vm team mailing list archive

["Tim Cross" <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxx>]

I tried out the experimental operate on threads feature and have a few
thoughts/ideas. 

I think the concept underlying this functionality is worthwhile, but suspect we
need to refine how we interface to this and possibly think a bit more about
exactly how the general principal is applied. 

As noted by Uday, replying in the root message sends the reply to all
recipients in the thread. This may have some undesirable consequences and may
not be as intuitive as we would like. In addition to the issues mentioned by
Uday, we also need to think about some of the corner cases. For example, is
there any chance that a message could be incorrectly included in the thread -
resulting in someone other than the user expecting getting a copy? Could there
be unforseen problems with someone included in the thread via a Bcc then having
their address exposed/revealed to others? I'm just shooting in the dark here -
we would need to look at this more closely to verify exactly the possible
combinations that may be involved. At the very least, I think the user needs to
be vary aware of all recipients and given the opportunity to edit the list
before it is sent. 

I'm also not sure of the difference between operaitons when this feature is
turned on and when it isn't. For example, delete and killing thread. To some
extent, when this feature is enabled, delete works like kill thread. Maybe we
need to consider what commands are included when operate on threads is enabled
and which should be excluded.

However, most of this I see as refinement of the basic concept. Possibly more
of an issue is how we interface this functionality. Having this functionality
either on or off doesn't quite work. Sometimes, I would like this feature when
managing specific threads, but sometimes I don't. I wonder if another
alternative way of enabling this functionality would be better. For example,
maybe modifying commands so that if you provide a prefix argument and you have
threading enabled, the command works on all messages in the thread, otherwise,
it just works on the current message as normal.

Having the ability to operate on a whole thread is useful and having this
experimental option is useful in allowing us to better understand the problem.
It may be worthwhile further extending the doc string to warn of possible
unexpected/non-intuitive behavior until we work out how to best implement
things. 

Just my 2 cents. 

Tim

-- 
Tim Cross
tcross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There are two types of people in IT - those who do not manage what they 
understand and those who do not understand what they manage.