Re: [Nmh-workers] Threads

[Bill Wohler]

Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:

>>> In fact, the whole concept of 'threads' is something I would like to
>>> keep outside of the base toolset.
>>
>>It's too complex to leave outside of nmh's knowledge.  I'd like to pick
>>the parents of these messages, all ancestors, the immediate descendants,
>>or all descendants, or all messages in the same thread, ideally combined
>>with pick's, or its replacement's, other options.
>
> Right, I'm kinda with you there; nmh needs to do something, but I'm not
> sure what yet.  In my mind there are three possible things people mean
> when they talk about "threading":
>
> - The actual implementation of building the threading information.  There
>   is some conflict here about how when it's done, how it's stored, but
>   I think there isn't too much disagreement on what needs to be done.
>   I hadn't seen jwz's writeup about that, but it looks pretty much exactly
>   what we need to do.  That's relatively easy (well, straightforward, at
>   least).  However, I think the issue with us isn't CPU time, it's io-ops.

By the way, MH-E also implements the model described by
http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html that Ralph mentioned. Looks like
the RFC is http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5256.

> - The user interface: how do we give threading information to users?  Have
>   mhl(1) display a trn-style message tree? (which I admit that I was always
>   partial to?).  Is it only via pick?  Indent subject lines in scan? (which
>   to me throws away some of the useful information).

Here's what it looks like in MH-E. I found some documentation on the
difference between angle and square brackets:

;; In the presentation buffer, children messages are shown indented
;; with either [ ] or < > around them. Square brackets ([ ]) denote
;; that the algorithm can point out some headers which when taken
;; together implies that the unindented message is an ancestor of the
;; indented message. If no such proof exists then angles (< >) are
;; used.

 9216 -03/25 ["d.henman"     ]  unexpected error mesage<<MH-E Version 8.3.1 
Platform: Cygwin #1 T
 9217  03/25   [Zeus Panchenko ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<-----BEGIN PGP 
SIGNED MESSAGE-----
 9219  03/26   [To:"d.henman"  ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<d.henman 
<address@hidden> wrote
 9222 -03/27     [Zeus Panchenko ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Bill Wohler 
<address@hidden> wr
 9220 -03/28       ["d.henman"     ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Same here 
the " "scan: bad mes
 9223  03/30         [To:"d.henman"  ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<I'm a 
little confused. Are y
 9226 -03/31           [Zeus Panchenko ]  Re: unexpected error 
mesage<<=2D----BEGIN PGP SIGNED ME
 9225  03/31             [To:Zeus Panchen]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<It's 
interesting that th
 9224  03/30         [To:"d.henman"  ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<d.henman 
<address@hidden>
 9228  03/31           [To:"d.henman"  ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<d.henman 
<address@hidden
 9229  04/01             ["d.henman"     ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<I have 
just written to M
 9221  03/30       [To:Zeus Panchen]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Hmmm, how 
about "inc" from the
 9227 t03/31         ["d.henman"     ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<$ inc 
returns with $? = 0 an
 9230 -03/31   <Sergey Poznyako>  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Hello, I'm not 
subscribed to the l
 9231  03/31     [To:Sergey Pozny]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Sergey 
Poznyakoff <address@hidden
 9232 -04/01       [Sergey Poznyako]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Hi Bill! > 
Yes. It seems you'v
 9233  04/01         [To:Sergey Pozny]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Sergey 
Poznyakoff <address@hidden
 9234 -04/03       [Sergey Poznyako]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Hello, On 
March 31, Sergey Poz
 9244  04/06         [To:Sergey Pozny]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Sergey 
Poznyakoff <address@hidden
 9247 -04/07           ["d.henman"     ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Bill, et 
al, I installe

Thus, scan -thread could show something like this.

> - (Optional) How do users navigate or select messages across a thread?  One
>   thing I always liked about the trn display was that the messages were
>   numbered and you could pick them via the number in the thread display.
>   We can't really do that, but something similar would be nice.

In MH-E, "n" (next) reads the messgaes in the order shown above. It
appears to be a depth-first traversal. Thus, next -thread could show the
messages in the order shown above.

>
> --Ken
>
> _______________________________________________
> Nmh-workers mailing list
> address@hidden
> https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
>

-- 
Bill Wohler <address@hidden> aka <address@hidden>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/
GnuPG ID:610BD9AD