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Re: [PATCH] compose to sender



On 2008-03-03, Thomas Roessler <roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 2008-03-02 15:04:27 +0000, N.J. Mann wrote:
> 
> >> I have created a patch that starts a new message to the sender
> >> of the currently selected message.  In addition, I think I
> >> updated The Manual correctly.
> 
> > Great idea.
> 
> >> Suggestions/Thoughts/Criticism are welcome.
> 
> > I didn't compile without warnings for me, so I fixed that and
> > also made a few white space changes to match the usual Mutt
> > style.
> 
> So, the main differences from the usual reply function are:
> 
> - no default subject header (oh well)
> - no handling of reply headers (probably a bug)
> - no headers that indicate that the message is a reply
> 
> I don't think that this should be yet another function -- rather,
> I'd suggest to add a quadoption to reply that controls the various
> reply headers.

First off, that would be contrary to the way mutt handles reply 
variations now.  Mutt currently has separate functions for

   reply
   group-reply
   list-reply

Secondly, I don't think of this as a variation on reply.  When I use 
the function, I want to send a new message to a particular person 
whose address I don't have memorized, don't have an alias for and 
which I'm too lazy to look up or copy, but from whom I have recently 
received some other correspondence.

As you point out above, this new function creates a message having 
none of the attributes of a reply.  In addition to your list, the 
message body does not contain a copy, quoted or not, of the original 
message.  This function seems to me much closer to a variation on 
composing or address-selection.

A quadoption to make <reply> behave like <compose-sender> would have 
to control at least four attributes of the message:  To:, Subject:, 
In-Reply-To:, body.  That seems like an odd assortment to group
under a single quadoption, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to
answer a lot of questions just to distinguish the two ways of 
creating a message.

Making this function a variation on <reply> would also make it 
trigger reply-hooks, which is probably undesirable.

Regards,
Gary