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29 From: "Aneesh Kumar K. V" <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
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30 To: Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org>, Notmuch list <notmuch@notmuchmail.org>
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31 In-Reply-To: <877ht3hfh0.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org>
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32 References: <877ht3hfh0.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org>
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33 Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:28:22 +0530
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34 Message-ID: <87fx7r5d5d.fsf@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
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36 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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37 Subject: Re: [notmuch] Recent (and forthcoming) improvements to the emacs
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53 On Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:15:07 -0800, Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> wrote:
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54 > I just pushed out a nice set of changes to the emacs interface. Here's a
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55 > quick summary of what you can expect to get when you next update:
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57 > * Much nicer looking presentation, (no more ugly reverse-video or
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58 > underlines on the message summary line).
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60 > * More reliable message-visibility buttons, (using RET in the first
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61 > column of a message-summary line now works).
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63 > * Space bar fixed to advance to next open message, (it was originally
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64 > written this way, but has been broken since we changed from global
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65 > to local toggling of hidden message parts).
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67 > * Showing a thread where the search matches only a subset of the
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68 > thread now opens only the matched messages (in addition to unread
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71 > This last feature is the big one---the rest all just happened to come
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72 > along at the same time. One thing that I often do is read some giant
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73 > thread and then tag a single message deep in that thread for dealing
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74 > with later. And previously, doing a search for that tag would bring back
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75 > the entire thread. Now, it opens only the message I'm actually looking
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76 > for. So this is a very welcome change
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78 > And thanks to Bart Trojanowski for the groundwork for this change. I
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79 > think the vim interface has had this feature for a while, (or would have
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80 > if I had pushed all of Bart's changes earlier).
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82 > Meanwhile, Keith and Eric gave me some helpful feedback about the
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83 > notmuch user-interface over lunch today, and in particular about the
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84 > handling of the "unread" tag. Here are some of the things discussed,
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85 > along with some things I'd like to change in response.
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87 > I'm open to suggestions on all of these, and most importantly, wanted to
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88 > let people know about some upcoming user-interface changes before they
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89 > were in place and potentially surprising.
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91 > * The magic space bar is too magic. Threads are separate conversations
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92 > so one key for paging through the current conversation shouldn't
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93 > also switch to the next conversation, (particularly when the
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94 > complementary key DEL doesn't reverse this behavior of SPACE).
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96 > Recommendation: Make SPACE only page the current message. Recommend
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97 > that user use 'a' to advance to next thread, (or 'x' to exit back to
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100 > * The unread tag is not handled transparently enough. Both Keith and
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101 > Eric complained of frequently being presented with messages as
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102 > "unread" that they had read before. (And I don't want to ever have
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103 > to manually think about whether to remove a thread as "unread".)
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105 > Recommendation: Drop the 'A' and 'X' keybindings and make 'a' and
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106 > 'x' mark remove the "unread" tag from all messages in the current
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107 > thread (as well as the "inbox" tag as currently). Also make 'n' and
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108 > 'p' remove the "unread tag as well.
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110 > Followup: This frees up 'N' and 'P', so I'd like to use the for
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111 > "next message" and "previous message" and make 'n' and 'p' do "next
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112 > open message" and "previous open message".
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114 > * Opening up unread messages in notmuch-show mode is not
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115 > helpful. Keith reads a lot of high-volume mailing lists by reading
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116 > the subject lines in search mode and then doing "* -inbox". He likes
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117 > that notmuch remembers that these messages are still unread, but if
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118 > he later searches for a single message that happens to be in a giant
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119 > thread of unread messages, then he wants to see just than one
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120 > message, not all of them.
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122 > Recommendation: Make notmuch-show-mode open *only* messages that
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123 > match the search---not unread messages as well. At this point the
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124 > unread tag becomes just a hint to the user and won't be explicitly
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125 > handled differently by the interface, (other than that various
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126 > commands will remove the unread tag if present). The unread tag is
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127 > still useful for when searching for something like "I know I read
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128 > this message recently".
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130 > Followup: I wonder if I would miss one feature here. If I'm
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131 > interrupted after reading part of a giant thread, currently I can
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132 > quite and when I come back notmuch will remember right where I was
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133 > while reading. One way to get this behavior back would be to make
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134 > SPACE remove the inbox tag from each message its scrolled off. I'll
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135 > have to think about that.
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137 > * The current 'a' key in search-mode is unreliable. It seemed like a
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138 > good idea to make 'a' only archive messages that match the search,
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139 > but it's a flawed idea. Imagine the following scenario: Eric is
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140 > reading his inbox and sees some threads related to a boring
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141 > topic. He filters down to these with "f tag:boring". He's satisfied
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142 > with the search results, and hits 'a' on each thread and even sees
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143 > the "inbox" tag disappear from the presentation. But then when he
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144 > returns to his inbox search and refreshes, the boring threads
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145 > re-appear and have the inbox tag again. Ugh. The presentation is
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146 > inconsistent and things just feel unreliable and broken.
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148 > And a related issue:
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150 > * The '*' key in search-mode doesn't provide any feedback that it has
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151 > actually done anything, (none of the added/removed tags are changed
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152 > in the presentation). And hitting '=' isn't necessarily ideal since
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153 > it can make things irretrievably disappear, ('a' is different since
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154 > it allows the user to confirm that things are good before making
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155 > results disappear with '='). [*]
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157 > Recommendation: Revert 'a' to act on all messages in a thread---not
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158 > only those that match the search results. Then change '*' to work by
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159 > walking the list and explicitly calling the same action as 'a' on
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160 > each line. This will provide the desired feedback and should be
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163 Can we also get a facility to temporarily mark a message and apply tags
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164 on all marked message. In mutt terminology it is called 'tag'. Here is
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166 When reading mailing list with high volume we would really want to
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167 take a break in between reading mails or switch "folders". So if we do
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168 a * +done that would mean we add "done" tag on all the mails. But what we
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169 wanted was to do add done tag on the mails i looked till now. These marks
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170 should not go to database so there is no I/O involved when selecting
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projects / notmuch-archives.git / blob