Re: Devin's effort

On 4/21/2015 9:03 AM, Bernie Maier <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tanstaafl:
>> Well... I have 8 separate IMAP accounts in my personal TB (I use 
>> Portable versions, so I can have both my Personal and Work TB's
>> running simultaneously), and 13 separate IMAP accounts in my work
>> TB, all with independent 'check account' settings (some disabled so
>> I have to check manually, others set to different intervals
>> checking automatically).

> You almost convinced / confused me, but I think the key here is I'm 
> talking about logging in / logging out and you are talking about
> "check account". I believe these are separate concepts. I do not
> recall ever seeing a "log in" or "log out" item in a pop menu for an
> account / server. Only some global menu item. Sure, once logged in
> (to all accounts) you can check each individually, but when I tried
> it you couldn't selectively log in to some accounts and notothers.

I'm trying hard to figure out how you could mean something other than
'Check account' (for new messages) when you say 'Log in/out'.

That is precisely what happens in TB when you click on 'Get Messages
(that is what the button is called) - it logs into the account and
checks for new messages, then logs out.

Each account can be configured to do this (or not) when TB starts up,
and clicking the 'Get Messages' button checks the current account, and
it also has a drop-down arrow that lets you check all accounts ('Get all
new messages'), or one individual account.

> Exactly. This is what I meant by "2. *Intelligent* support for
> massive (Gigabyte plus) mail archives with a large number of
> folders.": not attempting to sync and index the lot. You said later
> that this can be turned off. Well, sure, but it's not off by default
> and having it on by default results in an immediately poor user
> experience.

For fresh installs, it asks you what you want to do. If you blindly just
click 'Next' buttons like many people do, you may miss it, but it does ask.

That said, from my experience, most users DO want this to happen, so,
while I don't, I recognize that I'm not 'most users'. Anyway, as I said,
it can easily be disabled, so don't see this optional feature as a
legitimate excuse to trash or discount the entire application.

> But also, I have a vague recollection that turning it off meant it
> was no longer easy to browse through the folders.

Not true at all - all turning it off does is result in GLODA not being
able to index the email bodies, because they must all exist locally for
that to happen. It does still index the headers though, which is all I
usually need anyway.

> You will no doubt argue that I'm spreading FUD,

Not at all. I don't mind honest genuine questions, or people describing
genuine past user experiences, as long as they don't do so as if that
one experience defines the product in total.

> but sorry it was a while ago and I sunk enough time into an 
> unpleasant user experience back then and I'm even more time poor to
> research it again now. Hopefully, arbitrarily browsing through a
> large folder hierarchy without pre-iterating the entire hierarchy is 
> easier in Thunderbird now than it was in whichever version I tried 
> (which, for the record, is <rant>before mozilla.org adopted their
> insane version numbering scheme with an apparently extremely frequent
> major version update schedule</rant>).

Yeah, I wasn't/am not a fan of that either, but alas it isn't up to me...

>> Like I said earlier, TB has excellent Identity management, that is 
>> expanded even more with an Addon or two...

> I don't want to fart around locating and trying out addons if/when
> the main application falls short.

And I don't want a bloated application that tries to do all and be all
for everyone. I much prefer something more modular, that I can easily
customize exactly how I want. That is precisely why I like Mozilla products.

> I acknowledge that can work for time-rich people,

It is very easy to find Addons that do what you want and perform basic
customization of the TB UI.

> but you yourself acknowledged that perceived slowdowns in TB can be
> caused by addons, when talking about perceived slowness:
> 
>> Profiles can get corrupt. Users can install buggy Addons.

> But then in later messages you say again that addons from
> "trustworthy" sources are fine and dandy. Well, I'm sure they are,
> but it's additional cognitive load and time to spend sifting through
> the trustworthy from the untrustworthy.

Look, of *course* it will take a little time to learn your way around a
new program and/or customize it to your liking, but you are making it
out to be much more complicated and/or time consuming than it is.

There are a ton of support forums/options for mozilla products, and a
few minutes googling is usually all I need to address any issue,
question or need.

How much time, I wonder, did you spend learning your way around Mulberry
way back when you first started using it?

> Quanah Gibson-Mount:
> 
>> b) The "New messages" hotlink, that lets me just track which 
>> folders across all of my accounts have unread mail, so I don't have
>> to expand my many-levels-deep folders across numerous accounts just
>> to track what folders I have unread mail in.

> Aaah, yeah. I am so used to relying on that that I forgot to call it 
> out as an essential feature. I recall in TB I needed to muck around
> with subscribing to specific folders or somesuch. Though maybe
> Mulberry is effectively the same behind the scenes, and just presents
> a simpler UI for this.

TB has had 'Smart Folders' since version 2 - so, a long time. There is
an 'Unread' Smart Folder, that gives you a quick/easy view of all
folders in all accounts containing unread messages.

Sounds like the same thing to me.

> Look, what it boils down to for me was that I have attempted to use 
> Thunderbird a couple of times (at least) in the past and, perhaps 
> foolishly, attempted to replicate the workflow I am familiar with in
> Mulberry.

I wouldn't call that foolish at all. It is what I would do.

> I suspect that there is some subtlety that I am not describing well
> enough that is a big enough difference for me to make Thunderbird
> painful.

Changing an email client *is* painful, especially for power users, no
question about that. Some people here had asked some questions, and I
responded as honestly as I could, and apparently some here took offense
thinking I'm evangelizing TB or something.

> That said, I'm not suggesting that Thunderbird is a terrible IMAP 
> client. I still be believe that Thunderbird is a lot closer to what I
> want than other IMAP clients. Many don't seem to work *at all*
> without syncing the entire store. I'm looking at you, Evolution (does
> that still exist?) and (IIRC) Apple Mail. And don't get me started on
> how horrible the default iOS mail client is.

Actually, I like the iOS mail client far better than the Mac OS mail
client (gross - I hate it when I have to help my Mom with anything email
related)...

Thanks for taking the time to engage in an honest discourse...