(OT) Viewing unread messages

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 04:28:26PM -0700, Bill Campbell wrote:
> 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.

Especially given how trivial that is.  They think that what they want
you to do will help them... how?

> 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).

And so does Outhouse/Express.

> 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.

That is pretty clever; I gather it's somewhat similar to how Gmail
works?  (Though I don't know: jra at gmail was taken when someone finally
gave me an invite...)

> 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:

If the Horde IRC team weren't such *perfect* assholes, I might be
interested.  Shame; they've got some nice programs.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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      If you can read this... thank a system administrator.  Or two.  --me