MCBastos wrote: > Interviewed by CNN on 09/09/2011 15:11, Alex Baer told the world: > >> Because the functionality is there, I used it, and created a multi- >> level hierarchy of folders, sub-folders and sub-sub-folders to organise >> my mail. This may or may not have been a great idea, but it became a >> huge problem, when after a crash the index files were damaged, and the >> program was unable to repair them, and all the structure information >> about the hierarchy of folders was lost. > > Uhhh... *what* structure information about the hierarchy? Seamonkey > doesn't use *anything* like that. Nothing like the notorious folders.dbx > in Outlook Express. The structure of the subfolders tree is implicit in > the filesystem folders. You can just drop a mbox file anywhere in the > tree and it will figure it out. > >> What is more, the pseudo-hierarchy can be resolved only by Mozilla >> clients. Other programs don't know what to do the index files. Now, >> opening an mbox file with another mail client, and then opening the >> file again with a Mozilla client may also cause index file corruption, >> in my experience. So this is a very fragile approach. >> >> As long, as there are index files simulating hierarchies, that are not >> really there, for virtual folders containing thousands of emails, this >> is a harmful functionality. > > The hierachies *are there*. They are the filesystem folders. It's very, > very simple. This simplicity is what makes the mbox system very robust. >
I'v just done a little 'experiment'. I created a 3-level folder hierarchy in Seamonkey Mail under Local Folders. Top level folder is called one, within that I have a folder named two including a folder named three. Then I checked, what has actually been created in the file system. I found Level 1: one, one.msf, one.sbd Level 2 (within one.sbd): two, two.msf, two.sbd Level 3 (within two.sbd): three, three.msf There's no three.sbd. So the folder hierarchy is NOT there 1:1, as there is no file system folder for mail folder three. Then I created another sub-folder below three, with the name four. Now, the folder three.sbd was created, but no folder four.sbd was there, just two files: four and four.msf. Then I copied some mails into the new folders, and found that I can't copy anything into folder four. It is displayed in the hierarchy on the left pane, but the menu function "copy to" only works down to level three. One might argue, that it usually is more than enough to have three levels of hierarchy in the folder tree, but nevertheless this is not consistent. As a last step I checked, what's actually in the files and folders. I found, that the folders (one.sbd, two.sbd, three.sbd) only contain theire respective sub-folders and the index and mbox files for these, while the mbox and .msf files are on the same level as the folder itself. I guess, the reasoning here is, that real folders are only created, when they contain sub-folders. Obviously, the hierarchy in the file system has a different structure than the one shown in Seamonkey, at least for the leaf nodes (i. e. the lowest level, respectively). >> Pseudo-hierarchies should not be supported in combination with mbox >> IMHO, as this approach is bound to cause trouble --- it's only a >> question of time. >> >> And, BTW, a quick research of the web will tell you, that I am by far >> not the only one who experienced this sort of problem. >> >> I very much like Seamonkey, it's functionality, it's UI etc. But I need >> a more robust mail client. With maildir (or mh) support, Seamonkey Mail >> could be it, but I don't trust it, as long as it only supports mbox >> with index files (and again: the index files are the problem, actually, >> not mbox as such). > > The index files hold *no* important information about the structure of > the folder tree. You can delete *all* the index files (the .msf files) > and Thunderbird/Seamonkey will rebuild the tree pretty much instantly. > The only role of the index files is to speed up the messages listing for > each folder. > *Then I was mis-informed here, thanks for correcting me!* As I said, I had big trouble with Mozilla mail clients in the past, and I thought it was due to that, because all mails were still there, but not correctly displayed anymore, no matter how long I waited for some index being recreated. But maybe there was something else that went awfully wrong. Well, that's the past. Back on topic: Re-creation of index files was unfortunately not done instantly in earlier versions. For large mbox files it takes ages. The whole concept slows down actions, such as copying 500 messages from one folder to another one significantly. It takes so long, at times, that I guess, the index is recreated for every single message. May I expect that Seamonkey has become a bit smarter here in recent incarnations? Thanks for your patience! Alex _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
