Thunderbird

Craig White craigwhite at azapple.com
Fri Jun 6 14:22:03 UTC 2008


On Fri, 2008-06-06 at 09:27 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> 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).
----
I see both sides because I am a system administrator and a user.

As a system administrator...I really don't like default configuration of
IMAP client applications that 'MOVE' mail into a 'Deleted Items' or
'Trash' folder when the user clicks delete. I find many users never
'empty the trash' (or EXPUNGE) and the mail just sits there. I actually
have instituted a cyrus-imapd rule that runs during the wee hours and
executes a 'purge' on any e-mail on all users folders that has the
'DELETE' flag set and is over 30 days old. Still, it just ups the load
on the server (Moving mail from one folder to another folder). If the
DELETE flag is set and the user can view/hide 'deleted' e-mails...that
should be good enough.

As a user...if I delete e-mails, I actually want them to be deleted. I
love how Evolution will 'purge deleted e-mail' on exit (from all
folders). Thunderbird has to be instructed to do that as it is not the
default setting. I don't think Thunderbird default settings are
appropriate for IMAP users at all but at least they can be tweaked.

The issue of lingo and e-mail is always gonna be a problem because there
are so many mail applications and each one has it's own lingo and it's
own default behaviors which are subtly different. It just leads to
confused users and deleted mail that can hang around forever.

Craig




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