Emacs: how to remove "unread" tag while reading emails

[Mark Walters]

Hello

I agree that the unread tag does not work well. There are some instances
which I would class as plain bugs (notmuch-show-next-message which is
bound to N marks the new message read even if it is collapsed) and
other instances where it is not clear what the correct behaviour should
be.

I have messed around a bit and there seem to be a lot of possible
variants and I don't know whether any would have any consensus.

One clear divide is whether we should only mark "visited messages" (ie
ones reached using space, n,N,p,P etc in the current bindings) or we
should also make messages seen by scrolling past (eg with page down).

Anyway here is a list of some possibilities. In all cases I assume we do
not mark any collapsed message read.

1) Mark a message read when we visit it.
2) Mark a message read when we visit it and the leave it with a "visit
move" (eg n for next message)

3) Mark a message read if we see the start of the message in the buffer. 
4) Mark a message read if we have seen the start and end of the message
in the buffer.
5) Mark a message read if we see the end of the message after seeing the
start (rationale moving to the top of the buffer is likely "movement"
rather than "reading")

6) Something based on how we leave the message: eg page down could mark
all messages which were fully visible read, n (next-open message) could
mark the message being left read. 
7) Similar to 6) but something where read necessarily includes have seen
the start of the message.

I think all of these are reasonably easy to implement, and I think I
know which I would like (something like 5 or 7) but it would be
interesting to know if there is any general view or any view on how
customisable this should be.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Best wishes

Mark



On Wed, 18 Sep 2013, Gregor Zattler <telegraph at gmx.net> wrote:
> Dear notmuchers,
>
> I had difficulties to reliably remove the "unread" tag from
> messages.  Mostly I page through threads with the space bar and
> all is well.  But when the beginning of the thread is already
> collapsed and I "jump" in the middle of a message pressing space
> bar does not remove the unread tag.  It's only removed when
> *entering* the message via space bar from the previous message.
> So the last press on space bar in the previous message jumps to
> the next message and at the same time removes its unread tag.
>
> This seems strange to me.  I would say the unread tag should be
> removed when leaving the message with the last press on space
> bar, indicating that one really paged trough the whole message
> instead of only seeing the very beginning of it.
>
> What’s the rationale to this behaviour?  Am I missing something?  
>
> Thanks for your attention, gregor
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