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Re: [Nmh-workers] Threads

2013-04-08 22:24:09
Ken Hornstein <kenh(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com> 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 
<dhenman(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote
 9222 -03/27     [Zeus Panchenko ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<Bill Wohler 
<wohler(_at_)newt(_dot_)com> 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 
<dhenman(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
 9228  03/31           [To:"d.henman"  ]  Re: unexpected error mesage<<d.henman 
<dhenman(_at_)gmail(_dot_)co
 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 <gray(_at_)gnu(_dot_)org.
 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 <gray@gnu.
 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 <gray@gnu.
 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

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-- 
Bill Wohler <wohler(_at_)newt(_dot_)com> aka 
<Bill(_dot_)Wohler(_at_)nasa(_dot_)gov>
http://www.newt.com/wohler/
GnuPG ID:610BD9AD


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