Re: [Evolution] [Bulk] Re: Mark emails as read annoyance

["Patrick O'Callaghan" <poc usb ve>]

On Tue, 2013-08-20 at 01:58 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> I flagged Andre's mail with the link that shows the names of the main
> window's parts, it might be useful in the future.
>
> On Tue, 2013-08-20 at 00:21 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>
> > If it's open, it *is* being displayed, meaning that in Evo' s view, it
> > is being read.
>
> So for Evolution preview and view is the same. To get a preview IMO is
> something different, than to view a mail.
>
> > But if the preview pane is open, you *are* in fact opening it.
>
> Again, than the term "preview" isn't correct, IOW Evolution can not
> preview a mail, but only open it.
>
> > Presumably because it has been selected for more than your timeout. I
> > don't think this has anything to do with emptying the Trash. As an
> > experiment, try setting the timeout period to be longer (say 60
> > seconds) and repeat the above sequence to see if the "bug" is still
> > present. Then do the same thing with your usual timeout but keeping
> > the preview pane closed.
>
> I chose the max value of 10 seconds. Preview pane is opened. A mail is
> selected and marked as unread. It will be marked as unread for minutes,
> hours, days, month and not automagically become unread, as long as I
> don't switch between mails or folders. Ok, the mail is "opened" by the
> preview pane since 10 minutes and it kept being unread and now I empty
> trash, so there's no reason to mark the mail read.
>
> Now the bomb drops, while it was marked as read for previews tests, it
> now won't be marked as read anymore, neither at 10 seconds, nor at 1.5
> seconds. The behavior seems to changes randomly, like the mouse wheel
> issue does too. So it doesn't make sense to test what happens, if I
> close the preview pane now, I'm doing it anyway. The mail at the moment
> stays unread, does not change to read.

Here's what I'm seeing (this is Evo 3.8.4):

1) Opening the message (e.g. by hitting Return or double-clicking)
*always* marks it as Read immediately, i.e. the timeout settings are
ignored.

2) If the preview pane is in the closed state at the moment the message
is selected, it will remain Unread, independently of the timeout
settings.

3) If the preview pane is in the open state at the moment when the
message is selected, the timeout settings are obeyed *as long as the
preview pane is left open*. Closing the preview pane will effectively
turn off the timer for this message, even if the preview pane is
reopened.

So in a sense "preview" is not exactly equivalent to "open" because of
the behaviour with timeouts. To put it another way, the timeout settings
are only relevant to the preview mode (the Preferences dialogue could
perhaps be clearer on this point). I assume that's why it's called
preview: you can flip quickly through the messages without marking them
as read, as long as your timeout is high enough (or it's turned off,
which is what I do).

I haven't looked at the behaviour when  switching folders, because
basically I don't care, but I find the semantics of what happens with
timers interesting in itself, especially when one is trying to describe
them in natural languages. It's actually quite hard to get this right.

poc