Hi Marck,
ML>> I appreciate TB gives me the power to control exactly how my
ML>> folders should be lined up, but I think auto-sorting should be
ML>> default, or at least there should be an option to allow
ML>> auto-sorting.
> Perhaps. For my own use an alphabetic sorting of the folders
> would make no sense. I maintain a large and hand honed tree of
> carefully arranged and nested folders.
Me too. I have quite a few folders in Chinese names and TB can't
sort them right anyway. My point is, most average users expect
auto-sorting behavior (for that's what they have in most other
software) and they'll have a hard time figuring out how to make TB
do that. Some of them will be very disappointed when they find out
the "auto" part is impossible.
Given my assumption (which could be wrong) that people who want and
appreciate absolute folder order control are, generally speaking,
more advanced users, I suggest TB to adopt auto-sorting as default
and make manual ordering optional.
ML>> That's an interesting observation. You mean OE, Outlook and
ML>> Eudora can't format the messages correctly? Are you referring
ML>> to HTML mail? Could you be more specific?
> I can shed some light. You don't have to look as far as HTML
> mail. Because these other clients default to using variable pitch
> fonts any layout you may give a text message hasn't a single
> chance of turning out looking as you sent it when it arrives at
> the destination. Not so TB text mail. IMNSHO when it comes to
> text layout, TB is one of (if not _the_) best there is. There
> are another couple of newbie down-sides to that aspect of
> TB's functionality that usually elicit howls of derision: fixed
> fonts, virtual space and no discernable paragraph delimiters
> (CR/CR isn't intuitively obvious). Sadly these aspects are
> compulsory for the plus-side plain text formatting
> capabilities. I believe it's a good trade off - it's not
> always a shared opinion, however (and I don't want to get "into
> one" with any one over it).
I agree with you mostly, except that I think this whole thing should
be made optional.
My point was, OE and its peers serve average users with very basic
needs pretty well. Let's face it, not many people bother to format
their email, and many of those who do use HTML mail. We might think
perfect spacing and indenting are more important, others might think
being able to mark a word bold is more important (and they think
using _these words are bold_ is an awkward alternative).
A sad but true fact is, I rarely bother to indent or use caret marks
(to highlight) anymore (unless I'm sure the recipients use mono
fonts as well, such as people in this group), because I don't know
whether it would be presented as I intended in the recipient's email
client. Heck, in the Fidonet era, I could even hand-draw tables in
email, and there were all sorts of wonderful ASCII graphic arts in
the signature lines. I no long do.
Given the ubiquitous usage of proportional fonts in email clients, I
even think the claim that TB format messages perfectly is a little
bit, dare I say, self-serving.
--
Best regards,
Ming-Li mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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