Dave Sherohman wrote:
> OK, one more time: Delete by default does not have to mean delete
> *immediately* by default. Look at the underlined text above. I already
> explicitly stated that I didn't mean immediate deletion and that delete-
> on-folder-change or delete-on-exit are probably better,
Uh, not in my mind. Maybe it stems from my years in the ISP business but
generally users only want things deleted when they say they want it deleted.
That doesn't mean "When they press the delete key" or even "After pressing the
delete key and changing folders" or "after pressing the delete key and exiting
the program." After they say, in its most conservative setting, is after they
have configured the client to delete the way they want.
And before you or anyone else jumps up with more of your preferences and
ignorance about the reality of computers let me remind you of one simple fact.
Windows and OSX, by default, require the user to "empty the trash". Yes,
they can be set to automatically cull what's kept there. And the default is
set insanely high. It is set so precisely because until the end user twiddles
the knob they want to keep as much as possible because the expected behavior
is that the user has to tell the computer to "delete it, really, and this time
I mean it!"
This is no different.
You have been told, repeatedly, where the knob is. Go twiddle it on your own!
> And besides... If messages marked for deletion are cleaned out by
> default every time you exit your mail client, that mbox file won't get
> to be 500MB nearly as quickly (if ever).
Exactly. 'lo and behold, look at these numbers...
{grey@dmiyu:~/mail} ls -lhS
-rw------- 1 grey shared 25M 2007-02-15 01:45 Trash
-rw------- 1 grey shared 21M 2007-02-09 22:53 archive
-rw------- 1 grey mail 20M 2007-02-14 17:05 /var/mail/grey
-rw------- 1 grey shared 12M 2007-02-13 20:45 jediprax
-rw------- 1 grey shared 7.1M 2007-02-12 17:54 outbox
-rw------- 1 grey shared 5.7M 2006-01-04 03:13 2004-outbox
-rw------- 1 grey shared 5.7M 2006-01-04 03:15 2005-outbox
-rw------- 1 grey shared 2.6M 2007-02-14 18:57 exim-users
-rw------- 1 grey shared 2.0M 2006-01-11 17:34 2003-outbox
-rw------- 1 grey shared 1.7M 2007-02-15 01:51 ubuntu-user
-rw------- 1 grey shared 1.1M 2007-02-15 01:45 debian-user
-rw------- 1 grey shared 533K 2007-02-06 04:55 b5jms
-rw------- 1 grey shared 371K 2007-02-14 14:05 enigmail
-rw-r--r-- 1 grey shared 35K 2007-02-14 10:56 ham
-rw-r--r-- 1 grey shared 6.8K 2007-02-14 10:55 spam
-rw------- 1 grey shared 672 2006-01-11 17:36 Drafts
-rw------- 1 grey shared 617 2007-02-14 03:15 sa-unsure
There's all my active mail. Top of the list, Trash, configured in
Thunderbird to purge anything older than 2 weeks. Took me less time than your
first post to find and configure. Point is *I* configured it.
Here's a bit of advice for you on software, a bit I give everyone about
it. Your first step on any new piece of software, esp. applications and games
(if you play them) is to see what you can configure and where. Until you do
that you have no clue what the piece of software can do nor can you possibly
have it tweaked to your liking. Because what *you* like isn't what anyone
else is probable to like. So it is incumbent on you, especially in the Linux
world, to look for the knob and give it a good yank first before complaining
about the defaults. We already know the defaults aren't to much of anyone's
liking. They are often designed to do as little damage as possible. You have
the power, use it.
--
Steve C. Lamb | But who decides what they dream?
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | And dream I do...
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