GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 787612
Option to 'Go to the previous message after message deletion'
Last modified: 2018-07-27 08:08:56 UTC
Some email clients like Aquamail on Android support an option for After deleting message: [ ] Go to previous message [x] Go to next message Actually Evolution could have a selection here for all available functions in Message->GoTo. I prefer to have [x] Go to previous message for the following work flow: Sorting is based on Date and decreasing (latest message on top). Now starting a day to read unread messages I usually start with the oldest unread to keep the order of arrival when working through. I tend to keep real mails while deleting generic notifications with no real information. Deleting should skip to the previous unread, if it was up to me.
Thanks for a bug report. It might ideally decide based on the sorting itself, like if the first sort column is ascending, then delete moves to the next message, if descending, then delete moves to the previous message. Though even there one can find counter examples where the option as you suggest would makes things more explicit. I do not think having there next/prev unread/important/thread would be good. I rarely delete unread messages (except of spam). Looking into Edit->Preferences->Mail Preferences, there is not much free space there, thus I'll add just [ ] Move to the previous message after message deletion to the "Delete Mail" section and having that unchecked means moving to the next message instead.
When seeing it in action I rather slightly reworded the option in the UI. Created commit 209351ace5 in evo master (3.27.1+)
*** Bug 790162 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I mentioned in bug #790162 that possibly an ideal solution, without any extra option, would be to move to the previous or next message based on the user sort. That is, in case the sort is with newest at the top, then move to the previous message and when it's newest at the bottom, then go to the next message. It was only and idea. The added option makes it explicit, which can be considered better.
I also realized that marking junk/not-junk could have this used as well, thus I made it so with: Created commit d0f9a44e28 in evo master (3.27.3+)
I myself prefer having the latest message on top, but still going to the "later" message after deleting. In that means the current subject "Option to 'Go to the previous message after message deletion'" is wrong and "previous" should be replaced by "later" as "previous" is based on the current sorting. I prefer that way because I like to process and answer the mails in the sorting as arrived, starting with the earliest unread mail. However with your change that would mean I need to use the sorting with date ascending, having the latest mail on botton. But this is not be usable as I would always need to scroll hundreds mails down to get to the latest. Going to a new folder without a mail selected, the view is scrolled to top per default as usual. I know if a mail was selected the last time, that mail is still selected after returning to that folder. But I'm not sure if working on the bottom of the mail view by using your sorting would be a good idea.
That 'previous' here means "previous as viewed in the message list", not anything with the time of arrival. But okay, I'm fine with the explicit option. It was just an idea.