Jeff is not the first person to suggest an MH front end should cache
the folders list, but I continue disagree. It is a waste for mh-e,
xmh, and each front-end to contain code to do the caching. This all
belongs in MH itself, where everyone can use it. (Though I suspect
with all the speed enhancements that have been discussed here caching
would no longer be as interesting.)
I actually use my cache with tcsh to do folder name completion on the
command line:
if (${?tcsh_complete}) then
set cache=`mhparam folder-cache` && set cache="${Mail}/${cache}"
if ( $status == 0 && -f "${cache}") then
set folders=`cat ${cache}`
complete show 'c/+/$folders/'
complete last 'c/+/$folders/'
complete first 'c/+/$folders/'
complete next 'c/+/$folders/'
complete prev 'c/+/$folders/'
complete folder 'c/+/$folders/'
complete pack 'c/+/$folders/'
complete unseen 'c/+/$folders/'
complete refile 'c/+/$folders/'
complete pushf 'c/+/$folders/'
endif
unset cache
endif
Jeff