On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:32:30 -0400, Jose wrote:

On Monday the first of Augtober, I read the first message in the thread.
By Tuesday, the rest of the messages have come in. On Wednesday, I sign on
again. I want to see a list of THREADS, alphabetized by SUBJECT LINE. (I
don't want to see a list of all messages, just all threads, and the number
of messages in each thread)

So, how should these messages be sorted?

If your reader is like mine, it lists threads (as opposed to messages) by
"collapsing" the listing. So you'll see the "top" message for each tree
of replies.

These top messages will be sorted by subject.

No message that is a reply to any other [unread] message will be visible
in this listing because it is collapsed. If you "open" a thread, those
replies will become visible (and nested or somehow flagged as being
internal to the given thread's tree).

Hmm. You may see the replies to the first [read] message separately. The
reader knows that they're connected, but it doesn't have any way to
graphically display this (because read messages are invisible). That is,
there's no way to display the fact that two replies to the same [read]
message are in the same thread because there's no visible construct under
which both messages can be placed.

Is that the problem you're describing?

If so, all you need is a reader that actually displays thread tops
rather than the top message in the thread.

My reader (pan) doesn't do this. I'd never noticed this before. But if
I want to force a thread to maintain its tree structure over time, I do
need to change the filtering to display read messages too.

Trying this, I don't particularly like it even though I still have
"next unread" (and now I know why that exists {8^) and it clearly
indicates which are read, unread, and new. It just uses too much "space"
in the expanded view. But this is how one would need to see an entire
thread.

I think displaying a separate artifact on the list for "thread top" would
work too, though.

- Andrew