[Users] Move #mh to shared folder.

[Mark Filipak]

On 2013/4/4 9:42 PM, Thomas Taylor wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:12:04 -0400
-snip-
> A softlink should work fine if you are using Linux.  Don't know what
> windows can do.  In Linux, your home folder has a sub-folder called
> Mail.  In my case I moved that to a different location (/common/Mail/)
> and created a softlink from that back to the home folder.
>
> ln -s /common/Mail/ /home/tom/Mail

What you show above is what I actually expected to see when I launched the File Manager following installation and creation of my first account. If that had been the case, then sure, a link would have been fine as you recommend, but that was not the case. For some reason, Claws in my system created '<account-name>',
not here:
  '~/Mail/<account-name>',
but here:
  '~/<account-name>'.
I was totally surprised, but being a Linuxenophobe, I didn't know enough to complain until now. Clearly I couldn't continue like that without creating 45 or 50 files (or 45 or 50 links) in '~/' bearing no indication that they were actually mail folders.

Regardless of the reason for the screwup, I can't create a link for '~/' and the current situation leaves me having to revise '~/.claws-mail/folderlist.xml' every time I create a new account. That is: unless someone knows where Claws maintains a global setting that is the path to the root of the MH.

A short time later...
===== AHA! =====
There's a flaw in the Claws Mail Setup Wizard. (I'm documenting this now, not for this mailing list, but for the Claws bug list...)

I just,
1,  reinstalled Claws,
2,  wiped out '~/.claws-mail' (to force re-initialization), and
3,  ran Claws for the '1st' time.
Then I.
4,  recreated my '1st' account (again). The name of the account is really 'aerotek', not '<account-name>' (of course).

Then ===== and here's the important part ===== the last thing the wizard asks for is "Mailbox name". Now, it's not really asking for the mailbox name - that would be 'aerotek'. What it's really asking for the mail system base folder name - that would be 'Mail' (and, in fact, 'Mail' is pre-filled in).

(The last time I installed Claws - the only time previous to this - I wiped out 'Mail' and put in 'aerotek'. This time I left it saying 'Mail' and finished the wizard.)

Then I,
5,  closed Claws,
6,  deleted '~/Mail', and
7,  created the link '~/Mail' ==> '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail'.
Then I.
8, relaunched Claws.

Unfortunately, when Claws opened, it wasn't right. The 'aerotek' account wasn't there. Why not? Ah! Because 'folderlist.xml' wasn't right!

So in the new folderlist.xml, to what it already had, I added this:

         <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="aerotek" type="normal">
             <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="draft" type="normal" />
             <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="inbox" type="normal" />
             <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="queue" type="normal" />
             <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="sent" type="normal" />
             <folderitem last_seen="0" ... name="trash" type="normal" />
         </folderitem>

And here's the folder structure I wound up with:

  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek/draft/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek/inbox/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek/queue/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek/sent/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek/trash/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/draft/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/inbox/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/queue/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/sent/'
  '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/trash/'

I've never been 'here' before. Does the folder structure above look right?


CONCLUSIONS:

1 - The wizard should allow a link to be created, such as:

(o) Create a mail system base folder (relative to ~/) named: [ ~/Mail ]
or
(o) Create a link to an existing mail system base folder (relative to /) located here: [ /Mail ] [Browse]

where (o) is a radio button, [ ~/Mail ] and [ /Mail ] are text boxes, and [Browse] is a button.

2 - The wizard should perform needed mbox conversions at this time.

3 - The wizard should then take what it finds in the chosen mail system base folder and create folderlist.xml from that, rather than the other way around.


Thanks for your continued help. Unless someone sees something wrong, this is a wrap.
Ciao - Mark.