(OT) Viewing unread messages

[Bill Campbell]

I know this is off-topic, but I also know that the FP list readers use a
variety of e-mail readers (Mail User Agents or MUAs), Outlook, mutt, etc.
while I'm mostly familiar with mutt, I have very little experience with
Windows MUAs, only having an old Win98 machine with Outlook on it available
for testing.

I have somebody who wants me to modify our Maildir handling routines to
rewrite the Date header of all messages to be the date it was received into
the system which seems to me to be a very Bad Idea(tm), and probably in
violation of applicable RFCs.  Their reasoning is that it is a support
problem to get people to learn how to view unread messages in light of bad
dates sent by spam ratware, and otherwise broken mailers.  It seems to me
that it would be far better to simply put together a web page that has
simple instructions for various MUAs telling people how to view only unread
messages.

Most MUAs have a quick way to limit the messages displayed to see only
unread messages.  Mutt uses ``~lN'', Sylpheed has ``View->Unread'', as does
Entourage (the mail component of Microsoft Office 2004 for Macs).

One thing I did learn today is that the current version of IMP, the horde
webmail program, has a very neat feature, virtual folders that are
basically stored search commands.  One can define a search for unread
messages in one or more folders, give the virtual folder a name, and the
virtual folders will then appear in the navigation area.  When reading
messages in these virtual folders it automatically refreshes the search and
returns to the subject selection screen after reading the last message.
This is similar to Apple's new ``Smart Folders'' in the Tiger Mail.app,
except that it works on IMAP folders, not just local ones.  A screen shot
is available here:

	http://www.celestial.com/Members/bill/tmp/hordescreen.jpg/view

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
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