I just tried to evolution to look at email in a large folder (c 100,000 unread messages). I'm using evo 2.22 on Debian Lenny; the cyrus IMAP server is on the same machine as evo.
I was using a threaded view with threads collapsed, and a filter on the message sender (the filter was to exclude all messages from one sender). If I scroll the message, or move some messages from the message list into another folder, evo displays "generating message list" and becomes unresponsive for over a minute, using most of my CPU. This is unusable. In some quick experiments it seems the filter is the key contributor to poor performance. I think it also went into these unresponsive states at other times, including when I was doing nothing. I also experience significant delays when I drag messages into folders with many messages. Doing so seems to trigger a scan of the target folder, even though messages from it are not displayed. Is there anything I can do about this (apart from don't do that advice like don't use filters, don't use large mailboxes, don't use threads...)? I gather evo doesn't have real threads, which may account for some of these issues (e.g., rescanning messages blocks unrelated user activities, including even composing mail). But the behavior is sub-optimal on two levels. First, the IMAP server could provide much of the desired functionality. I know not all mail stores, or even all IMAP servers, provide the necessary functionality, but it would be nice to use it when it's there. Second, evo is clearly working much too hard. If I delete some messages, it shouldn't need to regenerate the whole list to figure out what is left. It only needs to display enough info to fill up the message view pane. Since it seems to be generating the entire message list, I don't know why it has to do that every time I scroll. I guess some of this discussion belongs on the developer list, but my first question is as a user: is there anything I can do to improve the performance? _______________________________________________ Evolution-list mailing list Evolution-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
