When reading mail in the default claws configuration if the keyboard
focus is in the message list then the up/down/pgup/pgdn arrow keys allow
you to move through the list.  Then you press ENTER to view the message
that the cursor is on.  You can press SHIFT-TAB twice to take keyboard
focus to the message that is being read and then use up/down/pgup/pgdn
to scroll within the message.

I want to have it display the way Kmail does.  In kmail you use the
left/right arrow keys to scroll in the list of messages and the message
is displayed immediately that it is selected (no selecting a message
and pressing ENTER to see it).  The use of left/right arrows means that
up/down/pgup/pgdn can be used for reading the message.

This means that the routing aspects of reading mail in kmail can be
conveniently done without using the mouse (SHIFT-TAB is not convenient)
and with maximum speed.  One key press to do every common operation
should be the aim.  In Kmail I press the right arrow key to display a
message.  In Claws I press the down arrow key to go to the list entry
and then ENTER to view the message, but that's only if I have the
keyboard focus in the message list.

So in Kmail if I want to skim many messages that are more than one
screen long (EG the BTRFS mailing list which tends towards long
messages of minor interest to me) then I do the following to read a
message:

1) RIGHT
2) PGDN, PDGN
3) DEL

In Claws with the default config it would be:

1) Click mouse on message in listbox
2) Click mouse in body of message and scroll down - or hover over and
use scroll-wheel when using a desktop system (scrolling isn't an option
for my Thinkpad
3) DEL

Kmail is much better for this.  When you have 3000 unread mailing list
messages the ability to skim and delete a typical message in less than a
second with Kmail really matters.

Before anyone asks, no I don't want to go to a text-mode MUA.  I want a
GUI MUA that has keyboard shortcuts that allow fast and efficient
operation.

For scanning mailing list mail the K9 MUA on an Android phone is
possibly going to give me a better average speed than Claws on a 27"
monitor. This is a sign of a serious design problem with Claws.


Now IMAP allows an unlimited number of email clients to share a
mailbox.  Modern storage is large enough that having multiple copies of
the email on one system isn't a problem.  So I guess I could use one
IMAP client to triage mail and then another to compose mail, manage the
offline archive of old mail (that's not in IMAP) and do the other
advanced tasks.  But it would be nice if one MUA could do it all.

-- 
My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/
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