Re: [Geary] Feature request: Browse mail by contact panel

[Marvin W <gnome larma de>]

First: Please don't talk about EDS. With libfolks [1], there is a 
aggregating library that is also used by Gnome Contacts and does not 
require the usage of EDS.
In my experience EDS is very destructive. While I was using Evolution, 
it managed to silently delete e-Mails, remove contact details from my 
CardDAV server that it does not understand (but other CardDAV clients 
do) and duplicate calendar events on my CalDAV server (when using 
recurring events). In my experience it is not suitable for productive 
work, if it's not used as a read-only client. In case Geary is adding 
libfolks, I'll consider developing a small CardDAV client backend for 
libfolks, so I don't have to use EDS for that.

Back to topic: if such a contact panel is added, I won't be using it. I 
use e-Mail for the more complex communication: long messages, multiple 
contacts, larger conversations on a specific topic. I have the feeling 
the e-Mail is built for such usage, considering that we have threads, 
the CC-field, mailing lists.

Not everyone I communicate with is on my contact list (e.g. you) and I 
don't have the feeling it should be different (in fact I like my 
contact list to not be cluttered). You can exec `sqlite3 
~/.local/share/geary/*/geary.db "select COUNT(*) from ContactTable;"` 
to find out how many addresses you have been in contact with while 
using Geary, for me it's >5000. Additionally for quiet some people I 
don't even know the real name, just the e-Mail-Address.

I wonder how you planed to actually do this. I can imagine replacing 
the current account/folder panel with a contact list, but what do I see 
when I click on such a contact? Will the next pane show all threads I 
had with the contact? Only his e-Mails or also those of others that 
were part of the thread? What happens if you don't know that someone is 
part of the thread (e.g. when you have a mailing list, not all 
receivers are visible). Does the contact need to write me (is mentioned 
in From field) or is it enough if he is in To/Cc? How do you want to 
manage automated messages from systems that use email addresses 
"{fullname} <{username}@noreply.example.com>"? Do you want me to put 
this mail address in my contact database? How do you want to handle 
e-mail addresses that are "{fullname} <notifications example com>"?

e-Mail is so much more complex. If I want easy, non-threaded 
1-to-1-communication I use a chat client (XMPP!), not e-Mails.

Cheers,
Marvin

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Folks