On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, Benny Kj?r Nielsen wrote: : On 4 Apr 2012, at 5:11, Baron Fujimoto wrote: : :> I'm evaluating MailMate as replacement for the venerable Alpine and Mutt :> MUAs I've been using. I apologize for what will probably be a slate of :> basic or clueless questions as I try to map the workflows I'm familiar with :> from those MUAs to MailMate. : : Thanks for considering MailMate as a replacement. Questions are always : welcome. : :> One preference that has become ingrained is their modality of these older :> MUAs. I like being able to navigate a mailbox message in a primary screen :> or pane, then selecting a message and having its contents displayed in place :> of the index. Most GUI mail apps seem to use the three pane model for :> mailboxes/folders, index, and message. The closest I've come with MailMate :> to approximating the modal style is to "Hide Message View". I can sort of :> further kludge it by sizing and positioning a selected message's window over :> the index, but that's far from optimal. For example, the index navigation :> keys don't seem to be active while the message display window has the focus. : : The mailbox window and the message window are completely separate and do : not share any state. I guess it could be possible to somehow link two : windows, e.g., making the mailbox window part of the responder chain of : the message window, but it would not be standard Mac OS X behavior and : it would also raise some questions with regard to GUI feedback and how : to behave when multiple mailbox and message windows are in play. I could : probably see how this could work, but since it all starts with a kludge : (overlapping windows) then it does not really look like a promising : solution for you. : :> Is there a way to configure what I'm after here? Alternately, would this :> be a feature request candidate? Or is this just too different from the way :> MailMate works as to be infeasible and I just need to adapt to the new way :> things work? : : You cannot configure it as it is now. I've used Pine many years ago, : which means I think I know what you are looking for. You want ?Open : Message? to hide the mailbox list and message list and then only show : the currently selected message in the window, but all keyboard shortcuts : should still work as if the message list was present. Pine also hides : the mailbox list when going into a mailbox, but I guess that is not the : important/relevant part. : : If implemented this would require the GUI to include an indication of : the current mailbox (and/or search) and some way to exit the message : viewing mode. I cannot promise you such a feature any time soon, but it : is a feasible feature which I'll keep in mind.
Yes, I think you understand what I mean. (Al)pine/mutt have a sets of commands that are context specific (folder/mailbox, index, message). You can switch between contexts with keystrokes, and some actions are available in more than one context. I guess I'm very comfortable and efficient making these context switches, and I like my primary current main pane optimized for either mailbox index or message. If you remember pine this is probably familiar to you. Having a sidebar pane with a list folders/mailboxes is useful and unobtrusive. I understand that these aren't features that would be available in the near future, but I very much appreciate that they would be considered.
