New folders screen released

[robmueller]

After a significant period of beta testing and refinement, I decided the new folders screen was ready for a general release, so I've now rolled it out to all production servers.

I'm about to post to the blog and link to this forum thread to gather any comments/issues.

Rob

[ewal]

Fantastic Rob.

I have now set all my non-system folders to hidden unless unread messages and it makes for a dramatic difference in my main screen - uncluttered and simplified. The combination with the unhide/hide toggle is a very powerful feature.

The ability to edit many folders in one go makes life really easy.

Roll on Neil's new screen layouts!

Ed

[Berenburger]

Originally Posted by robmueller

I'm about to post to the blog and link to this forum thread to gather any comments/issues.

For overall consistency: there's no Done button in the Edit Folder Properties screen. When you do for example a rename of a folder in this screen you are stayed here. To leave you must select Cancel (or Logout), for the average user a little bit confusing.

[camner]

I very much like the new folder screen.

When I looked at for the first time, there was a message in a green bar something to the effect of that "there were folders deleted based on settings on the IMAP server." That wasn't it precisely, and I can't get it to appear again. I found that vaguely worrisome....why are folders I've created being altered without my having the opportunity to say "wait a minute, I WANT it this way," or at least "here's a list of folders I've dealt with for you?" I have nearly 50 folders, and I haven't edited that list in a while, and I can't be confident I have good recall of all of them I've set up over the years (admittedly some of them ought to be pruned).

[rabarberski]

Very nice the new folder screen has been released. Good work!

Originally Posted by Berenburger

For overall consistency: there's no Done button in the Edit Folder Properties screen.

I noticed this too today (but hadn't in the beta), and it confused me for a couple of seconds as well. Consistency is important, so adding the Done button as implemented on other screens would indeed be a good thing.

[fmfan]

Originally Posted by Berenburger

For overall consistency: there's no Done button in the Edit Folder Properties screen. When you do for example a rename of a folder in this screen you are stayed here. To leave you must select Cancel (or Logout), for the average user a little bit confusing.

1. Re quoted above: So now, for consistency, instead of clicking on 'Done' (no longer on screen) one clicks on *either* 'Cancel' OR 'Logout' ?
In any case, clicking on, trying, both of these, 'Cancel', 'Logout', didn't delete a folder I am trying to delete.

2. So: In above screen I wasn't able to find how to delete a folder: 'This screen lets you create/rename/delete folders.'
I did: Folder --> Edit --> Empty Link --> Empty - permanently delete
that did not delete the folder. That is probably to empty the folder not delete the folder?
'Purge/Archive' didn't allow me to delete the folder.
Most probably 'right there' someplace: How to delete a folder.

3. Why was it made more difficult, additional step required, to change the number of 'Msgs/Screen' ?

Thanks for the info.

--- Bill

[Merovingian]

Very nice, I like it! I think it is very intuitive, with minimal transitional learning from the old interface. I especially like the optional "empty" link you can add to a folder if you wish! One question: if you chose to "empty" a folder, will you get a prompt to confirm, or will it just automatically empty it?

[ewal]

You will get a dialogue as follows:

Are you sure you want to permanently delete all messages in your <name> folder?

OK/Cancel

Ed

[akorvemaker]

Originally Posted by fmfan

2. So: In above screen I wasn't able to find how to delete a folder: 'This screen lets you create/rename/delete folders.'
...
Most probably 'right there' someplace: How to delete a folder.

Select the check box beside the folder, then click the Delete button on the top right of the "Edit existing folders" section (just above the list of folders).

[drchadwick]

Nice. The interface is a bit intimidating maybe (I can see novice users being kind of freaked out by it), but the functionality is great. The hiding folders thing is especially well done, particularly the option to hide unless there are unread messages. I wish Gmail had that for its tags.

The one thing, however, that is missing is the abiltity to float flagged messages to the top by default. I know that's been requested before and given the extremely inconspicuous flags you have (a tiny letter F) this just makes sense. Otherwise they just get buried.

As for the edit screen itself, what's the logic in defaulting to view 20 folder? Why not list all of user's folders (or at least the first 100) by default and save us from having to click "100" or whatever every single time to see them?

[Merovingian]

thanks, ewal. I need that extra confirmation. I know how I work- sometimes I delete before I'm really ready to!

[akorvemaker]

Here's a little unfortunate bug. I clicked the "Trash" label next to a folder set to Has Empty: Trash - move to Trash". The screen that appeared said:

www.fastmail.fm - An error has occurred

Unfortunately an unrecoverable error occurred while trying to retrieve the requested page. We have logged this error and will try and fix the problem as soon as possible.

If you are really curious to know, the error was :

Signal call failed: MailApp::Mailbox::EmptyTrash(5177089,trash), Can't use string ("1:*") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /home/mod_perl/hm/ME/Mailbox.pm line 1061.

For the moment please click the 'Back' button on your browser and try again. If that doesn't work, please go to http://www.fastmail.fm and login again. Also check our status blog at http://status.fastmail.fm for server status updates

The messages were deleted, but the error page wasn't what I was expecting.

I do still love the new features.

Update: Though the messages are gone (and appear in the trash folder), the message count in the title bar and next to the folder both say "12" (the number of messages I deleted), even after clicking refresh several times and logging out and back in.

Update again: After about 30 minutes, the "12" is finally gone.

[fmfan]

Originally Posted by akorvemaker

Select the check box beside the folder, then click the Delete button on the top right of the "Edit existing folders" section (just above the list of folders).

Ohhh --- *way* over there to the right above the 'Custom Folder Properties'.

Monitor screen too large I guess (totally blank space below that button).
The 'Edit', 'Move' buttons then drop-down, pop-up caught my focus as a 'busier' area of the screen on this monitor.

That's so easy! Much thanks!

--- Bill

[IntlOrange]

Bravo, FastMail!

You are my favorite (and only) email provider because you are always rolling out great features like this one.

One question about spam learning: This will work for me, even if I primarily use IMAP right? I have set my "Junk Mail" folder to be "learned as spam". I assume this means that I can use my regular IMAP client (such as Mac OS X Mail) to drop incoming emails into Junk Mail, and then at some point in the next 24 hours, those messages will be studied by FastMail's spam engine.

It sounds like an excellent "set it and forget it" feature, but correct me if I'm wrong.

[robmueller]

Originally Posted by camner

I very much like the new folder screen.

When I looked at for the first time, there was a message in a green bar something to the effect of that "there were folders deleted based on settings on the IMAP server." That wasn't it precisely, and I can't get it to appear again. I found that vaguely worrisome....why are folders I've created being altered without my having the opportunity to say "wait a minute, I WANT it this way," or at least "here's a list of folders I've dealt with for you?" I have nearly 50 folders, and I haven't edited that list in a while, and I can't be confident I have good recall of all of them I've set up over the years (admittedly some of them ought to be pruned).

The point is that the web interface keeps a list of folders separately to what's on the IMAP server. When you go to the Folder screen, it compares it's list to what's on the IMAP server, and adds/deletes folders from it's list based on what's on the IMAP server. That' perfectly reasonable, since if the folder isn't on the server, then there's no definitely no messages, so we should remove it.

Rob