From a5a8ba5977c05963072be35dba3d96d18d6a3463 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: wmorgan Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 17:33:18 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] general updates git-svn-id: svn://rubyforge.org/var/svn/sup/trunk@96 5c8cc53c-5e98-4d25-b20a-d8db53a31250 --- doc/FAQ.txt | 35 ++++++++++++++------------- doc/Philosophy.txt | 59 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------------- doc/TODO | 7 ++++++ 3 files changed, 58 insertions(+), 43 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/FAQ.txt b/doc/FAQ.txt index 3912a2a..874e32b 100644 --- a/doc/FAQ.txt +++ b/doc/FAQ.txt @@ -1,28 +1,23 @@ Sup FAQ ------- Q: What does Sup stand for? -A: "What's up?". -Q: How is Sup even possible? -A: Sup is only possible through the hard work of Dave Balmain, the - author of ferret. +A: It stands for "what's up?", which is more or less the question I'm + asking when I read my mail. + +Q: If you love GMail so much, why not just use it? - I started using Ferret when it was still slightly buggy, and it - seemed like every week Dave released a bugfix or a speed - improvement that directly affected sup. Ferret has become a - first-class piece of software, and it's due to the tremendous - amount of time and effort he's put in to it. +A: I hate using a mouse, and I hate ads, and I hate non-programmability + and non-extensibility. Q: Why the console? -A: As the millions (ok, hundreds) of mutt users will tell you, there are - many advantages to the console: - - You don't need web browser. - - Instantaneous interaction. - - A few keystrokes can accomplish the work of a hundred mouse - clicks. +A: There are many advantages to the console. As any Unix user knows, a + few keystrokes can accomplish the work of a hundred mouse clicks. + Also, you don't need web browser, and you get instantaneous response + and a simple interface. -Q: If you love GMail so much, why not just use it? -A: I hate using a mouse, and I hate ads, and I hate non-programmability. + That said, a good Ajax programmer could probably replicate GMail + pretty easily using Sup as the backend. Q: How does Sup deal with spam? A: You can manually mark messages as spam, which prevents them from @@ -38,3 +33,9 @@ A: That was Sup's original name. (Think pine, elm. Although I am a Maybe one day I'll do a huge search-and-replace on the code, but it doesn't seem that important at this point. +Q: How is Sup possible? +A: Sup is only possible through the hard work of Dave Balmain, the + author of ferret, which is the search engine behind Sup. Ferret is + really a first-class piece of software, and it's due to the + tremendous amount of time and effort he's put in to it. + diff --git a/doc/Philosophy.txt b/doc/Philosophy.txt index 83067f6..78b559d 100644 --- a/doc/Philosophy.txt +++ b/doc/Philosophy.txt @@ -11,31 +11,36 @@ it. Keeping up with the all the new traffic is painful, even with Mutt's excellent threading features, simply because there's so much of it---a single thread can span several pages, and God help you if you lag behind. And Mutt is probably the best email client out there in -terms of threading and mailing list support. - -The principle problem with traditional clients is that they place a -high mental cost on the user for each incoming email, by forcing them -to ask: - - Should I keep this email, or delete it? - - If I keep it, where should I file it? - -For example, I've spent the last 10 years of my life laboriously -hand-filing every email message I received and feeling a mild sense of -panic every time an email was both "from Mom" and "about school". The -massive amounts of email that many people receive, and the cheap cost -of storage, have made these questions both more costly and less useful -to answer. - -As a long-time Mutt user, when I watched people use GMail, I saw them -use email differently from how I had ever used it. I saw that making -certain operations quantitatively easier (namely, search) resulted in -a qualitative difference in usage. And I saw that thread-centrism had -many advantages over message-centrism, especially when volume was high. +terms of threading and mailing list support. God help me if I try and +throw Thunderbird at that. + +The principle problem with traditional clients is that they deal with +individual pieces of email, and place a high mental cost on the user +for each incoming email, by forcing them to ask: Should I keep this +email, or delete it? If I keep it, where should I file it? + +I've spent the last 10 years of my life laboriously hand-filing every +email message I received and feeling a mild sense of panic every time +an email was both "from Mom" and "about school". The massive amounts +of email that many people receive, and the cheap cost of storage, have +made these questions both more costly and less useful to answer. + +As a long-time Mutt user, when I first watched people use GMail, I saw +them use email differently from how I had ever used it. I saw that +making certain operations quantitatively easier (namely, search) +resulted in a qualitative difference in usage: you don't have to worry +about filing correctly, because you can always find things later by +search. And I saw that thread-centrism had many advantages over +message-centrism when message volume was high. So, in many ways, I believe GMail has taken the right approach to handle both of the factors above, and much of the inspiration for Sup -was based on GMail. Ultimately, GMail wasn't right for me, which is -why the idea for Sup was born. +was based on GMail. I think it's to the GMail designers' credit that +they started with a somewhat ad-hoc idea (hey, we're really good at +search engines, so can we build an email client on top of one?) and +managed to build something that was actually better than everything +else out there. But ultimately, GMail wasn't right for me (see FAQ), +which is why the idea for Sup was born. Sup is based on the following principles, which I more or less stole directly from GMail: @@ -44,15 +49,17 @@ directly from GMail: entire email archive eliminates most of the need for folders, and eliminates the necessity of having to ever delete email. -- Labels eliminate the remaining need for folders. +- Labels eliminate what little need for folders that search doesn't + eliminate. - A thread-centric approach to the UI is much more in line with how - people operate than dealing with individual messages is. A message - and its content deserve the same treatment in the vast majority - of cases. + people operate than dealing with individual messages is. In the vast + majority of cases, a message and its context should be subject to + the same treatment. Sup is also based on many ideas from mutt and Emacs and vi, having to do with the fantastic productivity of a console- and keyboard-based application, the usefulness of multiple buffers, the necessity of handling multiple email accounts, etc. +Give it a go and let me know what you think. diff --git a/doc/TODO b/doc/TODO index da6cd0d..3c3fa28 100644 --- a/doc/TODO +++ b/doc/TODO @@ -1,3 +1,6 @@ +use Net::SMTP +'R' to quick-resume most recent draft +support different smtp servers per user account search for other messages from author in thread-view-mode forward attachments tab completion on labels, contacts @@ -12,7 +15,11 @@ annotations on messages gmail pop move sup-import argument handling to getopt or something +move sup-import username/password prompts to highline +mark individual messages as spam in thread-view-mode +support for message-content modules such as ruby-talk:XXXXX detection +x mbox+ssh x handle broken sources better x imap x word wrap -- 2.45.2