[MlMt] Modal two pane layout?

[Baron Fujimoto]

On Wed, 4 Apr 2012, Benny Kjær Nielsen wrote:

: On 4 Apr 2012, at 5:11, Baron Fujimoto wrote:
: 
:> I'm evaluating MailMate as replacement for the venerable Alpine and Mutt
:> MUAs I've been using.  I apologize for what will probably be a slate of
:> basic or clueless questions as I try to map the workflows I'm familiar with
:> from those MUAs to MailMate.
: 
: Thanks for considering MailMate as a replacement. Questions are always 
: welcome.
: 
:> One preference that has become ingrained is their modality of these older
:> MUAs.  I like being able to navigate a mailbox message in a primary screen
:> or pane, then selecting a message and having its contents displayed in place
:> of the index.  Most GUI mail apps seem to use the three pane model for
:> mailboxes/folders, index, and message.  The closest I've come with MailMate
:> to approximating the modal style is to "Hide Message View".  I can sort of
:> further kludge it by sizing and positioning a selected message's window over
:> the index, but that's far from optimal.  For example, the index navigation
:> keys don't seem to be active while the message display window has the focus.
: 
: The mailbox window and the message window are completely separate and do 
: not share any state. I guess it could be possible to somehow link two 
: windows, e.g., making the mailbox window part of the responder chain of 
: the message window, but it would not be standard Mac OS X behavior and 
: it would also raise some questions with regard to GUI feedback and how 
: to behave when multiple mailbox and message windows are in play. I could 
: probably see how this could work, but since it all starts with a kludge 
: (overlapping windows) then it does not really look like a promising 
: solution for you.
: 
:> Is there a way to configure what I'm after here?  Alternately, would this
:> be a feature request candidate?  Or is this just too different from the way
:> MailMate works as to be infeasible and I just need to adapt to the new way
:> things work?
: 
: You cannot configure it as it is now. I've used Pine many years ago, 
: which means I think I know what you are looking for. You want “Open 
: Message” to hide the mailbox list and message list and then only show 
: the currently selected message in the window, but all keyboard shortcuts 
: should still work as if the message list was present. Pine also hides 
: the mailbox list when going into a mailbox, but I guess that is not the 
: important/relevant part.
: 
: If implemented this would require the GUI to include an indication of 
: the current mailbox (and/or search) and some way to exit the message 
: viewing mode. I cannot promise you such a feature any time soon, but it 
: is a feasible feature which I'll keep in mind.

Yes, I think you understand what I mean.  (Al)pine/mutt have a sets of
commands that are context specific (folder/mailbox, index, message).  You
can switch between contexts with keystrokes, and some actions are
available in more than one context. I guess I'm very comfortable and
efficient making these context switches, and I like my primary current
main pane optimized for either mailbox index or message.  If you remember
pine this is probably familiar to you.  Having a sidebar pane with a list
folders/mailboxes is useful and unobtrusive.

I understand that these aren't features that would be available in the
near future, but I very much appreciate that they would be considered.