[dev] Resetting sort order in IMP

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

> Zitat von Michael J Rubinsky <mrubinsk at horde.org>:
>
>> Quoting Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>:
>>
>>> Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:
>>>
>>>>>> This touches a bit on a very interesting UI discussion  
>>>>>> regarding the Win 8 task manager, especially regarding  
>>>>>> designing from the perspective of most used features:
>>>>>> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/13/the-windows-8-task-manager.aspx
>>>>
>>>> That's an interesting read, and a nice solution for one our  
>>>> common problems: a diverse user group.
>>>
>>> The UI issue, as I see it: there needs to be a way to  
>>> "reset/clear" the sorting back to sequence sort.  But for  
>>> practical purposes, MOST users don't want or need this.  For an  
>>> average user, sequence/arrival sort doesn't make much sense (at a  
>>> minimum, Date sorting makes more sense).  So we need a way to  
>>> allow power users to change without confusing regular users with  
>>> multiple sort options.
>>
>> FWIW, I guess I've been using date sorting for so long I didn't  
>> even realize that there was a way to revert it to arrival sort.  
>> Personally, for the way I use email, I don't see what the benifit  
>> would be of arrival sort vs date sort. I guess it's a performance  
>> thing?
>
> Yes, the only place I actually use it is in the Trash folder. It has  
> the added benefit that you have the messages ordered by deletion  
> date then.

Yes - it is significantly faster than all other sorts because IMAP  
servers MUST be optimized to handle the arrival order, since sequence  
numbers are sent for every message operation.  It has the added  
benefit of being able to determine the sort order without requiring an  
explicit sort.  But as mentioned before, it is a bit unintuitive  
because sorting by arrival may cause the message list to look "out of  
order", in that the dates will not necessarily be in chronological  
order.

Since sequence sort is kind of a date sort, what about adding the  
ability to select within the date header.  We used to do this by  
having a "subject/thread" like smaller option to switch between the  
two.  However, this was confusing (for those who don't know the  
difference, Date vs. Arrival seem to be referring to the same things).  
  Maybe a better solution is to have a drop-down menu when clicking on  
Date itself giving the two options (Chronological vs. Arrival).

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]