Re: [Geary] "Always watch for new mail" preference: better alternatives?

[Michael Gratton <mike vee net>]

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 4:51 AM, Federico Bruni <fede inventati org> 
wrote:
> I've been wanting to write this for some time.
> Don't you think that the Preference option "Always watch for new 
> mail" is
> a bit misleading? This is normally understood (e.g. in Thunderbird) 
> as: you don't
> need to press a button to download new mail, the application will do 
> it
> for you. But this is what Geary always does by default (and you 
> cannot change it).

Yeah the wording hasn't ever been great, I think in part because the 
preference actually does a number of things: Start on login, keep 
running in the background when the main window is closed, and hence 
also keep notifying of new mail even when a main window is not visible. 
Because of this, it's hard to capture in a short, succinct sentence. As 
a result, we are probably going to always need to rely on the tooltip 
(there is one already at least!) and the text in the manual, which I 
think could also be improved.

NB there's some historical discussion of this at: 
<https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=742244>


> The real meaning is another one, as you know: keep checking for new 
> mail *even
> when Geary window is closed*. Here's how it's described in the user 
> manual:
>
> > Geary will watch your accounts for new mail even when the main 
> window is not open.
> > To do this, it will silently start when you log in to your 
> computer, and it will
> > continue to run after you close the main window.
>
> How to better summarize it in a short sentence?

Although the help text doesn't mention it, the whole point of the pref 
is basically to make sure you get desktop notifications of new mail pop 
up, even when the main window is not open. So I think any improvement 
should at least mention notifications.

>  Some ideas:
>
> - Keep watching for new mail after quitting (the application)
> - Let the mail sync running in background

I would be worried that neither of these capture auto-starting on login 
or explicitly mention notifications. The current preference text at 
least alludes to auto-starting, but also rather obliquely, and likewise 
doesn't mention notifications at all.

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 5:05 AM, Frederik Feichtmeier 
<frederik feichtmeier gmail com> wrote:
> "Run geary always in the background"
Similarly here, there's no mention of auto-starting or notifications.

So my suggestion would be something like:

Preference: "Always notify when new mail arrives"
Tooltip: "Geary will automatically start and keep running in the 
background when closed"
Help manual:

> Geary will always watch your accounts and notify you of new mail, 
> even when the main window is not open. To do this, it will start 
> hidden in the background when you log in to your computer, and it 
> will continue to run after you close the main window. Note that you 
> should also have notifications in your desktop preferences enabled 
> for Geary so that its notifications are shown when new mail arrives.

Here the preference text alludes to Geary auto-starting and continuing 
to run, the tooltip confirms that yes this means it will start 
automatically and keep on running in the background, and the help 
manual text goes into this in more detail.

I'm happy to hear more suggestions however.

A different approach altogether would be to remove the auto-start 
aspect, but keep the hidden-in-the background feature, and let people 
manage launching it themselves — either by launching Geary manually 
or by using their desktop's built-in tools/preferences to enable it to 
auto-start. This would allow the preference and tooltip text to be 
simplified to something like:

Preference: "Notify of new mail in the background"
Tooltip: "Geary will remain running even when the main window is closed"

//Mike

>
--
⊨ Michael Gratton, Percept Wrangler.
⚙ <http://mjog.vee.net/>