On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:51 AM, Erik Christiansen <dva...@internode.on.net> wrote: > On 18.06.15 20:21, Patrick Shanahan wrote: >> * Xu Wang <xuwang...@gmail.com> [06-18-15 20:06]: >> > On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 7:28 PM, Derek Martin <inva...@pizzashack.org> >> > wrote: >> [...] >> > > Having answered the question, I am pretty curious: Why on earth would >> > > you want to do that?! >> > >> > The reason is that I have focus problems (attention deficit disorder I >> > believe is the English term). I would like to start Mutt and have Mutt >> > check for new mail *at the initial starting* and then address all of >> > the mail there, and only after that check if there is new mail. If I >> > am working on my inbox and all of a sudden a new email arrives, it >> > completely throws me out of focus. I imagine this must be difficult >> > for many to understand but that is how I am. > > As I must turn off the radio before I can properly focus, your plight is > not difficult to imagine. (Oddly, people who continuously check their > mobile phone, seem to relish being disturbed. Each to his own. :-) > >> I understand the need for "no distraction" but cannot understand what >> checking mail has to do with that unless you have some buffy pgm advising >> new mail. My setup only advises where new mail is when I change files >> (mbox) and the request to change files provides the next file which has >> "new mail". Ie: I do not disable checking mail but do not get a visible >> or interruptive announcement of new mail. But my vision my be limited as >> I *only* employe mbox and read remotely via ssh into my server box. > > Reading mail locally here, I see the name of a mailbox with new mail > spontaneously appear in the status line, at least when I'm in the index. > (Not sure about the browser.) While working in another xterm, the > apparent movement is immediately obvious visually. Subsequently hitting > '.' does, though, often throw up a longer list of mailboxes, so the > buffy display may be done only on the first positive check? > > It can be a distraction, but that is easily cured by lowering the > xterm. (I use four, two per side of a wide screen, auto-launched, and > with mutt auto-started in one of them.) > > If I really had to prevent mutt checking mail too often, then I'd just > prevent mutt checking mail too often - set timeout to a very high value, > as previously suggested. > > Erik
Thank you for such a response and such comprehension of my quirkys! I shall follow the advice and use a high value. Kind regards, Xu
