[imp] IMP 4.0 Alpha and message selection

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting joho at poolia.se:

> The checbox right above the message list, which selects all messages is a
> double edged sword.. :-)

Of course, but then so is the delete link.

> I consider myself a fairly adept user of web applications and have made the
> mistake of erasing all currently displayed messages by clicking in the
> checkbox instead of the "Delete" link, right above it.

I'd say you are not so adept, if you didn't notice all the boxes get
checked, and you lost your mail (see below).

> You click, thinking you are on the "Delete" link, nothing happens, so you
> click again; this time you hit the "Delete" link properly. Only problem is
> that the first click actually did land in the checbox, which selected all
> messages.

So hit the select all link again, and then select the undelete link.

> (In my case, the messages went to the worldwide bitstream since I forgot
> that the default for how to handle deleted messages was not to move them to
> the Trash folder ;)

The default is to mark them for delete, not delete them.  So unless you
did a purge, they should still be there.  Maybe you have "hide deleted"
on so you can't see them?  But they should very much still be there.

> I'm not sure how to handle this better from a user interface point of view..

No am I.  I agree the positioning is unfortunate, but I don't see a better
place to put things.

> but if there's no better solution, I'd opt to remove the "all" checkbox
> completely since the select box above the "Delete" link has "Select all" in
> it as well.

No, this is a very convenient feature of many pages.  For consistency 
it should
be left on this page as well.

I don't see how you can accidently delete mail with it unless you are just
not watching the screen, or have "hide deleted" on and are not watching
closely.

> My two cents..
>
> -Joaquim

--
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Why get even? Get odd!