Re: [Geary] Feedback on closing draft messages

[Michael Gratton <mike vee net>]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for the feedback.

On Fri, 24 Apr, 2020 at 11:12, Adam Oxford <adam areaofeffect tv> wrote:
> As a bit of user feedback I'd like to offer that this can create 
> problems when composing mails that aren't immediately sent.
>
> For example, if you click off a Geary window while composing a mail 
> (or go make a cup of coffee), then tap a new mail desktop 
> notification it will delete the draft and the undo button is small 
> and only appears briefly. There are many other scenarios where a mail 
> is left uncompleted, in my experience particularly if Geary is used 
> to manage multiple accounts.
>
> Previously Geary had a warning popup that prevented accidental 
> deletion, which worked.

The popup is still there and used in some cases, but just less often.

The intention is that if people take some action that requires closing 
the composer, then the composer should be closed, but that should also 
be something that can be recovered from (via undo support) and should 
not result in data loss (via saving drafts). If these aren't happening, 
then then that's a bug and should be fixed.

Note that you can still type Ctrl+Z to undo closing a composer after 
the in-app notification has disappeared, for up to 30 minutes in the 
case of composers that were closed unsent, and as long as the account 
remains open (i.e. the app has not been quit and the account has not 
been removed). Note also that Geary maintains undo state per-account, 
so to undo closing a composer for a specific account, make sure a 
folder for that account is selected.

The eventual plan is to switch to using a persistent composer in the 
bottom of the conversation viewer, and to improve draft management per 
[0]. So rather than the composer going away altogether when changing 
conversations, it gets something like minimised to the bottom of the 
viewer, so you can start composing a message, go find other email or 
conversations if needed to refer to them or add replies to the message, 
or just read other email. And if a composer is closed by some action 
other than explicitly discarding it, it's contents always be saved as a 
draft.

Does any of that help?

//Mike

[0] - <https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/geary/issues/517>

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