[haiku-development] Re: Working on Haiku's Mail app

-- Jorge G. Mare, on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:22:53 -0800:
> > Anyway, I have my proposal ready at
> > http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddx3qxp9_13ftxvhjgj

> For example, in reading mode, you could avoid duplication by removing 
> the subject of the email which is already displayed in the title bar 
> of 
> the window. I also think the space taken by the Read icon and label 
> could be put to better use (I don't see the functional or informative 
> value).

The icon shows the status of the mail and is used to set your own 
custom status, a kind of tagging.
While "From" and "Subject" are also in the tab, Stack&Tile could shrink 
the tab. Having sender and subject in one line is less readable than in 
two. Also, I think it's better to have all header info at one glance: 
status, subject, sender, date.
Also, I do find the mail icon informative and visually pleasing as it 
brings a bit of colour and some needed space.

> This space-saving may even allow space for a vertical 
> (scrollable) list of attachments instead of the proposed horizontal 
> view, which would behave better in situations where the list of 
> attached 
> files grows beyond the width of the window.

From the text:
"If there are more attachment(sic) that won't fit in one line, 
automatically extend the bar vertically. Max. 3 lines of attachments, 
then add a vertical scrollbar.

IMO that's better than having always a scrollbared list view. Most of 
the time you get only 1 attachment (mostly "untitled.html"...) anyway.

> although all I could come up with was right-click on any given field 
> (From, To or Subject) to a menu that would open a query in Tracker 
> showing all the emails meeting the criteria based on the right-
> clicked 
> field (ie., all email from sender, all email from recipient or all 
> email 
> with the same subject). Again, much simpler, but it would still be 
> useful and intuitive.

That's also nice, but having the expandable query view is more obvious, 
plus with the extra timeframe setting even more useful.

> Another way to do it may be if "queryble" (there, new English word!) 
> fields (or their labels) had an ON/OFF status switch and there was a 
> Query button to open a query in Tracker based on the on/off status of 
> the fields (/me wonders if that made sense).

I also quickly pondered combining different attribute queries. But I 
didn't think there was a real usecase. When I want to see the "Same 
Subject" I probably won't combine that with the "Same Sender". It also 
complicates things. I really think one attribute plus timefame fits the 
need.

Regards,
Humdinger

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