mail-list vs news, was Re: [plug] Looks like the LCA DVD is out.

[Alex Nordstrom]

On Saturday, 11 Sep 2004 06:19, Tim White wrote:
> Alex Nordstrom wrote:
> >Mozilla Thunderbird also has some limited list handling ability.
> Very nice actually. Sort by thread and I don't think I have yet had a
> message out of thread. It doesn't care that the subject changes part
> way down the thread. I am seeing in-reply-to and reference headers
> but I am not sure how it keeps track of threads.

In addition to what James said, hopefully it also uses the References 
header to slot it into the best available place if the message replied 
to is missing. A good MUA should also be able to fall back on the 
subject if a non-compliant agent posts a message without proper 
threading information.

> I actually keep all 
> my PLUG mail in one box, sorted by thread and "view threads with
> unread" so that I only see stuff that I havn't read but get the whole
> thread to see where its come from.[1]

I don't see a way to get KMail to do that. Sounds nice, but I just 
spacebar my way through the unread ones anyway and don't mind the read 
ones sitting there until expiry.

Perhaps it would be proper to qualify the "limited" part. I'm thinking 
in particular of the following major gaps in its abilities:

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17796
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29041
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45715

Especially the last one is a rather severe omission.

-- 
Alex Nordstrom
http://lx.n3.net/
Please do not CC me in followups; I am subscribed to plug.