Subject: [sup-talk] 0.5 thoughts

From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:59:43 -0800

Here are a couple things I'm interested in working on for an 0.5
release:

- Maildir speedups
- IMAP connection sharing
- Mbox filehandle closing (currently every mbox gets its own filehandle
  which is kept open for the duration of the program)
- Date conversion to the local timezone, for sorting and display
- Configurable colors. Everyone's favorite.
- Notes. Like draft emails without a recipient, but treated specially
  by the UI. Never sent; just for local use.
- gpg-hook for auto-selecting sign/encrypt/both based on whatever you
  want.

Any critical issues for people that they'd like to see addressed?

-- 
William <wmorgan-sup at masanjin.net>

---

From: [email-masked] (John Bent)
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:22:54 -0700

>   which is kept open for the duration of the program)
Is this a good thing?  I'd rather set my open filehandle limit really high
and have them kept open.  Isn't it slower to constantly have to reopen them?
Well, I guess the unusual ones certainly don't need an open handle.

> - Date conversion to the local timezone, for sorting and display
Yeah, there's something wrong with my timestamps.  Everything shows up as
PM.  The time is right but it always says PM in the display...

> - gpg-hook for auto-selecting sign/encrypt/both based on whatever you
These would be nice.

> Any critical issues for people that they'd like to see addressed?
I don't know what your philosophical feelings are about this but it 
might be nice to combine IM into sup.  It'd be a bunch more protocols 
to incorporate and the model might be completely different though.

Also, is there a way to go from one thread-view directly to another?  I always
have to 'x' to go back to the search-results-mode or the inbox-mode and   
then scroll to the message I want.  I thought 'n' and 'p' would do this
but I've never been able to get them to do anything for me.  Maybe I'm
just not understanding something?  In case it's not clear, I want the 
functionality of the 'Newer' and 'Older' links in gmail.

Thanks again for all your hard work.  I'm very happy about sup; it's made me
much more productive and much better organized.  I really appreciate the
efforts of you and all the other contributors.

---

From: [email-masked] (Sho Fukamachi)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:12:18 +1100

> Any critical issues for people that they'd like to see addressed?

Hm, wouldn't call them critical but here are some of my thoughts:

- detect locale of system, or offer a choice, for VIM spellcheck. It's  
currently hardcoded to en_us - detect from system somehow?
- detect when kill has failed if launched with an extant .sup/lock -  
offer to delete the lockfile? If sup crashes, it's currently  
impossible to reload without manually deleting the file. Maybe offer  
to do it after a couple of tries
- better unicode (in and out) support - search in buffer doesn't work  
at all, and scrolling through a mail with a lot of unicode causes  
severe graphical artifacts
- at least a cursory effort to not store login credentials in  
plaintext .. how to store them whilst retaining simplicity and  
platform independence is an interesting question. Not sure how far sup  
(or anyone really) wants to go down that particular rabbit hole
- attachments/downloads folder? again, I wonder how this fits in with  
sup's philosophy
- ability to send using something other than local sendmail? for  
remote mbox, we have a ssh session open and everything .. and dynamic  
IPs are often RBL'ed
- DB store? in particular, sqlite? especially for user config ...?  
with a view to multiuser access sans user directories & setup  
files.....?
- Launch cargo to high orbit for less than $100/ton and cook a 5-star  
gourmet bouillabaisse from garden scraps? ok ok ok i'll stop now ..!

thanks : )

Sho
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From: [email-masked] (Nicolas Pouillard)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:26:08 +0100

> currently hardcoded to en_us - detect from system somehow?

+1

> to do it after a couple of tries

+1

> severe graphical artifacts

+1

Best regards,

-- 
Nicolas Pouillard aka Ertai
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From: [email-masked] (vasudeva)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:22:52 -0500

>   by the UI. Never sent; just for local use.

If we're interested in 'Getting Things Done', then a nice related
feature might be the ability to tell sup not to exit on a 'q' keypress
if there are buffers open marked TODO (or whatever). One of the things I
like about sup is the multi-window approach, because instead of making
me feel *bad* about having lots of half-finished work, it makes me feel
as though it's reasonable I might just have it going in the background.
I find this mis-truth appealing.

Problem is, one 'q' hit (very easily done, ex-mutt user, etc) and I've
lost my TODO state.

-- 
linkswarm.com :: Collaborative Insolence
vasudeva.linkswarm.com/gallery :: For The Faint of Heart

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From: [email-masked] (John Bent)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:46:12 -0700

> Any critical issues for people that they'd like to see addressed?
Not critical but in reading about ferret, I saw that it can search and 
index various mime-types such as pdf.  Allowing search into attachments
would be very cool.

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From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:52:20 -0800

Reformatted excerpts from John Bent's message of 2008-01-24:
> > - Mbox filehandle closing (currently every mbox gets its own
> > filehandle which is kept open for the duration of the program)
>
> Is this a good thing?  I'd rather set my open filehandle limit really
> high and have them kept open.  Isn't it slower to constantly have to
> reopen them?  Well, I guess the unusual ones certainly don't need an
> open handle.

It will introduce a very minor slowdown, but I don't think it will
really be that noticeable. And the current approach basically prevents
people from having large numbers of mbox sources, which is a little
contrary to the Sup philosophy of "put every email you've ever read in
one program."

> Yeah, there's something wrong with my timestamps.  Everything shows up
> as PM.  The time is right but it always says PM in the display...

That's weird. Is this in thread-index-mode? What about when you expand
the header ('h') in thread-view-mode? Does the time appear correctly?

> to incorporate and the model might be completely different though.

Iiiinteresting. Making Sup an IM client proper is almost certainly
a world of misery. Getting the current textfield stuff working was a
goddamn nightmare, and it's still very wonky. It does seem a little
weird, philosophically speaking, but I wouldn't throw such code away if
it were dumped on my lap. :)

That said, what WOULD be easy is to treat IM logs as a message source,
and put conversations in the index, gmail style.

> Also, is there a way to go from one thread-view directly to another?
> I always have to 'x' to go back to the search-results-mode or the
> inbox-mode and then scroll to the message I want.

Try the comma-commands. ",n", etc.

> I thought 'n' and 'p' would do this but I've never been able to get
> them to do anything for me.

These jump between individual open messages in a thread.

> Thanks again for all your hard work.  I'm very happy about sup; it's
> made me much more productive and much better organized.  I really
> appreciate the efforts of you and all the other contributors.

Glad to hear it. Sup is mostly to scratch my own itch.

---

From: [email-masked] (Nicolas Pouillard)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:37:20 +0100

> contrary to the Sup philosophy of "put every email you've ever read in

I  don't get link between having a lot of mails and a lot of mbox sources, for
instance  I  have  only  one  big  mbox,  and  don't see the need for multiple
sources (apart these backup considerations).

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From: [email-masked] (John Bent)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:31:06 -0700

> the header ('h') in thread-view-mode? Does the time appear correctly?
Still incorrect with the expanded header.  I checked the mbox file to
see if fetchmail was maybe screwing it up but it looks right in there.

> and put conversations in the index, gmail style.
That'd probably actually be what I most want.  I have a separate IM client
and I treat IM conversations and email slightly differently.  But ultimately
they are still conversations and it be great to integrate them into sup so
I could search through them too.

> Try the comma-commands. ",n", etc.
Ok, ",n" is great.  Thanks.  A ",p" would be nice too....

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From: [email-masked] (John Bent)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:37:07 -0700

> I find this mis-truth appealing.
What is this TODO buffer you're talking about please?  Sounds useful!

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From: [email-masked] (vasudeva)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:00:13 -0500

> What is this TODO buffer you're talking about please?  Sounds useful!

Sort of random association I made. There's a neat type-A smartypants
thing called 'Getting Things Done' which seems to be a methodology
for...  getting things done. More here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

The bit William brought up about adding 'note' objects piqued my
interest and seemed kind of GTD-ish.  Personally, I tend to use my inbox
as my TODO list, so the ability to "stick" windows -- to set sup buffers
non-volatile -- would be something I'd use a lot. As a long-time mutt
user, a certain background portion of my brain, as I navigate sup, is
devoted entirely to NOT hitting the 'q' key, which is basically muscle
memory at this point.

---

From: [email-masked] (Daniel Wagner)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:03:33 -0800

> currently hardcoded to en_us - detect from system somehow?

That doesn't sound right to me.  Have you had a look in your
config.yaml?  More info on the Wiki page:
http://sup.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl?VimIntegration
I actually *like* that Sup doesn't assume too much about my editor.

> (or anyone really) wants to go down that particular rabbit hole

I don't like this idea.  I think it was Gaim (now Pidgin) that first
opened my eyes to the possibility that plaintext passwords might not be
so bad.  The Pidgin page seems to be down just now, so I can't say for
certain that this is the essay I originally read, but
http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/PlainTextPasswords?format=txt
sounds like a promising result from Google.

> remote mbox, we have a ssh session open and everything .. and dynamic  

My config.yaml has an option for this, have a look there.

Have fun!
~d

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From: [email-masked] (Daniel Wagner)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:05:17 -0800

This is sort of a big-ish feature, but are there any plans for LDAP
support?  (I'm expecting "patches welcome" to go here. =)

~d

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From: [email-masked] (Daniel Wagner)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:12:28 -0800

> sounds like a promising result from Google.

Wait, now that I stopped to think about it, I may have to take this
back.  I don't actually know what credentials you mean, so the argument
may not even apply.

~d

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From: [email-masked] (Christopher Warrington)
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:56:33 -0600

William Morgan @ 2008-1-24 11:59:43 PM
"[sup-talk] 0.5 thoughts" <mid:1201240480-sup-1977 at south>

> - IMAP connection sharing
+1, shared connections, but still multiple connections (one for
polling, one for downloading new messages, one for downloading the
currently selected thread, &c.)

-- 
Christopher Warrington <chrisw at rice.edu>

"Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine
women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month."
-Werner von Braun
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From: [email-masked] (Giorgio Lando)
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:16:52 +0100

A thing which I would need (but that I guess it is not easy, at least
from the complexity it has in mutt) is support fro S/MIME encryption,
or at least encryption verification.

-- 
Giorgio Lando <patroclo7 at gmail dot com>

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From: [email-masked] (Marcus Williams)
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:29:00 +0000

> - Configurable colors. Everyone's favorite.

Preferably through a hook that gets some information about what is
going to be coloured. For instance I'd like to colour my labels
differently (not the email snippet, just the label itself) so the hook
would have to be told that it should return a colour for a label, but
also what label that is. Same thing applies for
recipients/senders/snippets/threads I guess - you need some sort of
context with the "type" you're colouring.

>   by the UI. Never sent; just for local use.

This would be nice if they extend the message class so you get
everything that comes with being an email for free like attachments
etc. 

Marcus

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From: [email-masked] (Giorgio Lando)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:24:28 +0100

I would like to add a further feature request: sup could accept an email
address as a command line argument, going directly to prompt for a
subject or a CC and then passing to the editor. This would be nice for
interaction with browsers, when clicking on a certain address open a
program designated to treat the mailto protocol.

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From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:09:37 -0800

Reformatted excerpts from Giorgio Lando's message of 2008-01-31:
> I would like to add a further feature request: sup could accept an
> email address as a command line argument, going directly to prompt for
> a subject or a CC and then passing to the editor. This would be nice
> for interaction with browsers, when clicking on a certain address open
> a program designated to treat the mailto protocol. 

This is in. Use -c.

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From: [email-masked] (Giorgio Lando)
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:42:33 +0100

> > a program designated to treat the mailto protocol. 

Thank you a lot!