Re: [Evolution-hackers] Sparse Mail Subjects

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 22:38 +0200, guenther wrote:
> > > IIRC this was discussed some months ago, with a way better UI than just
> > > blank subjects -- which basically does nothing.
> > > 
> > > The proposed mail list UI was a dynamic multiline list, something like
> > > this (granted, the ASCII art I remember did look better):
> > > 
> > > [+] [Evolution-hackers] Mail VPaned vs. HPaned
> > >  |  Hans Petter Jansson <hpj ximian com>
> > >  |
> > >  |--[+] Not Zed <notzed ximian com>
> > >  |   |
> > >  |   +----  Hans Petter Jansson <hpj ximian com>
> > >  |
> > >  +----  Not Zed <notzed ximian com>
> > 
> > That's not a bad idea either, but I guess it would take more work to
> > implement. I was trying for some low hanging fruit :)
>
> Sure this will be harder to implement. ;)  This idea isn't originally by
> me, it was jimmac IIRC, who came up with it.

The problem is neither of these fit the 'table format' which is pretty well enforced by etable (or gtktreeview).  And if you do something to get around it (you can afterall put anything in a cell), then there's no way to access sorting on different fields.

Having sorting in the table just doesn't really work anyway as it is.  Well it works, but is too inflexible - e.g. updating a sorted threaded view, and it doesn't scale (it forces us to pass all messages all the time from the camel layer to the model to the view, 3 copies of the same info).

> > Take a look at my mockup and see if it's not at least more scannable
> > than the current solution (full verbosity always).
>
> I already saw that mockup before answering. But looking at it again it
> leads to a few more comments:

I actually find the sparse thing looks bad.  Looks like evolution is broken.

> * The mail list pane is much wider, than your original screenshot. This
>   is necessary due to that very long [list-id] pre-pending every single
>   subject. There already was a request to suppress displaying this id.
>
>   Suppressing this string is a perfect new feature for per-folder
>   options. (yay, I want this)
>
> * The mail list pane can easily be much more narrow, if Subject and From
>   are aligned as shown above. Leading to a more usable feature even on
>   smaller displays (<1400 width).
>
> * The gained space can be used for things like important column, etc.
>
>
> The blank subjects already make grokking the structure more easy on a
> glimpse, but it isn't the best solution, as it wastes a lot of space.

> And we all know, the old MS like "tree view" made determining the exact
> structure way more easy, than the current Mac like "triangles". It used
> to be a piece of cake, to understand which mail any particular post
> replied to... </whining>

But it does'nt look as Cool McCool though does it? (groan).

--

Michael Zucchi <notzed ximian com> "born to die, live to work, it's all downhill from here" Novell's Evolution and Free Software Developer