Re: Devin's effort

On 4/21/2015 10:20 PM, Bernie Maier <[email protected]> wrote:
> Tanstaafl:
>> 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'.

> Yeah, sorry, but this is a case where maybe Mulberry is using some
> terminology in the UI that doesn't equate exactly to what is strictly
> happening server-side and where Thunderbird has a different UI
> interaction model. What Mulberry calls "Login" is "enable this
> account for periodic checking oh and by the way since I'm doing this
> I obviously want the first check done immediately so perform an
> initial login to the server and keep the credentials I enter now 
> cached in memory, if they aren't permanently stored somewhere".

Hmmm... ok, well, it sounds to me like the only difference between MB
and TB is that MB has an easy way to toggle the periodic checking option
on the fly (ie no restart required, which I do like by the way, another
for my list of enhancement requests for TB). Other than that, it sounds
exactly like how TB works, unless I'm still missing some subtle difference.

> And once started up, how do get Thunderbird to stop periodic checks 
> temporarily on one account? It may be possible now, but I didn't find
> that capability when I last tried Thunderbird several years ago.

Yeah, I think that even if you change the Pref, these modified settings
don't take effect without restarting TB, which seems to be the main
difference here - and I definitely see the advantage to these taking
effect immediately (another enhancement request, keeping me busy)...

>> 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.

Actually, my apologies, I mis-spoke... I said 'Fresh Installs', when I
meant the opposite - upgrades to existing profiles that pre-date GLODA
(the new global indexer). This was the issue that caused me so much pain
when GLODA was introduced

Fresh installs do in fact 'ass-u-me' that you want it enabled, so you
have to know that it is enabled and intentionally disable it. I've just
gotten so used to doing it that I don't even think about it any more.

> So Thunderbird *does* attempt to index something from the entire
> mail hierarchy. And I don't want it to do that.

Actually, I'll go ask and confirm precisely how this (TB Indexing) works
in both cases. I *think* it does some indexing of the headers and
whatever is available, only because I know I can search a huge mailstore
that is not sync'd offline in just a few seconds. I'll report back if I
can get a definitive answer...

> Mulberry doesn't need to do that. I have a vast mail hierarchy (as
> do you), much of which is historical. I want to keep it *in case* I
> need to go back to look at something, but in practice I rarely do. So
> when performing a new installation of my mail client (which for a
> while there was a surprisingly frequent thing I needed to do) it is
> painful waiting for Thunderbird to traverse the entire tree even if
> it is to "only" index headers and not the mail bodies. Now, if you
> can opt out of that in Thunderbird then I would become more
> interested in it.

That was my main point. You CAN disable GLODA completely, and still have
very fast searching of all of the headers/meta-data (Subject,
Sender/Recipients, etc). This is how I have TB configured now.

But, I'm now unsure of whether or not there is still some minimal
indexing going on. If there is, I can tell you that you don't even know
it is happening... or... hmmm... maybe it could be responsible for some
of the memory/processor usage differences (as well as the perception by
some here as it being 'slow and clumsy')...

> So I was hoping my responses would have been clearly meant to be
> taken in that context[as opposed to FUD].

They were, which is why I tried to make it clear that I in no way took
your comments as 'spreading FUD', and I'm still not sure why you would
have thought that...

>> 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.

> Can you easily configure which subset of folders Thunderbird checks
> and then displays in the "Unread" smart folder?

You can right-click > Properties on any folder, and one of the options
is 'When getting new messages for this account, always check this
folder', and the 'Smart Folders' > Unread always displays all folders
that have Unread Messages, so, the answer to your question is - it
depends on what you mean by 'easily'.

So... IF you rely solely on client polling (as opposed to server side
PUSH), and IF you had to right-click on 250 folders to set this
property, that would probably not be considered 'easy'... ;)

But... if the new messages are filtered into sub-folders by the server
(ie, sieve filters) or TB (TB filters), as long as the folder itself
shows an unread message count, the Unread Smart Folder view would still
show them (mine does).

> Because you said that Thunderbird gives you a view of *all* folders 
> in *all* accounts and no I wouldn't want to see them all (some
> folders are far less important). Maybe another addon?

The Smart Folders also has a different 'Favorites' View, and any folder
can be made a 'Favorite' by simply right-click > Favorite folder, no
Addon required), then if you only want to see Favorite Folders, you just
select this Smart Folder.

And as I said earlier, the ultimate is TB's 'Saved Search' virtual
folders. You can create as many custom virtual folders named whatever
you want, with whatever advanced search criteria you want, across
whatever Accounts/Folders you want (and can make these 'Favorites' if
you want)...

>> 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.

> Haha. Actually I think you are kind of evangelizing TB.

I guess I can see why you might think so, but I'm honestly not. I simply
started off defending some incorrect claims (the very first one was that
TB was 'abandonware'), then started answering questions about what it
can and can't do in the process of comparing features.

Some people might say that correcting wrong information is evangelizing.
I say it is is merely correcting wrong information.

> I haven't yet found a way to collapse the fully expanded list of 
> folders, and when it crashes I have to manually scroll again to where
> I want to start because it doesn't follows Apple's own Human
> Interface Guidelines and store enough of its state to resume where it
> left off when it terminated / crashed. And I haven't discovered a way
> to search for a folder name instead of message content. So it's
> fairly fundamentally broken for me.

True, but I didn't say I loved it, I said I liked it far better than the
Mac OSX Mail client... ;)

Android doesn't have collapsible folders either, and I totally agree
that it is very problematic when you have a lot of folders...

I still don't know why Apple hasn't provided a way for the iOS mail
client to use the same credentials for sending mail as it does for
receiving - that is just stupid to force you to enter the password twice
(and we enforce strong passwords here, so entering a 15 character random
string twice is just painful)... at least Android gets that right.

I'd also love to have a 'quickfilter' searchbox above the Accounts Pane
where I could start typing and filter the Accounts/Folder list to show
only matching folders... and you're making more work for me (have to go
add this as an enhancement request for TB)... ;)