Thunderbird

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Thu, 2008-06-05 at 23:31 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-06-06 at 01:09 +0000, g wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > Craig White wrote:
> > > (file menu), right click on any folder and chose 'compact' or in Account
> > > Settings, you can choose to 'expunge' on exit. Expunge is the normal
> > > lingo for deleting messages that have 'delete flag set on'
> > 
> > 'expunge' is 'lingo' used in evolution.
> > 
> > in thunderbird, under users account;
> > 
> >   server settings | server settings [] empty on exit
> > 
> > will clean 'trash' file.
> ----
> EXPUNGE is IMAP lingo...
> 
> http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2060.html
> 
> Thunderbird chooses not to call it by it's real terminology - perhaps
> out of some notion that it is more user friendly to call it by another
> name...I think that it is a mistake but hey, I'm only one opinion.

I have to agree with you. I find TB's terminology confusing since the
poor documentation makes it hard to associate with more standard usage.
It's absurd that one should have to do black-box testing to determine
under what circumstances you do Empty Trash to get an Expunge, or when
it's meaningful to Compact (answer: only with mbox folders), or if
Compact also Expunges (IIRC it's not documented), or what exactly
happens when you do a Delete (answer: it depends on a preference
setting, but the meaning of the various alternatives is not clear).

All of this is a consequence of a laudable attempt to make things
understandable to the layman and to use a uniform model for a variety of
possible mail backends. I have no quarrel with that, but I do wish there
was a reference document so those who want to know could find out.

(Note that Evolution is also somewhat deficient in this sense, but at
least it addresses this kind of thing in a FAQ).

poc