Reversed threading (following date sort order descending) [upstream bug 305741]

[woobenjamin]

Hi All,

I've been trying all sort of things, as well as various extensions. If you take a look at the following:

You can see that the latest email in the thread is on the bottom of the thread. I still want everything sorted by the date descending, but for threads, I'd like to see the latest email at the top (this is similar to Outlook I believe), this way, I prioritize the latest in the thread and can probably collapse the thread to be able to fit more emails in the pane.

Is this something that be done in Betterbird? Or is this part of an extension? Or is this not a capability that is available at this time?

If it is not available, could I ask that this be an enhancement for the future please?

Many thanks.

b

[Betterbird]

With threaded display, the last received messages gets inserted into the thread tree at the appropriate location, an many cases at the end, or somewhere in the middle. That's a disadvantage of the threaded view. But how else could it be done in a hierarchical tree? Can you send a mock-up as a suggestion?

[woobenjamin]

So here is a very rough mock up. You'll see that the latest message (just for each thread) is at the top, not the bottom. This means that is should show up first when you're looking at the unread messages. Hopes this helps

[Betterbird]

Sorry, we can't make sense of your mock-up. We've prepared this drawing:

The numbers are the order received or date. On the top left you have the original view. On the right hand side you can see a few options: At the top, the replies are indented to the left but the reverse-date order is applied. The second from the top is mirrored, both boxes and lines. On the bottom image only the boxes are mirrored. You can see that it doesn't work well with the connection lines.

[woobenjamin]

The upside down ones is what I'm looking at. The idea is that the most recent message in the thread is on top. Currently, if the thread is collapsed, (at least in the Unified View), I can't actually see that there is a new message. Doing it this way, new messages relating to the thread will appear on top. It also follows logically because when you reply to each message, the quoted message follows

I hope this makes it clearer. Thanks.

[Betterbird]

We've understood your idea. It's annoying to look for new messages at the end of a long thread.

But the graphical reversal (let alone the implementation) isn't straight forward. So did you look at the three proposals on the right? (Looks like the collapse arrow should go to the top.) Looking at your mock-up again, maybe you meant the top right solution.

[woobenjamin]

That's a great solution, and consistent with the current implementation. Thanks for considering my suggestion.

[Betterbird]

This won't happen right now, we're preparing for version 115 to be released in the summer. But we keep the request on file.

[woobenjamin]

Oh please, no rush. I just thought this would be something others and I would find useful as well. Thanks for considering this request.

[Bluejanis]

"You can see that the latest email in the thread is on the bottom of the thread. I still want everything sorted by the date descending, but for threads, I'd like to see the latest email at the top"

I think the real issue is that, the sort setting is not applied to threads.

If the sort setting would be applied for threads as well, your issue should disappear too. Since the latest E-Mail would be on top.

[JoelAzaria]

I think the real issue is that, the sort setting is not applied to threads.

If the sort setting would be applied for threads as well, your issue should disappear too. Since the latest E-Mail would be on top.

So much this! If the threads just followed the sort properly (date, subject, unread, etc) I think the problem should solve itself.

Also I want to point out an issue w/ the proposals above. Not sure if it's a typo or smth but I think it matters.

Note the order of the original messages at the 2nd level (first level indent):
2 3 5

Now look at the flipped orders (top to bottom)

3 2 5

Why would that be the reversed order? I would have expected these to sort as:

5 3 2

If that's just a typo then I apologize for being pedantic.
If it's not a typo then I think it's a good thing I'm pedantic lol.

Thanks.

[Betterbird]

Like this, right?

The reversed threading is on the to-do list. Let's see how the activities around the new version 128 turn out.