notmuch.el: controlling what does and doesn't get expanded in searches

[Jani Nikula]

On Thu, 04 Aug 2016, Matt Armstrong <marmstrong at google.com> wrote:
> This question pertains to notmuch built from recent git HEAD, using
> notmuch.el in show mode (i.e. not tree mode).
>
> I sometimes read a thread with a bunch of messages and notmuch.el
> collapses a bunch of them (even if unread and the search matches tags
> in every message).  I can't figure out the heuristic notmuch is
> applying here.

The idea is that all the messages matching the query are expanded, the
others collapsed. Each expanded message must fully match the query. The
unread or inbox tags are not special in this regard.

I am not saying this is ideal, but this is how it's supposed to
work. (Indeed I'd personally like to define e.g. saved search specific
tags or queries to use for deciding which messages to expand.)

> In particular, pressing SPC does not seem to navigate to the collapsed
> messages (again, even if they are unread).

SPC and n and p are supposed to navigate expanded messages only. N and P
navigate all messages (but do not expand by default). Again, the tags
the messages have do not matter. You can manually expand/collapse
messages, and that'll affect the navigation.

> Worst case: only the first messages is initially expanded and all
> subsequent are collapsed.  I press SPC and the cursor goes to the end of
> search results.  SPC again all the entire thread is archived.
>
> This behavior has caused me to accidentally skip messages.  First step
> for me is understanding what is going on so I can fix it.

Yes, let's first check that notmuch behaves as it is expected, and then
figure out how to improve it.

BR,
Jani.