[horde] [imp] default reply behavior in dimp/imp

D G Teed donald.teed at gmail.com
Mon Sep 5 20:53:18 UTC 2011


On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 6:52 AM, Ralf Lang <lang at b1-systems.de> wrote:
>
> Am Mittwoch, 17. August 2011, 18:26:18 schrieb Brent:
> > Quoting Michael M Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>
> >
> > > Quoting Nick <whatdoyouwant at gmail.com>:
> > >> It seems that when I hit "Reply" it defaults to reply all.  Is there any
> > >> way to change this?  I see the "You are currently replying to ALL
> > >> recipients. Click this box to reply to the original sender instead" in
> > >> dimp's compose window, but my users shouldn't always have to click
> > >> this.
> > >
> > > And this is almost certainly what is wanted.  Replying must be
> > > analyzed from the point of view of the ORIGINAL sender of the
> > > message.  He/she believed the message was appropriate/pertinent to
> > > send to a  group of people.  Thus, a response to the email thread
> > > needs to,  likewise, go to all members of that group.
> > > If you want to send a personal message (i.e. breaking the thread),
> > > you need to EXPRESSLY indicate that intention.
> > >
> > > Thus, we have no plans for making this configurable.  You can alter
> > > the code as you wish on your installation, of course.
> > >
> > > michael
> >
> > What about this:  add another button between Reply and Forward that
> > says "Reply To All", then default the Reply to just reply to the user
> > (breaking the thread).  That is what Outlook and Thunderbird have, for
> > what it's worth, and removes a certain amount of ambiguity on the
> > end-users part.  I think the primary reason is that the button says
> > "Reply" and in Outlook/Thunderbird, that means "reply to the sender
> > only".  I believe this is what is causing the confusion and has caused
> > more than one faux paus among the Horde mob.
> >
>
> This issue has been discussed before and it makes sense to me. I see to many
> people accidentally not keeping discussions on list and the button now does
> exactly what I would expect and want. Replying to list is not "reply to all"
> (which would include the sender personally and any cc'ed individuals). The
> List is one receiver. You already have "reply to sender" (actual caption may
> vary as I use a translated interface).
>
>
> --
> Ralf Lang
> Linux Consultant / Developer

I don't follow what you agree with in those comments.

Horde is used by many people who are occasional users of dimp. They do not know
that unlike Outlook, Thunderbird, hotmail and gmail, in dimp, there is only one
button shown for reply.  This singular button removes the user's
initial selection
over the scope of the reply, again, unlike any other mail agent interface.
One cannot design an interface that is unorthodox and claim correctness.
It is like the famous quote of a proud mother watching a group
of soldiers: "Oh look! Our Johnny is the only one in step".

Due to this unconventional design, we are currently enforcing traditional mode
on horde webmail (traditional has reply/reply all), which is a pity because
dimp is cool, and the mobile interface is also very nice.

Anyway, there is a feature request filed in horde bug tracker: 10441.
http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/?id=10441


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