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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Question for Kmail developers
From:       John Califf <jcaliff () compuzone ! net>
Date:       2001-01-28 21:24:31
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Over the past month I made a wholehearted effort to rely totally on
Konqueror and KMail and not to fall back on Netscape 4.x for browsing
and email even as a last resort.

So far I'm still with Konqueror.  However, I'm now back with Netscape
Mail and can only use kmail for composing and sending email while using
Konqueror - for example when clicking on a mailto link.  I cannot use
KMail reliably for retrieving and mananaging mail even for a single
account.  It retrieves the mail fine but inbox contents are not arranged
in a meaningful fashion and there are too few facilities for getting
different views of and arranging inbox contents.

The problem is not bugs but lack of needed features.  The biggest lack
is that threads can't be collapsed and expanded.  This makes managing
list mail particularly unwieldy. Further, when any link in a thread is
deleted the whole thread becomes shattered into many smaller parts
(apparently based on date).  Browsing inbox mail when this happens
results in confusing navigation, at least in my experience. Finally,
there is very little info given in the left hand panel about what's in
the folders and status bar feedback is minimal to nonexistent, and the
methods of viewing contents of folders and threads are very limited
compared with Netscape mail.

I'm aware that several patches have been submitted to address some of
these issues, particularly collapsing and expanding threads.  However,
none of them seem to have been applied.  I am using a fairly recent
kdenetwork cvs update and just checked again with webcvs and nothing
seems to have changed. 

I don't think kmail needs a whole lot of "features" but it at least
needs these.  If kmail met my needs I'd certainly be using it, if for no
other reason than to avoid the additional overhead of Netscape when Kde
is already running.  Netscape mail is incredibly ugly but it has the
features I need to deal with mailing list traffic. 

Are there any plans to add such features for viewing and arranging
contents of folders and threads, and giving the user a better "bird's
eye view" of the entire contents for more coherent navigation?  With
konqueror now in such good shape this is really needed for 2.1 but
apparently it's too late for that.  How about for Kde 2.2?  

Sincerely,

John
 
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