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sorting, the folder list, and the file browser



One of the things that has long frustrated me about Mutt is the
behavior of the "file browser" and how it gets sorted.  I used quotes
because it is not just a file browser, it is also a folder list
browser.  While it is true that mail folders are implemented as files,
there is a fundamental difference between these two concepts that
matters in mutt, at least some of the time...

Files are just files, and when we're browsing them, we most likely
want them sorted alphabetically (or to be more technically correct,
sorted according to our locale's collation order).  This makes the
files much easier to find in the browser.  By contrast, the list of
folders (as defined by mailboxes commands in your .muttrc) represents
the list of folders in which you want to read mail.  When mutt
detects mail in these folders, or when changing mail folders, Mutt
cycles through them in the same order as defined by $sort_browser.
But actually, due to the nature of Mutt's interface, it is much more
convenient if these folders are sorted in the order defined by the
user, so that the user can thusly specify the priority of the mail
folders, being prompted to change to more important folders first
before less important folders.  Essentially, the change in behavior
that I want is for these two to be treated separately, so that both of
these can be achieved.  

Am I the only one thinking this is the best possible behavior?

An alternative solution would be to set $sort_browser=alpha, and name
all my folders starting with a numerical priority.  It would work, but
it's utterly gross.

So there are two questions that need to be asked:

1. How many people would favor this kind of change?

2. What would be the best way to implement it?

As for #2, I'd be perfectly happy if we got rid of $sort_browser and
just made Mutt always behave this way.  To be honest, I can't really
imagine why anyone would desire any other behavior, and I'm surprised
that this isn't a more common topic on mutt-users and mutt-dev.  

But I s'pose that goes against the principle of Mutt being the most
powerful and most configurable mail client around...  So the only
suggestion I can come up with is to introduce yet another variable,
$sort_folderlist, which works like $sort_browser, except only with
regard to Mutt displaying or sorting the list of mailboxes as defined
with mailboxes in the user's muttrc file.

I have to wonder though...  Is there anyone who DOES NOT want their
file browser (i.e. for searching for attachments, etc.) sorted
alphabetically?  Also, is there anyone who wouldn't prefer to have
their mail folders presented to them in order of priority, as listed
in their muttrc?  I won't argue what possible utility other settings
might have... but I really am curious if people find other settings
useful.  My suspicion is that the only reason the $sort_browser
variable needs to exist at all is because these two different
functions are treated as the same, and the early users of mutt needed
a way to tell Mutt which of these behaviors was least annoying for
them...

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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