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List:       kmail-devel
Subject:    Re: Fwd: KMail
From:       Don Sanders <dsanders () cch ! com ! au>
Date:       2000-03-12 6:48:29
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On Sun, 05 Mar 2000, Reginald Stadlbauer wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Mar 2000, you wrote:
> >I used Outlook Express (4) for a while and it's poor keyboard handling
> > (due to its use of active panes) drove me nuts.
>
> Well, I like focus and working with apps which have working focus handling
> which is not the case in KMail currently.

You seem to be advocating Outlook express like navigation/selection. I don't 
like this style and I'm going to try and explain why. However I'm not trying 
to force my personal preferences on other people, and if people want normal 
(MS style) focus handling just say so. (Or in Reggie's case please reconfirm)

I don't like Outlook express style navigation/selection for 2 reasons.

1) If you want to read mail by just using the keyboard you end having to 
tab/shift-tab between windows. For instance say you have 100 mails each been 
two pages high, consider how you can read these messages in different mail 
clients.

Outlook express (starting in header list at message 1):
Read first page of first message.
Tab to reader (html) window.
Page down.
Read second page.
Shift-tab back to header list.
Press cursor down to scroll to next message.
Repeat above 99 times.
(5 key presses per mail)

Or alternatively you can use Ctrl-N (I think) to choose the next message and 
never make the focus leave the reader (html) window.

I would prefer the following in KMail (staring in header list at message 1):
Read first page of first message.
Page down (no matter which window has focus page downs the reader window)
Read second page.
Press cursor right to scroll to next message (again doesn't matter which 
window has focus)
Repeat above 99 times.
(2 key presses per mail)

I would prefer this because it requires less typing, especially less strenous 
tab/shift-tabbing (or ctrl-N which in my experience is even worse).

2) Standard QListView event processings uses all non-modified alphabetic keys 
for prefix based navigation, (I'm guessing outlook express is the same). I'll 
have to use Ctrl-N for next message Ctrl-Plus for next unread message etc in 
KMail if I accept this. Again more strenous typing.


The main drawbacks I seen in my preferred navigation/selection method are
A) Somewhat non-standard.
B) I can't use the cool prefix finding qlistview system. (Eg sort by subject 
and type a persons name to go to the first message by that person).

--End of first topic--

I do like the idea of not updating the reader window when ctrl actions are 
used. I've checked in a modified version of the headers list code that honors 
various ctrl key presses. Actually keyboard/mouse support should be working 
well in the headers list now.

I'm going to try to do something similar with the folder window so that the 
user can select that window (by tabbing) and then use ctrl-down/up to 
navigate to a folder and then press space to select that folder, and only 
when the user presses space will the folder be selected and the headers list 
and reader window be updated. (This will be a nice refinement as currently 
using the keyboard to navigate the folder list is slow as the list of headers 
is updated often, and updating the list of headers is a slow process).

Basically that's the best keyboard/mouse navigation/selection mechanism I can 
think of.

BFN,
Don.

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