Googles "threading" substitute. It requires X-GM-EXT-1 CAPABILITY, implementation could be like a "Show Conversation" button in the header widget and on clicked() fire a new thread to "uid fetch <uid> (X-GM-THRID)" and on response trigger "uid search X-GM-THRID <64_bit_thread_id_here>" (by setting the search text to ":=X-GM-THRID <64_bit_thread_id_here>" ?!?)
Cheers, Thomas