From: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>
To: David Edmondson <dme@dme.org>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] emacs: Add more functions to clean up text/plain parts
In-Reply-To: <1271939166-24100-1-git-send-email-dme@dme.org>
References: <1271939166-24100-1-git-send-email-dme@dme.org>
User-Agent: Notmuch/0.2-188-g9757095 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/23.1.1
	(i486-pc-linux-gnu)
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:14:12 -0700
Message-ID: <87tyr0hohn.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org>
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On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:26:06 +0100, David Edmondson <dme@dme.org> wrote:
> This is a small variant on the previous version of the patch. The
> wrapping of long lines is not enabled by default - it's simply an
> option in the customise interface.

This is really close now. I especially like that the various wash
options are as simple as just checkboxes in the customize
interface. (That might not even be new in this case, but I at least
didn't find it before.)

And that again goes to my point. I don't think we should enable this
washing by default since it can appear as silent corruption to the user,
without any indication that it happened nor how to turn it off.

Notmuch has always done some modification of the message with things
like hiding long citations, etc. But those at least provide
self-documenting buttons on how to make them disappear.

Here's what I see in the customize buffer with the latest patch, along
with some review. Some of this review applies to documentation already
in notmuch---I'm just getting pickier as things appear in
customize because I think we need to hold our documentation there to a
higher standard. (Previously, one would practically have to dive into
the source to find the documentation, and that suggests the reader has
more experience and definitely means the user gsts a lot more context).

Here, I'm trying to review these options from the point of view of a new
user who just started using notmuch, wants to tweak a few things, and is
looking at the customize buffer to figure out what tweaks are possible.

	Notmuch Show Hook:=20
	[X] notmuch-show-pretty-hook
	[ ] notmuch-show-turn-off-word-wrap
	INS
	   State: STANDARD.
	   A list of functions called after populating a More

What does "pretty hook" mean? What information would a user need to
determine whether to turn this on or off?

With "turn off word wrap", we have on option to disable wrapping here,
and another option later to turn some wrapping on again. How is a user
expected to figure out which combination of options does what they want?

	Notmuch Show Insert Text/Plain Hook: Hide Value
        [ ] notmuch-wash-wrap-long-lines
		Wrap text in the region whilst maintaining the correct prefix.
	[X] notmuch-wash-tidy-citations
		Clean up citations.
	[X] notmuch-wash-compress-blanks
		Compress successive blank lines into one blank line. Remove More
	[X] notmuch-wash-markup-citations
		Markup citations, and up to one signature in the buffer.

"Tidy", "Clean up", and "Markup" citations are all too vague. What do
each of these actually do?

Also, think about line breaks so that something like "Remove more"
doesn't appear there by default.

Thanks,

=2DCarl

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