From: Jani Nikula <jani@nikula.org>
To: Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@thregr.org>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
Subject: Re: Flat search and threaded views
In-Reply-To: <87k2fwbl24.fsf@wavexx.thregr.org>
References: <87k2fwbl24.fsf@wavexx.thregr.org>
User-Agent: Notmuch/0.22+35~g6a833a6 (https://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/24.4.1
 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2016 19:33:58 +0300
Message-ID: <877fbwv6h5.fsf@nikula.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Precedence: list

On Thu, 04 Aug 2016, Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@thregr.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone, I'm experimenting with notmuch-emacs.el (straight from
> git), and I have a few questions after a few days of testing.
>
> The search buffer packs messages in threads by default. Is there a way
> to have a flat list of strictly matching messages when needed?

Just the command-line interface, AFAIK.

> For example, for a query like "tag:unread AND date:24h..now", I'm shown
> all threads containing unread messages within the last day, which is
> perfect. But when I select a thread (with RET), I'm shown the thread
> from the start.
>
> I'd like to jump directly to the first unread message (and in detail, to
> the first message that actually matches the query!). It's really not
> great to have to find what message matched the query, especially for
> long-running threads.

For me, hitting RET in search does show the first matching message in
the thread.

> Another odd behavior I get as a result is that you obviously need to
> select the unread message explicitly to remove the unread tag.

The idea is that the unread tag gets dropped when the cursor visits the
region of an expanded message, in an approximation of when the user has
actually read the message. We spent quite a bit of time on this, and at
least I like this behaviour very much, especially with the red
overstrike on the unread tag in the buffer.

If you want to remove unread tags without actually reading the messages
(why would you want to do that?), you should probably tag the messages
some other way.

> Applying tags to _individual_ messages is similarly weird, as you
> cannot do that from the search view (they would apply to the entire
> thread). Maybe I'm missing a better way here.

I suppose we could use a feature to tag matching messages from the
search view and expanded messages from the show view. You can of course
do this on the command-line.

> Tree view is only marginally better in both scenarios.
>
> You can start a tree search with 'z', but is there a way to make
> searches from the notmuch-hello box into tree by default?

Click [edit] on the saved searches, customize Search Type for each query
you want to use non-default search for. You can also hit 'Z' in both the
search buffer and the show buffer to display them in the tree view.

In general, '?' will display nice help in almost all notmuch buffers.

> Is there a way to sort the search (either tree/search) by subject or
> by author? Rarely useful, but it doesn't seem possible.

I don't think so.


BR,
Jani.