Re: Rmail conversion misfeature

[Stefan Monnier]

> Querying before converting a Babyl file is misguided feature.
> There is no way to proceed except to convert it.

> I think the motive for this was to help people avoid
> unwittingly rewriting Babyl files in mbox format.
> I see the desirability of that goal, but this cure is
> worse than the disease.  I plan to delete it.

> I can envision a better way to achieve that goal: (1) mark the buffer
> unmodified after conversion, and (2) change the operations that would
> modify the buffer first warn you and query.  That feature won't cause
> any hassles just to look at the file, but when you try to alter it,
> you will be notified that this would result in changing its format
> when you save the changes.

That sounds good.  The only downside I could imagine is if you look at
this file repeatedly without ever modifying it, and it's large enough
that conversion takes a non-negligible time.  Not sure how likely is such
a scenario.


        Stefan