Re: [Evolution] Reply for list messages should go back to the list

[David Woodhouse <dwmw2 infradead org>]

On Wed, 2010-07-14 at 07:39 -0400, Matthew Barnes wrote:
> On Wed, 2010-07-14 at 08:50 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> > Does that include changing the name of the 'Reply' button to read
> > 'Private Reply'? I've got a patch for that, but I was dubious about that
> > anyway just because it changes the size of the button.
>
> I would say so.  Main window's toolbar should remain static.

Ok, I'll drop that patch from my tree.

> Just to throw another idea out there...
>
> Claws Mail has an interesting approach to this problem.  They define
> dedicated "Reply to Sender" and "Reply to List" actions in their menus,
> but also a generic "Reply" action whose behavior for a mailing list post
> is determined by a user preference:
>
>    [ ] Reply button invokes mailing list reply

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The user can *already* express a
preference, by moving their hand an inch or two to the left or right and
hitting a different (key|menu item|button).

This strikes me being a "DWIM" feature so that the user only has to bash
their head on the keyboard to get what they want.... as long as they've
preconfigured it.

In general, those who are sophisticated enough to preconfigure anything
are perfectly capable of hitting the right buttons in the first place.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in such a context-dependent
action, for someone who knows what they're doing.

The real target of this automatic behaviour would be the clueless users
who don't really think about what they're doing -- yes?

Which brings us to...

> Then we can debate an appropriate default for the preference.

If we're exposing it in the UI *instead* of the existing 'Reply' action,
then it really *has* to be private by default. The existing UI action
sends private mail, and we can't sensibly change that. Least
catastrophic failure mode and all that. So again it would only benefit
those who are paying sufficient attention to configure it in the first
place, which makes it rather pointless.

If we're *not* exposing it in place of the existing Reply action, but
just as an extra option, then again I wonder what the point is -- if the
user has to *choose* to use it, then they can just choose the action
they actually want anyway. The naÃve users aren't going to use it, which
again makes it pointless.

I think the best option is for Evolution to just provide the three
unambiguous reply/replyall/replylist options that it already provides,
and have nag popups for when the user is doing something "abnormal".

Since the nag popups are trivially disabled, we don't have to be too
precise about what "abnormal" is. My current implementation will warn
either if you reply privately to a list mail, or (by popular request) if
you reply to all to a non-list message with more than 15 recipients.

I have also implemented the option to ignore Reply-To: headers if they
match the List-Post: header.

 http://git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/evolution.git
  git://git.infradead.org/users/dwmw2/evolution.git

-- 
David Woodhouse                            Open Source Technology Centre
David Woodhouse intel com                              Intel Corporation