- since I didn't actually want to read this folder, I
now have to stop, mark the currently selected message as unread, then
select the folder I intended to select -- very annoying...

If two scenarios aren't enough to get the point across, I'm sure I can
come up with more...  *Please* don't implement something like this
unilaterally without making it optional. ;o)

> then one could just turn off the preview pane
> for the spam folder?..  In that case the message would be selected but
> nothing would be displayed.

You mean you're willing to have the preview pane be optional on a
per-folder basis, but not this behavior?  I don't get it...

Cheers!
-- 
Brett Johnson <brett hp com>
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