Just checked in a change to undelete functionality:
short description: RC now acts like Thunderbird
long description: If you have one message selected pressing delete(key or icon) toggles the deleted status of that message and goes to the next message.
If you have multiple messages selected it will undelete them if and only if they are all marked as deleted. If any one of them is not deleted it will mark those messages as deleted and ignore all of the already deleted messages.
This is different than Outlook/OE which never undeletes with the delete key. The thing is that with those clients you have a right-click menu that allows you to undelete. When RC gets a right-click menu, I would think that it might be preferable to put undelete there rather than following Thunderbird behavior. Or of course it could be an option.
This patch also fixes some weirdness with being unable to toggle seen/unseen after marking a message as deleted.
It also cuts down on the huge number of Javascript warnings that this https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1815/ was reporting. I recommend that extension to anyone trying to debug javascript by the way.
-Charles
On Wed, 2006-05-24 at 13:52 -0500, Charles McNulty wrote:
short description: RC now acts like Thunderbird
FWIW, Thunderbird is not the perfect model of a MUA user interface, be careful about slavish emulation of its interface, finding a common model between the major MUA's will provide greatest ease of use for the majority of users (the majority of which are probably Outlook users and are not familiar with Thunderbird)
If you have one message selected pressing delete(key or icon) toggles the deleted status of that message and goes to the next message.
From a UI perspective having the delete command perform an undelete
operation depending on context seems confusing. Delete should delete, period IMHO.
Also, I thought once a message was deleted its entry in the list was going to be removed (if "hide deleted messages" == True, a common MUA behavior), if so then you don't even have an object to toggle the delete/undelete on, one more reason to not confuse what the delete keys does.
If you have multiple messages selected it will undelete them if and only if they are all marked as deleted. If any one of them is not deleted it will mark those messages as deleted and ignore all of the already deleted messages.
Once again, this seems very confusing, the behavior is dependent on an obscure condition most users won't appreciate.
However, if the delete key only ever deletes its a very simple mental model for the user, everything in my selection will be marked for deletion (the fact some items are already marked is irrelevant, they just get the deleted attribute reapplied, which would be what most users expect).
This is different than Outlook/OE which never undeletes with the delete key. The thing is that with those clients you have a right-click menu that allows you to undelete. When RC gets a right-click menu, I would think that it might be preferable to put undelete there rather than following Thunderbird behavior. Or of course it could be an option.
Rather than having delete toggle between delete and undelete, there should be a delete command and an undelete command which only does what it says it's going to do to everything in the selection list (not toggle, or worse toggle a subset).
The undelete command needs to be available, typically its in the edit menu or right click popup menu.
I think there is a good reason Outlook never undeletes with the delete command.
John Dennis wrote:
On Wed, 2006-05-24 at 13:52 -0500, Charles McNulty wrote:
short description: RC now acts like Thunderbird
FWIW, Thunderbird is not the perfect model of a MUA user interface, be careful about slavish emulation of its interface, finding a common model between the major MUA's will provide greatest ease of use for the majority of users (the majority of which are probably Outlook users and are not familiar with Thunderbird)
Agreed, and I try to be. When I'm tweaking this type of stuff I always check to see what Outlook 2003, OE and Thunderbird do.
From a UI perspective having the delete command perform an undelete
operation depending on context seems confusing. Delete should delete, period IMHO.
Agreed
Also, I thought once a message was deleted its entry in the list was going to be removed (if "hide deleted messages" == True, a common MUA behavior), if so then you don't even have an object to toggle the delete/undelete on, one more reason to not confuse what the delete keys does.
The removal from the list is dependent on two factors: the presence of a defined Trash folder ($rcmail_config['trash_mbox']) and the option: $rcmail_config['flag_for_deletion']. I had talked briefly about supporting hidden marked-for-deletion messages and even implemented support for it, but in the end the code was just too ugly for me to stomach committing it.
However, if the delete key only ever deletes its a very simple mental model for the user, everything in my selection will be marked for deletion (the fact some items are already marked is irrelevant, they just get the deleted attribute reapplied, which would be what most users expect).
And this is what I implemented with the exception being that if *all* of the messages are already deleted it undeletes them all. Sorry for not being clear on that point.
Rather than having delete toggle between delete and undelete, there should be a delete command and an undelete command which only does what it says it's going to do to everything in the selection list (not toggle, or worse toggle a subset).
The undelete command needs to be available, typically its in the edit menu or right click popup menu.
I think there is a good reason Outlook never undeletes with the delete command.
I agree with you whole-heartedly. I think that undeletion with the delete key is non-intuitive and should be phased out the moment we have a right-click or edit menu. You can even see the havoc it's causing in Thunderbird right now by searching bugzilla for undelete.
The problem is that we had no mechanism at all for undeleting messages en mass. This was a pretty critical flaw that I feel overrides our shared desire for more sane deletion/undeletion handling. In short, I just didn't think that we could wait for edit/right click menus for this feature.
-Charles
On Wed, 24 May 2006, Charles McNulty wrote:
Rather than having delete toggle between delete and undelete, there should be a delete command and an undelete command which only does what it says it's going to do to everything in the selection list (not toggle, or worse toggle a subset).
The undelete command needs to be available, typically its in the edit menu or right click popup menu.
I think there is a good reason Outlook never undeletes with the delete command.
I agree with you whole-heartedly. I think that undeletion with the delete key is non-intuitive and should be phased out the moment we have a right-click or edit menu. You can even see the havoc it's causing in Thunderbird right now by searching bugzilla for undelete.
The problem is that we had no mechanism at all for undeleting messages en mass. This was a pretty critical flaw that I feel overrides our shared desire for more sane deletion/undeletion handling. In short, I just didn't think that we could wait for edit/right click menus for this feature.
Why not just add an undelete botton, and a "select deleted" at the bottom just aside of the "none" (and maybe a "select undeleted" too).
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Perhaps the undelete function of the delete key should only work in the Trash folder when available.
Otherwise deleting from other folders should technically hide that message, so it's not deletable as it cannot be seen or selected.
-- Robi
Robi wrote:
Perhaps the undelete function of the delete key should only work in the Trash folder when available.
Otherwise deleting from other folders should technically hide that message, so it's not deletable as it cannot be seen or selected.
Well, all of the features I'm discussing are only applicable to the "flag as deleted" scenario which only occurs if you leave the deleted folder unspecified, which is not default behavior. So really this probably won't affect much of anyone unless you want your messages flagged as deleted instead of moved to the deleted folder. Messages that have been deleted from the deleted folder under the default installation are in fact *not* undeleteable. They are gone forever (as far as IMAP is concerned).
-Charles
Martin Marques wrote:
Why not just add an undelete botton, and a "select deleted" at the bottom just aside of the "none" (and maybe a "select undeleted" too).
Well, because I suck at making buttons and am not much better at HTML/CSS layout. Plus none of the Outlook/OE/Thunderbird have an "undelete" button (unless you count the delete button for Thunderbird which acts like a delete button) They have undelete menu items. I think it would be a gratuitous use of a button for a feature which will I suspect be only rarely used.
-Charles
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Charles McNulty -
John Dennis -
Martin Marques -
Robi