[Users] How to place mailboxes in hidden folder

[Chris Hirst]

The basis of my reply advocating the "separation of data and configuration" is the same as the HTML/CSS concept of "seperation of content and style" or the US  "separation of church and state". As in, there are some things that BOTH benefit from being regarded and treated as separate, because they are actually disparate entities.

Had this being a public forum I would have been somewhat more explicit, and as my glib "Why not" reply was to one person whom I would expect to understand that keeping data and configuration IS one of the basic tenets of Unix/Linux, so this particular concept would already be accepted as a 'good' idea, even if it is not a strict necessity.





On Tue, 29 Mar 2016 14:23:25 +0200
Albert ARIBAUD <albert.aribaud at free.fr> wrote:

> Bonjour,
> 
> Le Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:41:12 +0100
> Paul <claws at thewildbeast.co.uk> a écrit:
> 
> > On Tue, 29 Mar 2016 12:26:29 +0200
> > Albert ARIBAUD <albert.aribaud at free.fr> wrote: 
> > 
> > > I am not forgetting it; but not all CM users read this list, and I
> > > strongly suspect that many who arrive on this list do not read
> > > past archives and therefore are not exposed to the information
> > > that developers and regulars of the list may have posted (I'm
> > > pretty sure even regulars do not read every single mail on the
> > > list). So just because there are people who can tell CM users, or
> > > even have told some CM users, that putting mail and config file
> > > in a single directory works, does not mean that everyone here
> > > knows this too.
> > 
> > But we're on the list right now! Those who do read the list archives
> > should be able to find useful information, but what Chris Hirst
> > wrote was wrong and misleading, which makes reading the archive
> > less useful.
> 
> I don't see what exactly Chris wrote that was wrong or misleading.
> Actually, I have commented on what Chris wrote and explained why it
> was neither wrong (from a *user* perspective, it *is* wiser to keep
> config and mail in separate folders than to store them in a single
> folder since it ifollows the CM default more closely, and default is,
> even if marginally, a relatively safer bet) nor misleading (Chris'
> suggestion of separating config and mail data does have any downside
> with respect to what Claws Mail does by default).
> 
> > > Yes, even after your original response, first because "why" isn't
> > > much of an informative response, and second and more seriously,
> > > because whether the user *can* use a full path does not mean (s)he
> > > *knows* (s)he can at the moment (s)he wants to.
> > 
> > "why" isn't much of an informative response, but since I'd just
> > written the orignal response it didn't seem necessary to repeat it
> > all over again just to qualify my question when it was there in the
> > thread already.
> 
> Your original answer was about dotted subdirs in a mailbox path, but
> did not include any statement on whether CM's config and mail folders
> could or could not be the same. You may have assumed that this was
> implicit, but the problem with implicit is that not everyone may see
> it the way you do.
> 
> Which is why, at the risk of repeating myself, I prefer being
> explicit, starting with the initial and additional mailbox creation
> dialogs where explicit user information could be added regarding the
> possibility of putting config and mail data together in a single
> directory.
> 
> > with regards
> > 
> > Paul
> 
> Amicalement,