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