sorting by threads
[3rd attempt to post this to the list. sorry if any dups come up]
It seems, unless I am mistaken, that mutt is uncapable of sorting
top-level threads and subthreads by different criteria (with the
exception of the last- prefix).
For example, here's what I tried to achieve - and couldn't: on entering
a mailing list folder, I want the messages sorted by threads, with the
most recent thread at the top, but inside each thread I want the
messages run chronologically from olderst to newest. This way I can read
large threads in their right order, and if there are many older messages
in the thread I have already read, I can skip to the newer ones by
pressing <tab>.
mutt won't do it, however; if threads are ordered reverse-date-received,
so are sibling messages inside each thread, which means that the topmost
reply to the message that started the thread will be the *newest* reply.
If I define sort_aux = date-received, the sibling messages will be in
the right order, but the threads itself will be ordered chronologically
as well, which is inconvenient, especially so when I'm skimming through
a folder with many unread messages, but want to start from the newest
discussions first.
Has anyone encountered the same difficulty?
It seems to me (although I'm not sure others will agree) that sorting
the threads (or top-level messages that start threads), and sorting the
order of replies inside each thread, ought to be separate options that
a user might legitimately want to specify differently. What if, for
example, "set sort=threads" were extracted into a separate new variable,
say "set thread=yes" vs. "set thread=no"? Then "set sort" could have
the uniform meaning "the sort criterion applied to the messages in the
index view" - and "set sort_aux" would specify the criterion used to
sort the subthreads, the siblings inside each thread.
Any thoughts on usefulness of such or similar measures?
--
avva
"There's nothing simply good, nor ill alone" -- John Donne