KDE (vs GNOME)

[Don Sanders]

On Saturday 12 November 2005 02:15, Benjamin Meyer wrote:
> On Friday 11 November 2005 8:36 am, Guillaume Laurent wrote:
> > On Friday 11 November 2005 15:34, Benjamin Meyer wrote:
> > > Really you guys don't seem to be talking about scriptability,

I'm definitely talking about scriptability. IMO it would be nice to 
use XML-GUI for the various context menus, and to have a scripting 
API rich enough so that that the existing context menu actions could 
be implemented using that scripting API. Also it would be nice if 
mainwindow menu actions like remove duplicates could be implemented 
with that API.

Using XML-GUI for the context menus would allow users/admins to easily 
trim the context menus and mainwindow menus to remove clutter. Having 
a rich scripting API would allow them to implement new custom 
actions. (New actions could be contained in KParts)

I think Thiago's suggestion of removing advanced functionality in 
favor of scripting also merits consideration. With the example of 
automatic expiry being an especially good one. The point being 
there's no limit to how sophisticated the functionality that users 
want is. The UI can just keep on getting more and more complex 
without limit.

An alternative to having an application with a complex/rich UI and no 
scripting support would be to have a relatively simple base 
application with a rich/complex scripting language, and some example 
scripts.

> > > but filtering. What if we got rid of the hard coded folders
> > > entirely in KMail and had each "folder" be a filer?  Then the
> > > trash "folder" could just have a filter such as (taking from
> > > the above example):

That sounds like search folders. Which we have, but they would be 
better if a fast (and reliable) full text index existed that made the 
searching faster.

> > > +"All emails 45 days old + not read + not marked as important"
> > > +"All emails 07 days old + marked as spam"

Expiration settings aren't currently available for search folders, I 
guess if they were that would implement this wish. 

From my POV just finding time to do basic QA on search folders again 
is a higher priority.

> > That would make using other tools over your mail folders (grep,
> > spam filter training, simple backup of important folders, etc...)
> > very difficult.
>
> I don't see why....  KMail could still store them in 'real' folders
> sorted by the filters.  Just as a user I don't have to manually
> sort things, each folder has its own rules to move the files around
> automatically for me.

Well it's an idea, but this could lead to a lot of duplicated 
mails/data on disk.

Don Sanders.