Bug 458283

INTRO :)

    Hi dear KMail developers !

    I've been using KMail for ages (circa ~KDE2) and apart from the (long, very long) installment
    of Akonadi (and its long list of failures -- at least on kubuntu), I've been quite pleased with it.

   But I think e-mail clients shall evolve in order to make e-mail reading more pleasant, easy.
   There are at least 3 points that, IMHO, should be handled:
    - helping user with automatic mails filtering so that the mailbox doesn't get too much stuffed
       with useless mails
    - e-mail display / rendering
    - messages listing... That is the point of my wish today :)

    When reading mails, looking for them in the mailbox, or in the trash (as I put read mails directly
    into the trash to be auto-destructed when time passes) I find it hard to pinpoint a message I want.
    searching is not quite easy since I don't always remember exact words that were in the mail but
    mainly the idea behind it. I can remember the author but... There are often too much mails from
    the author. The date is also important but here too I can only say "it was about 2 weeks ago"... And
    it happens I'm often wrong there too :) Maybe it's due to my age ;) ?

    I'm a developer. I've been a developer for 4 decades now (yes I'm getting quite old). As such I
    use the most powerful tool that exists for a developer (and, still IMHO, for everyone!) : git.


DESCRIPTION

    The idea I had was : what if mail threads were presented as a git graph log, just like in GitLab. An
    other way of presenting them could be like what's done in wireshark when following a TCP
    conversation.
    In both cases, a thin vertical bar with dots linking the messages of a same discussion.  Another
    option would be to highlight messages with a mini-map (like in Kate/KWrite) for indicators of
    messages out of the current view.

    Sent mail could also be displayed here, just like it was in newsgroups where you could see your
    own messages among those of the discussion.

    Actually, to have that last "feature" in kmail, I put all my mails in the trash (received -- when treated --
    and sent) and then display the messages by discussion. But it has 2 drawbacks:
    01. it doesn't relfect the time that has passed between messages as other messages are pushed out
         of the conversation (that is normal -- and desired -- in this presentation mode)
    10. I have to put all the messages of a discussion in a single folder.
 
   Of course there are mails not part of a discussion but I don't see them as a problem. They would be
   alone.

    I've tried several combinations of messages list display with "Sort" and "Grouping" using date/time
    and threads. But none can render what I envision...


Thanks for reading that :) I hope that it could be implemented...