[Users] marking messages in new window as read

[Dustin Miller]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2025 22:40:17 -0800
Jeremy Schneider <schneider at ardentperf.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Feb 2025 12:26:53 +0600
> Dustin Miller <dustbiz at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Yes, I am trying to leave the message view closed, open the
> > > message in a new window, and use the 'N' and 'P' keys to switch
> > > between messages.
> > >     
> > DM: ... Paul (developer) commented that the message view being
> > closed seems to be "key" to the issue. ... 
> 
> ... a possible workaround might be making the message pane very small
> at the bottom of the screen.
> 
> The biggest reason for this workflow is that I prefer to work from the
> keyboard and this enables me to go through messages by pressing one
> key at a time instead of two.
> 
> When reading in the message pane, the 'N' and 'P' keys always return
> the focus to the message list and I need to press TAB again before I
> can use arrow keys or page up/down to scroll longer messages. So it
> is two keystrokes to go to the next message instead of one. Probably
> sounds insignificant but it makes a difference to me. If there's
> another way to solve this, I'd be open to that.
> 
DM: Makes sense to me. 🙂️ I have a similar preference for working from
the keyboard and minimizing keystrokes. I don't know all the details of
your situation, but I'll let you know various points about my current
approach, in case it's helpful for you:

* 1. I normally process my emails by using the message view as much as
  possible, and in a way that (sometimes) avoids using multiple
  keystrokes.

* 2. I initially used the default 'Space' and 'Shift + Space' for page
  up/down and 'Enter' and 'Shift + Enter' for going up/down by a line
  or so (presumably what you use the arrow keys for). However, at some
  point (maybe the switch from GTK2 to GTK3?), I found that one or both
  of the above options using the 'Space' key kept annoying me. The
  problem was that, if I had reached the top or bottom (can't remember
  if it was one or the other or both) of the message, and then pressed
  the key again, instead of doing nothing (expected by me) it would
  jump to another message in that folder or even sometimes in another
  folder (I think), with where it jumped to perhaps related to one or
  more settings in my preferences. (My guess is that if a person would
  have the settings set a certain way, then this would be a 'feature'
  that would allow them to use the same key to move to another message
  (i.e. maybe 'next unread'?) if it was not the next or previous
  adjacent one (i.e. for which they could use 'N' or 'P', etc.).) In
  any case, for my use case, this was an unexpected and undesirable
  result.

* 3. In order to address the problem mentioned in #2 above, I assigned
  the following hot-keys to existing menu items, as follows:
Menu: View - Message Scroll - Previous page: 'Ctrl + Up'
Menu: View - Message Scroll - Next page: 'Ctrl + Down'
(with 'Up' and 'Down' referring to the arrow keys)
* I did this by manually editing the 'menurc' file in the Claws Mail
  (CM) config folder. If you prefer a GUI approach, it's possible that
  'Clawsker' provides an alternative means for assigning hot-keys, not
  sure. In any case, this is how the relevant lines in the 'menurc'
  file looked after my edits:
(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/Menu/View/Scroll/PrevPage" "<Primary>Up")
(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/Menu/View/Scroll/NextPage" "<Primary>Down")
* Additionally, when I browsed into the menu, I could also see that the
  hot-keys I had assigned were shown there, as a way of confirming. As
  far as I can tell, these hot-keys now do everything that the defaults
  mentioned above do, but without the extra annoying behavior. All of
  that to say, you could assign whatever keys you want to those two
  menu items, and even to the line up/down menu items in the same
  location if you don't like the defaults mentioned above.

* 4. I have found that the above approach works fine for me for any
  message parts other than HTML message parts. (This is true for at
  least the Fancy plugin, but I can't remember if I tested it with the
  LiteHTML and/or Dillo plugins. I had been using the LiteHTML one for
  awhile (which may not have this problem, can't remember), but then it
  had a different problem that made it unusable [at that time, not sure
  if it's been fixed yet or not], so I switched to Fancy. I had used
  Fancy before in the GTK2 versions of CM. At that time, when I noticed
  this same problem of not being able to use hot-keys for message
  scrolling when viewing an HTML message part in the message view, I
  filed a bug and it was subsequently fixed. However, it showed up
  again in the GTK3 version. I'm pretty sure I've filed another bug
  about this, but I don't think it's been fixed yet. For our use cases,
  it would be great if this were fixed -- maybe someday. 🙂️

* 5. The first step of my solution / workaround for the problem in #4
  above is to go via the menu to Configuration - Preferences, then to
  'Message View' - 'Text Options', and make sure that 'Render HTML
  messages as text' is checked, and 'Select the HTML part of multipart
  / alternative messages' is unchecked. This way when I open an 'HTML'
  email in the message view, if it has any other type of message part
  other than HTML, it will show that. The advantage of this is that
  some HTML messages can be read fine in 'text' view, and (unless there
  is only an HTML part) using the above-mentioned keys for scrolling
  will work.

* 6. The second step of my solution / workaround for the problem in #4
  above (if the first one doesn't meet my needs) is to open the HTML
  message part in an external browser, which does take extra keystrokes
  but doesn't require using a mouse. I first use 'A' to go down to the
  HTML message part and then use 'L' to open it in a browser. (If
  necessary, in Preferences you can review / change the settings in
  'Message View' - 'External Programs' depending on whether you want CM
  to use the browser that is the system default or a different one that
  you specify.) Then I use the normal keys for scrolling the message in
  the browser, do a 'Ctrl + W' to close the tab, 'Alt + Tab' to go back
  to CM and then 'Del', 'N', or whatever other key to file or otherwise
  act on the message and/or go on to the next one. Another part of the
  reason I use an external browser for this is because sometimes the
  rendering by HTML viewing plugins in CM has some issues, although I
  think this has been improving over the years. But if you're using an
  HTML plugin and you're fine with how it renders things, then your use
  of 'Tab' and the page up/down and arrow keys might be the better
  option for viewing HTML message parts, although I've noticed that the
  use of 'Tab' and/or 'Shift + Tab' for toggling between the message
  list and message view can be a bit tricky / 'unpredictable' depending
  on where you're at in scrolling the message. If you go this route,
  then you'll need to decide whether you want to have HTML parts
  selected by default (see setting mentioned above), which probably
  depends on how many emails you get where you definitely need / want
  to see the HTML version of them. And then you may want to assign the
  same keys to the message scrolling menu items, so that you won't have
  to use different sets of keys for HTML and non-HTML parts.

DM: Well, that got long. 🙂️ Anyway, that's the best I've been able to
come up with for my workflow, and the only improvement I can think of
would be to get the Fancy plugin bug fixed so that the message
scrolling menu items will work for HTML message parts as well (or if
the LiteHTML plugin doesn't have this problem, getting the upstream bug
fixed to make it usable again). In any case, perhaps some of the info
I've provided about my approach will give you ideas on coming up with a
better workaround than you have currently. Cheers, ---Dustin