(*** This bug was imported into bugs.kde.org ***) Package: kmail Version: 2.0 Severity: wishlist Installed from: Mandrake It would be nice to be able to get rid of the preview pane completely like Netscape or Eudora. I know I can move it down but clicking on a message still changes it to "read" and that is what I want to prevent. I only want the message to change to "read" when I explicitly open it. (submitted via bugs.kde.org)
I second the request to be able to turn off message preview/hide the preview pane. I do not want to preview I do not want messages marked as read simply because they happened to be the default one hilighted at a given time. I want to select the message _and_open_it_ for it to be open - two operations! Some clients open with a single click making it impossible to select messages to be moved!
I simply cannot stand the preview pane. If there was one thing that kept me from using KMail for so long is the preview pane. Take a look at either TheBat! <http://www.ritlabs.com/> or PMMail <http://www.pmmail2000.com/> for two excellent examples of clients which support reading messages through a viewing window. -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest I'm your shrink I'm your ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. To email: Don't despair! | -- Lenny Nero Strange Days -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
I also dislike the preview pane and wish there was some way of effectively disabling it (which would then force me to double-click on a message to open it in a separate window to read it). Also please don't follow Evolution's example and make this a folder-specific option...the preview pane needs to either be ON in all folders or OFF in all folders not on in some and off in others. On a corollary note please add a toolbar to the read message window (i.e. the one that pops up when you double-click a message) so that you can delete/reply to/forward a message from within the read window. Also please add buttons to this toolbar for moving to the nex/previous message or new message (that's four buttons two for all messages two for just new ones). Thank you very much...I like KMail a lot and I use it exclusively for email but the preview pane and the brain-dead read message window do get annoying. -- Josh ----------------------------------------- Joshua J. Berry California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo CA (805) 756-8899 "I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere." -- /usr/games/fortune
*** Bug 12254 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Never mind the fact that the preview pane is an irritation. The main problem is that it's a HUGE security risk! There are some very damaging viruses that operate by running as soon as they are previewed. PLEASE allow previewing to be disabled or convince me (not likely) that Linux is somehow immune to viruses that operate this way!
In KMail from kde 3.1 you can deactivate the behaviour that messages are marked as read. Is that enough?
Subject: Re: kmail layout: preview pane I don't think that has anything to do with it. Maybe you can persuade me otherwise. I don't care how the messages are MARKED. My goal is to prevent messages from being opened automatically, so that viruses which execute as soon as the mail is opened don't have a chance to run. As a specific example, I have an e-mail right now that I think is a virus. I am afraid to select it -- for purposes of deleting it -- because the act of selecting the e-mail causes it to be OPENED in the preview pane, at which point the cat is out of the bag! I want to know how to keep KMail from opening any mail, EVER, until I command it to. If there is no such provision, who do I talk to about adding that feature? This is an outstanding program -- far better than Outlook, and I don't mean Express -- except for this HUGE glaring security problem which will force me to find another mail program if it can't be fixed. On Monday 13 January 2003 01:33 am, you wrote: ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are a voter for the bug, or are watching someone who is. http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16345 ------- Additional Comments From burghardt@kde.org 2003-01-13 08:33 ------- In KMail from kde 3.1 you can deactivate the behaviour that messages are marked as read. Is that enough?
Regarding security Mr. Baker, I think you misunderstand the security issue of preview panes. There is not an inherent insecurity in preview panes. That was a Microsoft *innovation*: by Outlook allowing Explorer to render preview panes complete with Javascript and Active X support it became possible to exploit those technologies. So, it is not a matter of whether Linux is immune, it's a matter of what the mail program *does* in its preview pane. Note: in effect every mail program *must* open every mail it gets just to read the header (though in the case of imap this is usually happening on the server), so vulnerabilities which could arise from just 'looking' at the contents of the e-mail would happen before you even see the message list. To clarify: an e-mail program must specifically hand the contents of the mail to another program which allows the content to perform some kind of action before it becomes the kind of security problem Outlook has been plagued with. KMail, even in its most 'insecure' setting, only uses khtml to render previews. Javascript support is simply not present, so there is not even the possibility of executing javascript in your preview if you want it, and it goes without saying that Active X controls won't work. Additionally you can disable the ability to load external references (e.g. images), which is more of a privacy concern than a security concern, since those references could only be non-active content anyway; and finally you can turn off HTML rendering altogether, leaving you with just plain text in your preview pane; admittedly it's always possible that a buffer overflow could be found/exploited, but as I already pointed out that could be exploited without a preview also, and for that matter, without the mail client. Just to be clear, none of my arguments are against this feature request, I just want to point out that it's a *usability* request, not really a security issue.
Subject: Re: kmail layout: preview pane Thanks, Chris. In the words of the judge's father on "Night Court", I feel much better now! Security was my only real concern. On Tuesday 14 January 2003 03:47 am, you wrote: ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are a voter for the bug, or are watching someone who is. http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16345 kdelists@kuhi.net changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |kdelists@kuhi.net ------- Additional Comments From kdelists@kuhi.net 2003-01-14 10:47 ------- Regarding security Mr. Baker, I think you misunderstand the security issue of preview panes. There is not an inherent insecurity in preview panes. That was a Microsoft *innovation*: by Outlook allowing Explorer to render preview panes complete with Javascript and Active X support it became possible to exploit those technologies. So, it is not a matter of whether Linux is immune, it's a matter of what the mail program *does* in its preview pane. Note: in effect every mail program *must* open every mail it gets just to read the header (though in the case of imap this is usually happening on the server), so vulnerabilities which could arise from just 'looking' at the contents of the e-mail would happen before you even see the message list. To clarify: an e-mail program must specifically hand the contents of the mail to another program which allows the content to perform some kind of action before it becomes the kind of security problem Outlook has been plagued with. KMail, even in its most 'insecure' setting, only uses khtml to render previews. Javascript support is simply not present, so there is not even the possibility of executing javascript in your preview if you want it, and it goes without saying that Active X controls won't work. Additionally you can disable the ability to load external references (e.g. images), which is more of a privacy concern than a security concern, since those references could only be non-active content anyway; and finally you can turn off HTML rendering altogether, leaving you with just plain text in your preview pane; admittedly it's always possible that a buffer overflow could be found/exploited, but as I already pointed out that could be exploited without a preview also, and for that matter, without the mail client. Just to be clear, none of my arguments are against this feature request, I just want to point out that it's a *usability* request, not really a security issue.
I would like to come back to the real bug, which is not a security problem but a *usability* one. This 'onMouseOver' behaviour is really bothering, and it exists also in the 'Save As..' fileselector with the same annoying effect : as soon as the mouse pass over a filename you loose the real one. -- Jean-Marc Frigerio INRA - Genetique et Amelioration 69, route d'Arcachon F-33612 Cestas Cedex France Phone : +33 (0)5 57 12 28 29 Fax : +33 (0)5 57 12 28 81 Frigerio@pierroton.inra.fr http://www.pierroton.inra.fr
The preview pane really should be configurable, not just marking the message as read. While it's useful for some things like mailing lists, there are areas where I want to view only the message list. This "feature" makes kmail unusable for me.
This issue has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with usability and performance. On long distance, mid-to-high latency links, it would be really nice to be able to disable the preview pane. Why? How does one delete a huge message, with a huge attachment, without downloading and opening the entire message, wasting who knows how much time?? With the preview pane, one cannot. Simply selecting the message inthe header list downloads the message to open it in the preview pane. If one could disable the preview pane, one could delete this message without ever having to open it. There are several other times when it would be nice to not have messages open simply by selecting them. It's a real pain to try and select multiple messages for deletiong, only to have to wait after every mouse click for the message to be downloaded, opened, and shown in the preview pane. Besides, isn't the point of software to be to work the way *I* want it to, not the way the developers think I should use it?? The latter is the Microsoft way, where configurability is removed because "the user doesn't need that." Please add the ability to disable, remove, destroy, eliminate the preview pane. Not everyone works the same way.
This is still an issue with the latest released version of KMail (1.5.1).
Tied to the optional removal of the preview pane (I just don't like it aesthetically), it would be very nice to get a single key (configurable key would be best) that opens and closes a message viewing window. See bug #59927 (<a href="http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=59927">link</a>). Behaviour similar to that of Sylpheed is what I'm looking for here.
*** Bug 62834 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Subject: kdepim/kmail CVS commit by tilladam: Allow the user to place the message preview pane either below the messages list as before or to the right of it or hide it completely. When the reader window is disabled, messages that are selected are not downloaded (for imap) and are not marked as read. CCMAIL: 63647-done@bugs.kde.org CCMAIL: 16345-done@bugs.kde.org CCMAIL: 43176-done@bugs.kde.org M +18 -0 configuredialog.cpp 1.386 M +1 -0 configuredialog_p.h 1.70 M +1 -0 kmfolderimap.cpp 1.128 M +13 -8 kmheaders.cpp 1.550 M +1 -0 kmheaders.h 1.132 M +429 -201 kmmainwidget.cpp 1.82 M +42 -15 kmmainwidget.h 1.27 M +98 -7 kmreadermainwin.cpp 1.17 M +13 -0 kmreadermainwin.h 1.7 M +5 -229 kmreaderwin.cpp 1.697 M +3 -46 kmreaderwin.h 1.178