[Users] Move #mh to shared folder.

[Mark Filipak]

On 2013/4/5 6:29 AM, Paul wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:12:04 -0400
> Mark Filipak <markfilipak.linux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> OR
>>>
>>> You could create a new mailbox at that location
>>
>> Hmmm... How would I do that? I couldn't find a way to persuade
>> Claws to put mailboxes in a particular path. (I must be totally
>> misinterpreting what you mean.)
>
> The 'Add mailbox' dialogue from /File/Add mailbox/MH...

Thanks, Paul. I got the soft link to work so that mailboxes would be created in the shared folder automatically. That's what I meant by "persuade Claws to put mailboxes in a particular place". The problem, it turned out, is that the Claws Mail Setup Wizard asks the wrong question.

Specifically, when, at the end of the Claws 1st-run it asks for "Mailbox name", but it's not really asking for the mailbox name ("aerotek" is the name of my 1st mailbox). What it's really asking for the Mailboxes base folder name ("Mail" - in fact, "Mail" is pre-filled in the text box). Since I was being very literal in my interpretation of what "Mailbox name" meant, I wiped out "Mail" and typed in "aerotek". So, instead of creating this:

'~/Mail'

the Claws Mail Setup Wizard created this:

'~/aerotek'

Well, I quite logically assumed that if I created 45 more accounts, I'd have 45 more such folders cluttering up my home directory when, in reality, I wanted them in a shared folder like this:

'/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail/aerotek'

Then, the 2nd time I did the Claws 1st-run, I realized the mistake and, since I already had a '~/Mail' link set up that already pointed to '/mnt/hgfs/shared/Mail', the Claws Mail Setup Wizard used that link and I was fine from then on (at least, until my latest problem).

Now, I've written plenty of programs as I'll bet you have too, and it's sometimes surprising to keep making the same mistake over and over and not seeing it. In this case, I'm sure the developer of the Claws Mail Setup Wizard ran it a thousand times and saw "Mailbox name" a thousand times and never realized that it was wrong, but "Mailbox name" is not right. My first mailbox was named "aerotek", but that doesn't mean that the wizard wanted me to put "aerotek" into "Mailbox name". No, not at all. It wanted me to leave "Mailbox name" set to "Mail". You see, instead of "Mailbox name", the wizard should be asking for "Mailboxes base folder name" or "Mailboxes home folder name" or "Mailboxes root folder name" or some such wording.

I will be passing on these recommendations to the Claws developers:

1 - The wizard should begin with a 3-way switch:

| (o) Store the mail system in my home folder (~/) and name it [_Mail_]
|
| (o) Create a link in my home folder (~/) and name it [_Mail_], then target the link to [Browse]
|
| (o) Use the existing link in my home folder (~/) that is named [_Mail_]

where (o) is a 'choose one' radio button, [_Mail_] is a text box, and [Browse] is a button.

2 - The wizard should perform needed mbox conversions at this time rather than deferring it to later.

3 - The wizard should then take what it finds in the existing mail system (if any) and create folderlist.xml from that, rather than the other way around.