On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 09:31:02AM -0500, Derek Martin wrote: > > Yes, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't be an easier way to do > > that than there is now. > > even smaller than 80x25. Mutt tries to accomodate everyone... but on > such small terminal screens, there's a limit to what you can do with > the UI and maintain some degree of usability.
I haven't said anywhere that what mutt currently does should be abandoned. Everyone could still use it the same way they're used to. > Mutt optimizes a lot of things for the way the vast majority of > people expect to manage their mail, which is the way I outlined. Mostly you were suggesting that I use folders instead of categories. > You're complaining a lot about the UI being clunky -- I think you > want a GUI mail client, for starters... Sylpheed or GMail might be > more to your liking. GUI mailers are mostly awful. It's not what I want. > A big part of the problem is that you're apparetnly trying to use > Mutt through its file browser interface... this is not how Mutt is > intended to be used, and yes, it's clunky: Mutt is not a file > manager. No, I was looking for a better way to organize mails. Using more folders to store mail in them isn't a good way for me to do that. You agree that mutt gets "clunky" when you try to do that. > > And I don't want to use two different modes. > > Well, that I can not help you with. Perhaps the mail thread trick is > enough for you. It's pretty awesome --- not ideal, but it very much does what I want. > But it doesn't matter! Because you just tell mutt about them with the > mailboxes command, and the location becomes not interesting. The > folder browser prevents you with a flat view of all your mailboxes > that you've told Mutt about. You keep insisting that Mutt is clunky > and won't do what you want it to, but you haven't even tried to use > Mutt the way it's intended to be used. What do you expect? It isn't very flexible to use it that way. Every time you would create a new folder to simulate a category or remove a folder, you would have to edit the config again. Removing folders is not supported, renaming them isn't either. It's awkward, or, as you call it, clunky. > So put your folders in your config. This is the way Mutt is intended > to be used. You can even do it programatically, by, for example, > writing a script to identify maildirs in a particular directory tree, > and output mailboxes commands for each one it finds. Moreover, if you > stop mixing directories and maildirs, you could even use the file > browser... though again, that's not how Mutt is intended to be used, > so you're giving up a lot of the power of Mutt if you use it that way. Well, are you now saying that mutt is supposed to be used with only one mail folder? It's not so easy, at least not for me, to write a script that will edit the config to "synchronize" the "mailboxes" entries with what is found on disk. I'd write that in C. Mutt should be able to do that by itself. I'm telling it where the top-level directory is, and I'm using mutt to create folders. How am I supposed to organize mail in folders when I can't create a folder hierarchy, inevitably mixing maildirs with folders? > > Why doesn't mutt show directories as directories, maildirs as maildirs > > and maildirs with submaildirs as such in the list so that you can tell > > from the list which is which, without having to switch into a > > directory first? > > Because a maildir IS a directory, and it's not possible to reliably > determine the difference. You can make an assumption that if a > directory has cur/ new/ tmp/ in it, it's a maildir, but that may not > be the case. And a directory might have some of those, but not all of > them, and be an actual maildir. Or it might not be. And moreover, > it's because Mutt expects you to tell it about the mail folders you > care about. In so doing, it prevents a lot of tedious guesswork that > mutt could get wrong, in determining what your mail folders are. Ok, that makes some sense. Still it could show me what is what after I tell it which folders are a maildir. Since you need to tell mutt which folders are maildirs, why can't you tag directories in the directory list to tell mutt that those are maildirs and have mutt write that into its config? Why doesn't mutt optionally ask you when creating a new maildir if you want to add the new directory to your mailboxes? > > To prevent piling up empty maildirs, I think three times before > > creating a new one and preferably don't, and when one is empty, I'm > > forced to open a shell and to delete it right away because if I > > don't, I either forget which one to delete or would have to write it > > down. I only did that when I was cleaning up my mails, and that > > means that when I need to delete an empty maildir, I'm forced to > > interrupt what I'm doing and to change to another program to find > > and delete the maildir. On top of that, since maildirs have > > subdirectories, you either delete four directories or use rm -rf. Of > > course, rm -rf is something you have to be really careful with ... > > How could managing your mail this way possibly be efficient or > productive? You're creating folders on the fly and deleting them > when they're empty. I'm not saying it's efficient or productive --- I'm saying all the time it's not while you kept suggesting that I do it that way. Maybe that was a misunderstanding? > > It's awkward. Just keep the number of maildirs as low as possible. > > Yeah, do that. Create folders with broad characterizations, and keep > them fixed; don't create new ones, and don't delete them. It won't be > a problem to find mails in such folders if you know what you're > looking for; Mutt has very powerful searching facilities. Yeah, that's what I'm doing, and it always has been insufficient for organizing mail. How could managing my mail like that possibly be efficient or productive? > > Yeah, I know --- but what's the difference between me deleting a > > maildir using a shell and me deleting a maildir using mutt in regard > > to safety? The difference is that I use rm -rf, which isn't save at > > all, while mutt could do it safely and even warn me if there are still > > mails in the maildir. > > You're not getting it... Mutt CAN NOT do this safely. Under certain > circumstances it can be safe, but it can not be reliably safe. The > maildir mail format was simply not designed for this. That's not true. Again, what's the difference between me using a shell and me using mutt to delete a maildir in regard to safely doing it? It's still me who does it, using either one tool or another. It's only more convenient for me when I can use the tool I'm currently using for working with my mail, rather than having to switch to another tool to do it. And mutt could do it in a safer way than me who's using "rm -rf". I've nowhere suggested that mutt should decide on its own to delete a maildir and quietly do that automatically. I wouldn't want it to do that. > > There's nothing against mutt giving you a warning "hey, if you delete > > a maildir, that could be unsafe ... Show this warning again or not? > > ..." > > Yes, there is... both Mutt and Maildir were designed with the > assumption that a user's mail folders would remain relatively static; Then why did you suggest that I use folders to simulate categories? That wouldn't make sense. > you filter mail into folders with somewhat broad categories, and > remove them only rarely: Specifically, you remove them when you no > longer want to use them... which means that (if you're using maildir > the way it's intended to be used) you're going to turn off mail > delivery to that folder, remove it from your mail configuration, and > THEN you can safely delete it. Manually. That's what Maildir was > designed for. Mutt expects the same. So, adding a feature to Mutt > which is unsafe and contrary to the design of the mechanisms it uses > is quite simply bad application design. Then how do you organize your mail when you can't use folders to do that? > Most of your issues with Mutt boil down to you not using Mutt and > maildirs as they were intended to be used. I don't see what you mean. On the one hand you suggest that I use folders to simulate categories; on the other hand you suggest that I shouldn't do that because mutt and maildir aren't supposed to be used like that. All the time I tried to explain to you why I don't consider using folders to simulate categories a good idea. Now you suddenly agree, but you're still claiming that I am using things in a way they aren't supposed to be used despite I apparently use things the way you say they are supposed to be used. That comes down to the conclusion that mutt cannot be used to organize mail at all.
