Tickets :: Comment on [#11078] Change the default value for 'mailbox

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Comment	>>>> What is the most important thing to a user in a mailbox? Messages >>>> that they have not yet seen. This is way more useful than loading a >>>> mailbox and then having to scroll through all sorts of pages to find >>>> the first unseen message. >>>> >>>> And this sort is the only option that works as expected with both >>>> sort directions. >>> >>> Except it isn't as my experience with users shows. We often get calls >>> with questions "How do I adjust the mailbox so it would show me the >>> newest messages on top, just like Gmail does? >> >> I don't care what Gmail does. Any argument that begins with "Gmail >> does it this way..." is instantly a loser in my book. Gmail does ALL >> sorts of things ass-backward and stupid. The important query is >> instead why one way of doing things is better than the other. >> >> Same goes for the "you have to cater to what people are >> expecting/used to" argument. That is complete BS. If you are doing >> things properly, users will adapt (quickly). Otherwise you are >> arguing that all design decisions will be made by Google, Apple, etc. >> since they are the most popular. But most popular != best. > > Gmail is just and example. I definetely don't say that everything > Gmail does IMP should do too. I agree with you that half of things > they do IS ass-backward and stupid. Sent Mail management, tag > management to name a few. However regarding message sorting, as I see > this, through years things improved and changed because users wanted > this. These days almost every major webmail provider, Facebook, > Twitter, etc. sorts messages descendently. Because IMHO this is more > natural design. > >>> Technically, ideally, the point of IMAP is to do message sorting >>> server side. >> >> This is an inaccurate statement. By design, IMAP is designed NOT to >> sort messages by default (sorting was only added server-side after >> the fact). The only built-in sorting mechanism in base IMAP is >> sorting by arrival ascending. > > Sorry I was not clear here, I was talking about sorting/moving > messages to different mailboxes using server side filters. > >>> Even if some mailboxes doesn't receive mail, using that kind of >>> sorting on Inbox gives far more advantages than does harm. IMHO >>> descending sorting is more... natural way presenting information. >> >> I'll just stop here and note that thread sorting is completely >> useless when it is done by descending sort. > > Ahh, yes, this could be the problem. But again, how many ordinary > users use threading if they are not subscribed to any development > mailing list? And even if they do they have to enable thread sorting > anyway, it is off by default. So adjusting sorting direction on > needed threaded mailbox should be no fuss. > > I have actually seen thread sorting done right in The Bat! email > client. If threading enabled they sort on thread level not on message > level. Even more, they have and option to show all threads with new > messages always on top. And boy it works wonders. Given that The Bat! > is a desktop client, not sure if this can be implemented in IMP > though. > >> The fact that we disagree so much indicates that one setting is not >> clearly preferable to the other setting. Thus, there is no reason to >> change the default - all things being equal, we should keep the >> status quo to confuse users as least as possible. > > If most of the admins on the mailing list will be against it, or if > there will be even a tie then fine by me. As I said, I can change the > setting in my servers myself. Just thought this would be and > improvement for others too.
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