Re: Some hints for usability improvements

[Peter Bloomfield <peterbloomfield bellsouth net>]

On 02/18/2006 03:56:33 AM Sat, Mişu Moldovan wrote:
[ snip ]
> I think that having to put the focus into the message first
> would break this one-key reading. In Sylpheed it doesn't matter
> if the focus is in the message preview window or in the
> GtkTreeView of the list of messages in the selected folder. In
> both cases, space-bar does what I mean (frankly, even in Balsa
> sometimes I was hitting space-bar to scroll down because that's
> what the space-bar does in a number of other programs).

The issue is that the other actions of space-bar are also useful  
for keyboard navigation:
- when the focus is in the mailbox list, space-bar opens the  
highlighted mailbox;
- when the focus is in the message list, space-bar opens the  
highlighted message in its own window.
The Enter key does the same, but a keyboard-oriented user is used  
to the space-bar convention.  Imho it's mostly friendlier to  
allow each widget to have its native key-bindings, and go in at  
the low level only when really necessary.  (For instance, we are  
discussing replacing ctrl+R for manual alias-completion in the  
address-entry fields with Escape, which would be a low-level  
grab.)

The version in cvs requires you to tab into the message content  
only once; after that, the focus stays there as you chain to  
other messages and other mailboxes.  If it's elsewhere, say in  
the message list, where cursor-up and cursor-down are useful for  
scrolling through the list, it similarly stays there.

[ snip ]
> It could be that most messages you read are written by fans of
> "top-posting", which is becoming the norm nowadays for the
> regular crowds. However, Balsa is a mail client for Linux/Unix
> desktops and bottom-posting is the norm in this world. Well, I
> really hope you got this far, because here we naturally use
> bottom-posting and the bottom is here :)

...and here I am!  I'm actually finding three keys useful for  
"one-key browsing": space-bar, ctrl+N, and...Delete.  In the last  
case, scrolling the message is rarely needed!

Best,

Peter