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Re: Rolling in sidebar, other mutt-ng type bits?

It's a shame the sidebar patch is so problematic. What do mutt users
who don't use the sidebar patch do instead? The aim is to have a list
of folders, which I know mutt can do, and for each folder say how many
emails are in it and how many of those are unread, or at least say
which folders contain new mail. It's to solve the problem where you
are subscribed to a large number of email lists, for example, and
filter mail from each list into its own folder, then you don't want to
have to open each folder just to see if there's anything new in it.
What's the best solution in mutt?

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 11:51 PM, Kyle Wheeler <kyle-mutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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> On Thursday, October 23 at 02:23 PM, quoth Robin Lee Powell:
>> I gather there's now another sidebar patch.
>
> Oh? Are you sure you aren't getting confused by the transfer of
> maintainer from Thomer M. Gil to Terry P. Chan?
>
>> Is there some reason it, and anything else useful from mutt-ng,
>> hasn't been rolled into mutt proper?
>
> Much of what was mutt-ng *has* been rolled into mutt proper. The
> sidebar patch is the only significant thing I'm aware of that hasn't.
> The question about that particular sidebar patch is one that comes up
> every now and then, and has been answered several times. Rocco Rutte
> (one of the primary mutt bug squishers, and one of the three founders
> of mutt-ng) reviewed the patch in detail. He said the following
> (http://marc.info/?l=mutt-dev&m=112133798519807&w=2):
>
>     For example, the sidebar patch available for mutt looks to work at
>     first sight but there're many things just heavily broken or things
>     you really don't want to stay in the code (like using snprintf()
>     and strlen() to "calculate" the amount of digits of a number.).
>
>     Really to integrate a patch by means of merging its functionality
>     with the existing to get a better code base is just much more
>     difficult than it sounds especially when you keep in mind that it
>     also takes time to get an idea of what the source is supposed to
>     do [and] how.
>
> Essentially: the sidebar patch is large (1789 lines), complex, and
> appears to be poorly written. Those are all characteristics of code
> you want to stay as far away from as possible. My understanding is
> that that patch touches pieces of mutt's source that should have
> nothing to do with displaying a "sidebar", such as the mbox parsing
> code. Because of this, it produces unfortunate side-effects. You have
> only to look into the mutt archives a few weeks back to find people
> complaining that the patch causes mutt to hang in some circumstances.
>
> And yet, the developer of the sidebar patch does not appear to provide
> support to those who use it (at least, not on the mutt users mailing
> list), and does not seem interested in cleaning it up, explaining it,
> or doing anything else that would be necessary or useful to getting it
> integrated with mainline mutt.
>
>> The sidebar in particular sure seems like a really, really nice
>> feature.
>
> Are you willing to reimplement it? Cleanly? Or explain the innards of
> the current sidebar patch to the primary mutt developers?
>
>> Does current mutt have header caching?
>
> Yes, and has for almost four years.
>
> Mutt also has message caching (and has for almost two years), which
> mutt-ng does not have.
>
> Mutt enjoys ongoing development. Mutt-ng provided a good catalyst for
> more development in mutt, but essentially atrophied as mutt
> development was renewed---mutt-ng hasn't been modified since April
> 2006. Mutt-ng has, for all intents and purposes, been subsumed by the
> original mutt. The sidebar patch, as it stands, was rejected.
>
> ~Kyle
> - --
> The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.
>                   -- Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774
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