Re: Again: Newbie questions/comments (Was: Re: [Evolution] Wish list/Todo ?)

[Jeffrey Stedfast <fejj ximian com>]

On Thu, 2002-07-18 at 16:52, Oliver Sturm wrote:
[snip]
> Well... I don't remember about Netscape, but Emacs (Gnus) doesn't, Mulberry
> doesn't... quite sure about those. Anyhow, I think configurable key mappings
> are not so far-out these days, are they?

Outlook does. Mozilla does. Netscape does. I think Mutt does too?

anyways, I can't think of a single gui client that allows you to rebind
keys to different actions. Not to mention this is complicated to do (if
you want to avoid conflicting keybindings that is, if you want to let
the user screw himself, well then that'd be easy)

[snip]
> > >         * Can I configure PGP signature checking to happen automatically
> > >           when I open a message? 
> >
> > no, the reason it is not automatic is to provide assurance that the
> > icon/text about the sig being authentic is not spoofed via html.
>
> Ok, sounds like you thought about it... But that may also be a reason why
> most other mailers I have seen display informational messages like that
> outside the message text.

yea, we could pop up dialogs but I think most people would agree that
that would just be plain annoying. It would make me stop using evolution
- that's how annoyed I'd be. And yea, if I'm a developer and won't use
it, I guess I couldn't expect anyone else to :-)

> > >         * Having played around with the colored markers and filters, I
> > >           now have some messages colored in a folder. The filter is long
> > >           gone but the color stays. Is that a bug?
> >
> > nope, the effects of a filter are not tied to the existance of the
> > filter that changed that aspect of the message. If it was, then if you
> > deleted a filter that filtered your messages from Joe Bob Jr, then all
> > his mail would have to be magically moved back to your Inbox. I think
> > that'd be a bit counter-intuitive ;-)
>
> I'm OK with that, but how do I uncolor the messages now?

er, yea... this is a bug. anyways, I'm pretty sure there is already a
bug report about that. Something to the effect of "need GUI for
selecting message colours"

> > >         * Editing templates would be nice, too... Like, I type WTF and
> > >           the editor automatically expands it.
> >
> > I don't see this happening ever. but if you want to submit it as a
> > request, file it under GtkHTML's Editor component.
>
> Any reason you could tell the world why you don't see this happening ever?

because

1. it'd be pretty annoying (what if I really wanted WTF instead of "what
the fuck"? I might be sending to a censored list or something).
2. it'd really slow the composer down a lot (having to look up a massive
list of aliases at every keystroke would be horrible).
3. it'd be hard to implement. you'd have to keep a fair bit of state so
you could revert. example:

Say I have "GAT" expand to "Gone Again Tomorrow" and I type:

        Today I went to the zoo and saw a gat

as soon as I typed a 't', it would expand that to "Gone Again Tomorrow".
Not only would this be annoying (wow, this is totally a perfect example
of annoyingness), but now if I typed the letter 'o', it would have to
undo that expansion. Anyways, not too sure about the internals of the
gtkhtml editor, so this revert action might be quite simple to do with
the current Redo/Undo API? Anyways, you can still see how it'd be
annoying (which is all the reason I'd need to not implement it). And
hopefully you can also see that this'd be extremely slow.

> > >         * Can I configure parameters for the formats that translate to
> > >           ascii text? Like the depth of indentation for bulleted lists
> > >           or whether to use tabs. Can I create my own?
> >
> > Not that I know of. Again, this is GtkHTML not mailer.
> >
> > >         * Would be nice to have the bulleted list insert empty lines
> > >           between bullets.
> >
> > GtkHTML
>
> Well, think I'm a user (actually I'm mostly a programmer, but using 
> Evolution, I'm a user). Do you think I really care about that? Sorry, I don't mean
> to sound harsh and I certainly appreciate your time, but "not our problem" 
> can't always be the answer if an application uses third-party components,
> can it?

I never said that. GtkHTML is maintained by ximian also, I was merely
stating that if you submit a bug that you PLEASE submit it under GtkHTML
and not Evolution Mail because it is extremely annoying if I have to
reassign bugs. It takes time out of my day and means I spend less time
hacking and more time mucking with bugzilla. So it benefits both me and
the users if you submit it to the right place and avoid submitting a
duplicate bug report (because either way may end up detracting me from
getting actual work done).

You have to understand that the evolution team is extremely small, so
the more time we have to spend in bugzilla means a noticable reduction
in bugs that get fixed and features that get implemented.

Sorry for ranting (and don't take it personally), but this is something
that a lot of people just don't seem to understand.

> > >         * If I switch to "Show Email source", a header line called
> > >           X-Evolution-Source is shown that's not really in the message.
> > >           Shouldn't that really be a raw view on the message source, as
> > >           the menu entry suggests?
> >
> > It is a raw view of the message source and that header does indeed exist
> > in the raw message. It is added there by evolution so we can keep track
> > of which account you downloaded the mail with so when you reply we can
> > smartly choose which account to set the default From to.
>
> Still, it's not part of the mail that was received... Do RFCs say that MUAs are
> free to modify the header's of received mail (I honestly don't know).

Yes, we can even reorder the ehaders if we want to. nothing against that
:-)

>  Anyhow,
> I found it confusing and sent test mails around to make sure this wasn't actually
> in messages I sent somewhere else.

No, they don't get sent, we strip off all of our headers when you send a
message.

> > >         * Can I mark all content of a folder read in one go?
> >
> > You mean like Edit->Mark all as Read? yes :-)
>
> Actually, I mean like Right click a folder-> Mark all as Read. But the feature
> is the
> same, that's right :-)

Ah, maybe we can do a right-click context menu. Probably wouldn't be
hard.

> Thanks again, Jeff.

no prob.

Jeff

-- 
Jeffrey Stedfast
Evolution Hacker - Ximian, Inc.
fejj ximian com  - www.ximian.com