Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On 2/22/07, Sankar P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - You need to add a view-column, Template name that will be available for the Templates folder (only). All messages stored as templates should have a name associated to identify the message-template. It is far more usable to read, Status Report, Release Announcement Mail, String Announcement Mail, ABI Break announcement ;-) etc., rather than opening every mail and seeing, Is this what I want to send now ? Shouldn't this act just like drafts? Where are we going to get this template name? Would this even be all that useful? It will be. On a longer run, we are planning to have pre-defined templates as well. A name for a template is always more useful than looking at the mail and knowing. Some people do not even enable Message-Preview. And think how useful a name for the template will be. Consider the scenario when a new employee joins an office and the moment he opens his Evolution, he can send things like Minutes-of-the-meeting, Status-report, Meeting-agenda, Leave-letters in the company-prescribed format. These standard templates will be pushed to his machine when the machine was prepared for him. You can ask for the name of the template once the user chooses, Save as template. Where should the name be stored? This is also not listed on the bounty. snip ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 00:38 -0700, Sankar P wrote: If all you need is just a non-deleting draft, you can use Edit as new message. I have felt that this shouldn't be restricted to Sent-items alone as we allow configurable sent-folders. IIRC, there is a bug for this as well. Srini: Shall we make this available on all folders ? Im not for this feature against templates. I feel that templates should be treated seperately. But I feel that this menu item should be enabled for all folder, unless it breaks mail abstraction if any. -Srini ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 13:32 +0530, Srinivasa Ragavan wrote: On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 00:38 -0700, Sankar P wrote: If all you need is just a non-deleting draft, you can use Edit as new message. I have felt that this shouldn't be restricted to Sent-items alone as we allow configurable sent-folders. IIRC, there is a bug for this as well. Srini: Shall we make this available on all folders ? Im not for this feature against templates. I feel that templates should be treated seperately. But I feel that this menu item should be enabled for all folder, unless it breaks mail abstraction if any. I am not sure if my previous mail made it clear. I am not against implementation of templates. All I wanted to say was: When you need just a non-deleting draft you can use Edit as new message as one. It is in the same way how we suggested people to use vFolders before we came up with the account-level search. Implementation of templates is a separate task that should be carried out independent of the status of this. -Srini -- Sankar ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 12:15 -0600, Matthew Martin wrote: On 2/16/07, Sankar P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 16:59 -0600, Matthew Martin wrote: I'm working on templates for evolution. I need to know where to put all the UI items for templates. There would need to be a save template, default new mail, and default reply items. I read some of the HIG and stuck them in there so I could write the code. Here's a link to the patches. http://mtt.martin.googlepages.com/ The first one is for evolution, and the second is for evolution-data-server. I looked at the patches attached in the above url. The patches are not yet complete so I am not doing an in-line patch-analysis reply. Some of my comments are : - An account should be able to choose, what should be the default template that it has to use and it should be noted that NONE should also be an option here. Where should this be added? Isn't this what the Default New Mail thing is for? Do we even need the default new mail? How useful would that be anyway? - You can add an option, File-New from templates which should list the templates and the user should be able to choose a template and start composing a mail. I will recommend getting a nod from Srini (CCed) for any usability/UI aspects regarding this, before you start coding. - You need to add a view-column, Template name that will be available for the Templates folder (only). All messages stored as templates should have a name associated to identify the message-template. It is far more usable to read, Status Report, Release Announcement Mail, String Announcement Mail, ABI Break announcement ;-) etc., rather than opening every mail and seeing, Is this what I want to send now ? Shouldn't this act just like drafts? Where are we going to get this template name? Would this even be all that useful? It will be. On a longer run, we are planning to have pre-defined templates as well. A name for a template is always more useful than looking at the mail and knowing. Some people do not even enable Message-Preview. And think how useful a name for the template will be. Consider the scenario when a new employee joins an office and the moment he opens his Evolution, he can send things like Minutes-of-the-meeting, Status-report, Meeting-agenda, Leave-letters in the company-prescribed format. These standard templates will be pushed to his machine when the machine was prepared for him. You can ask for the name of the template once the user chooses, Save as template. - You need to close the composer once an user chooses Save Template (as of now it is not doing and it keeps on creating new templates) . Why should it do that? Saving a draft doesn't do this. Wouldn't this just annoy the user? It shouldnt close. Your code creates a new copy of the template whenever save is pressed. That also shouldnt be the behavior. - Reopening a template and saving it again should not create a new template. As explained above. - Your patch misses mail.error.xml changes as a result none of the user choice-asking dialogs appear. - All mail operations like copy/move/DnD on templates folder should be disabled. (IMO, it is a lot more easier to implement a new tab under Composer-preferences than a new templates folder) - When there is a clash between account's default signature and the used template's signature, the template's signature should be given more priority. - The code to save a template should ensure teh uniqueness in naming etc. - There must be a way to create a normal new mail when the user has set a default-template. (May be a default Empty-mail template) This isn't clear enough. How should this be done? Should the whole default new mail idea be rethought? Should we just make this like a draft that doesn't delete itself? What I am saying is: We may not want the same default new-mail template for all the accounts. It should be chooseable per account. My office account may need to have my company-logo, header, caption for all the mails that I send using it. Whereas, my personal account may want to default to a plain-text mail. And when the templates have a common storage that is not associated with any account, it will be useable across the accounts. Like the ANNOUNCE mail template that I described in my other mail. And to send a mail with in a defined template, just click on teh template, and choose new-mail-from-this-template from a contextual menu and/or file-new-mail-from-template which will list the templates. ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers -- Sankar -- Sankar ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On 2/16/07, Sankar P [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 16:59 -0600, Matthew Martin wrote: I'm working on templates for evolution. I need to know where to put all the UI items for templates. There would need to be a save template, default new mail, and default reply items. I read some of the HIG and stuck them in there so I could write the code. Here's a link to the patches. http://mtt.martin.googlepages.com/ The first one is for evolution, and the second is for evolution-data-server. I looked at the patches attached in the above url. The patches are not yet complete so I am not doing an in-line patch-analysis reply. Some of my comments are : - An account should be able to choose, what should be the default template that it has to use and it should be noted that NONE should also be an option here. Where should this be added? Isn't this what the Default New Mail thing is for? Do we even need the default new mail? How useful would that be anyway? - You can add an option, File-New from templates which should list the templates and the user should be able to choose a template and start composing a mail. I will recommend getting a nod from Srini (CCed) for any usability/UI aspects regarding this, before you start coding. - You need to add a view-column, Template name that will be available for the Templates folder (only). All messages stored as templates should have a name associated to identify the message-template. It is far more usable to read, Status Report, Release Announcement Mail, String Announcement Mail, ABI Break announcement ;-) etc., rather than opening every mail and seeing, Is this what I want to send now ? Shouldn't this act just like drafts? Where are we going to get this template name? Would this even be all that useful? - You need to close the composer once an user chooses Save Template (as of now it is not doing and it keeps on creating new templates) . Why should it do that? Saving a draft doesn't do this. Wouldn't this just annoy the user? - Reopening a template and saving it again should not create a new template. - Your patch misses mail.error.xml changes as a result none of the user choice-asking dialogs appear. - All mail operations like copy/move/DnD on templates folder should be disabled. (IMO, it is a lot more easier to implement a new tab under Composer-preferences than a new templates folder) - When there is a clash between account's default signature and the used template's signature, the template's signature should be given more priority. - The code to save a template should ensure teh uniqueness in naming etc. - There must be a way to create a normal new mail when the user has set a default-template. (May be a default Empty-mail template) This isn't clear enough. How should this be done? Should the whole default new mail idea be rethought? Should we just make this like a draft that doesn't delete itself? ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers -- Sankar ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
If all you need is just a non-deleting draft, you can use Edit as new message. I have felt that this shouldn't be restricted to Sent-items alone as we allow configurable sent-folders. IIRC, there is a bug for this as well. Srini: Shall we make this available on all folders ? -- Sankar ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
Am Donnerstag, den 22.02.2007, 00:38 -0700 schrieb Sankar P: If all you need is just a non-deleting draft, you can use Edit as new message. I have felt that this shouldn't be restricted to Sent-items alone as we allow configurable sent-folders. IIRC, there is a bug for this as well. Srini: Shall we make this available on all folders ? at least make it available for the Sent folders that are defined in the preferences (for each[!] account), and subfolders of those Sent folders (because i still think that one cannot re-send something that has never been sent before). bug 205728. cheers, andre -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | failed! http://www.iomc.de signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
Am Donnerstag, den 22.02.2007, 00:38 -0700 schrieb Sankar P: If all you need is just a non-deleting draft, you can use Edit as new message. err, well. this sounds as intuitive as possible to me, a kind of draft feature (where i probably will always have to remove some email text because i abuse a sent email as a draft), hidden as edit as new in some obscure context menu... i think that it will be you who will have to add this feature to the FAQ, if this proposal was really meant seriously. andre -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | failed! http://www.iomc.de signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 12:32 +0530, Sankar P wrote:
On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 23:22 +0100, guenther wrote:
On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 21:05 +0530, Sankar P wrote:
The Template should be singleton and each account may not have a
separate template folder. (Should be like Outbox)
I'm not sure I agree here.
Still pondering, but... We offer per account Drafts folders. And I don't
yet see, why either one should be limited to a single, particular
machine in a, say, IMAP environment. Sent is not. Drafts is not. Why
should Templates be?
Based on this approach, I believe it actually should be per account,
being configurable exactly like the other default folders. Also, this
UI part should go there.
After all, Templates are Drafts that do not delete them selves, right?
Whatever we store under Templates are not completely formed messages.
They will not have any sender/recipient that a basic mail will have.
Drafts are not completely formed messages either. They can be saved
without any recipient. There is no difference between Drafts and
Templates here, so this is not a reason to prevent per-account folders.
Regarding them having no sender: This of course would not be an issue
when allowing per-account Templates folders. Also, if the basic
mechanism works just like Drafts, there always is an account associated
to them -- which may be changed before sending.
Also it will contain things like ${DATE}, ${me},
Reference-to-a-SIGNATURE-FILE, which takes some special interpretation
that is specific to Evolution alone.
I seriously hope the ${DATE} example is just badly picked. This would
mean that shell script and Makefile snippets likely can't be stored in a
Template. Since GtkHTML uses HTML internally, storing variables and
placeholders in XML format is about the only safe choice.
Overall, it is just Evolution that can make meaning out of a thing that
is stored as a template in Evolution. It may not be of any use to other
mail clients. So, I do not see any benefit by putting it in the server.
I do.
The benefit of IMAP is not only that you're client independent -- but
that you are location/machine independent. Yes, you can use the very
same IMAP account from different installations of the very same IMAP
client (let's just call that client Evolution...).
Another Advantage is that multiple, different accounts may have totally
different types of Templates.
It is more like Signatures that are specific to Evolution and are stored
locally in Evolution.
What will be really useful will be to have Names for these templates and
we can associate a default template for an account (Again like
signatures). These names can be used to choose, from New from Template
dialog as well; Like OO templates-choosing dialog.
A basic approach to have Templates is the very same mechanism used for
Drafts. Except, that editing and sending a Template does not remove the
source.
What you just described here, is way more than Templates IMHO. It is
like a configurable template for New messages and Replies (otherwise
the ${DATE} doesn't make any sense to me). Also, having what you
described would render Signatures totally useless.
I believe, rather than hacking on some Templates thingy and discussing
about how to implement it, we first need to figure out what it is
supposed to accomplish, and how it could integrate with the current UI
and workflow of the existing user base.
IMHO a Template actually is pretty much the same as a Draft. And one of
the most important target uses for it are similar if not identical
messages you keep on sending. This btw is exactly, what users have been
asking for for a long time. Drafts, that don't vanish. Messages which
the user can write and format once -- and then send it out with just
some (user specific) placeholders substituted, or simply filled out.
Like a differing name, ETA, price, login, ...
guenther
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char *t=[EMAIL PROTECTED];
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(c=*++x); c128 (s+=h); if (!(h=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}
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Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 14:09 +0530, Sankar P wrote:
I looked at the patches attached in the above url. The patches are not
yet complete so I am not doing an in-line patch-analysis reply. Some of
my comments are :
- An account should be able to choose, what should be the default
template that it has to use and it should be noted that NONE should also
be an option here.
This is not how I understood the long-time user-requested feature of
Templates. See my previous mail -- what are we really discussing here?
- You can add an option, File-New from templates which should list
the templates and the user should be able to choose a template and start
composing a mail. I will recommend getting a nod from Srini (CCed) for
any usability/UI aspects regarding this, before you start coding.
Exactly. This approach introduces a *lot* of UI issues and different
concepts, that need to be discussed before implementing it.
- You need to add a view-column, Template name that will be available
for the Templates folder (only). All messages stored as templates
should have a name associated to identify the message-template. It is
far more usable to read, Status Report, Release Announcement Mail,
String Announcement Mail, ABI Break announcement ;-) etc., rather
than opening every mail and seeing, Is this what I want to send now ?
Where did the Template name come from?? So far I haven't seen any
mention of an additional text input field for this in the Composer, or
any other way to define it. I did not get the impression either this has
been planned when discussing Templates with Matthew on IRC.
- You need to close the composer once an user chooses Save
Template (as of now it is not doing and it keeps on creating new
templates) .
NO. This is totally wrong. Example: Every bloody text editor. Saving a
document does not close the editor.
- Reopening a template and saving it again should not create a new
template.
- Your patch misses mail.error.xml changes as a result none of the user
choice-asking dialogs appear.
- All mail operations like copy/move/DnD on templates folder should be
disabled. (IMO, it is a lot more easier to implement a new tab under
Composer-preferences than a new templates folder)
- When there is a clash between account's default signature and the used
template's signature, the template's signature should be given more
priority.
- The code to save a template should ensure teh uniqueness in naming
etc.
Which code to save the Template. What name (again)?
The current implementation is just like Drafts. The list view is. And
there is no uniqueness other than a mail is a mail is mail. Templates
(currently) are stored using the Evo internal (actually, account
specific) backend. That is a single mbox file, internally.
For Drafts it is totally valid to have multiple Drafts with the same
Subject. And users are used to deal with lousy Subjects, providing no
information at all. They do send it out all the time. They receive it
all the time. And yet they somehow manage to distinguish between them.
(How many mails with Subjects like your info do you get? Or the all
time classics for mailing lists: help and $app error.)
- There must be a way to create a normal new mail when the user has set
a default-template. (May be a default Empty-mail template)
The current discussion shows, we first need to decide what this mystery
Template thingy actually is about...
guenther
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char *t=[EMAIL PROTECTED];
main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;il;i++){ i%8? c=1:
(c=*++x); c128 (s+=h); if (!(h=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}
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Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 23:22 +0100, guenther wrote:
On Tue, 2007-02-13 at 21:05 +0530, Sankar P wrote:
On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 16:59 -0600, Matthew Martin wrote:
I need to know where to put all
the UI items for templates. There would need to be a save template,
default new mail, and default reply items. I read some of the HIG and
stuck them in there so I could write the code. Here's a link to the
patches. http://mtt.martin.googlepages.com/ The first one is for
evolution, and the second is for evolution-data-server.
I had a look at the patch in the above url and some things that I found
on an first-look are:
The Template should be singleton and each account may not have a
separate template folder. (Should be like Outbox)
I'm not sure I agree here.
Still pondering, but... We offer per account Drafts folders. And I don't
yet see, why either one should be limited to a single, particular
machine in a, say, IMAP environment. Sent is not. Drafts is not. Why
should Templates be?
Based on this approach, I believe it actually should be per account,
being configurable exactly like the other default folders. Also, this
UI part should go there.
After all, Templates are Drafts that do not delete them selves, right?
Whatever we store under Templates are not completely formed messages.
They will not have any sender/recipient that a basic mail will have.
Also it will contain things like ${DATE}, ${me},
Reference-to-a-SIGNATURE-FILE, which takes some special interpretation
that is specific to Evolution alone.
Overall, it is just Evolution that can make meaning out of a thing that
is stored as a template in Evolution. It may not be of any use to other
mail clients. So, I do not see any benefit by putting it in the server.
It is more like Signatures that are specific to Evolution and are stored
locally in Evolution.
What will be really useful will be to have Names for these templates and
we can associate a default template for an account (Again like
signatures). These names can be used to choose, from New from Template
dialog as well; Like OO templates-choosing dialog.
guenther
--
Sankar
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Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
Hi Andre,
Thank you for your concern - but I believe I *did* give Matthew some
feedback on the patch over IRC (see Chat transcript [1] below) a couple
of weeks ago - about a possible ABI violation and a possible way to
avoid it and he had agreed to rework that bit.
We do love those who love to hack on Evo :-).
Cheers,
Harish
[1] Log - #evolution - 29 Jan 2007
(20:19:07) xfceslacker: harish is there something wrong with the email I
sent?(http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2007-January/msg00053.html)
(20:20:23) harish: xfceslacker: none
(20:21:42) xfceslacker: I waited nearly a month for a response on my
last email.
(http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-hackers/2007-January/msg0.html)
(20:22:05) harish: except that on a very quick glance at the patch - I
feel that inserting a new element into an enum set violates the ABI
(20:22:25) xfceslacker: ok
(20:22:30) xfceslacker: thanks
(20:22:31) xfceslacker: :)
(20:23:16) harish: xfceslacker: I do not primarily hack on the mailer
component - I have poked those who do to have a look at it and provide a
response
snip
(20:23:46) harish: xfceslacker: sorry - the team is swamped by quite a
bit of work..thanks for your patience
(20:23:53) xfceslacker: ok.
(20:24:01) xfceslacker: Anything else you see wrong with the patch?
(20:25:36) xfceslacker: I know my em_utils_load_template function is
ugly.
(20:25:42) harish: xfceslacker: I am not the best person to make the
call - but I'd prefer if you could append the new value so it extends
the current set.
(20:26:00) xfceslacker: ok
(20:27:06) xfceslacker: You're talking about _mail_component_folder_t
right?
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: or enum {
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: SEND,
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: SAVE_DRAFT,
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: + SAVE_TEMPLATE,
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: LAST_SIGNAL
(20:27:35) xfceslacker: };
(20:29:04) xfceslacker: or both?
(20:30:19) harish: _e_account_item_t on libedataserver
(20:30:27) xfceslacker: oh
(20:30:29) xfceslacker: sorry
(20:31:14) harish: Evolution is not a devel library...EDS is more
religious about changes
On Sun, 2007-02-11 at 02:30 +0100, Andre Klapper wrote:
may a developer answer this, or shall matthew ask for a third time on
this list, after waiting for six weeks for some feedback?
andre
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Re: [Evolution-hackers] Where to put UI items for templates (Bug #127529)
may a developer answer this, or shall matthew ask for a third time on this list, after waiting for six weeks for some feedback? andre Am Freitag, den 26.01.2007, 16:59 -0600 schrieb Matthew Martin: I'm working on templates for evolution. I need to know where to put all the UI items for templates. There would need to be a save template, default new mail, and default reply items. I read some of the HIG and stuck them in there so I could write the code. Here's a link to the patches. http://mtt.martin.googlepages.com/ The first one is for evolution, and the second is for evolution-data-server. -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | failed! http://www.iomc.de/ | http://blogs.gnome.org/portal/aklapper signature.asc Description: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil ___ Evolution-hackers mailing list Evolution-hackers@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
