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"Mark as Unflagged" does not immediately remove message from smart mailbox list

#859

I use flags to indicate messages that need action. I have a smart mailbox with the condition "Tags/Keywords" "include" "Flagged" that shows me all such e-mail. When I unflag a message (action complete!) it doesn't disappear from the message list; I have to navigate away from the mailbox and back to it in order for it to disappear.

This surfaced for me because I replaced a message-moving workflow (an "Action" mailbox that I moved messages out of when complete) to a flag-based workflow (messages filed in project folders, and flagged if action is needed; unflag when complete).

Steps

  1. Create a new smart mailbox, "Flagged"
  2. Add a condition to the smart mailbox, "Tags/Keywords" "include" "Flagged"
  3. In "Mailboxes", choose a top-level Source in the drop-down
  4. Flag an e-mail in a mailbox in the Source you selected
  5. View the smart mailbox, "Flagged"

  6. Unflag the message in the smart mailbox listing

    The unflagged message remains in the mailbox

  7. Navigate away from the smart mailbox

  8. Return to the smart mailbox

    The unflagged message is now gone from the smart mailbox

Expected behavior

I would expect the message to disappear (as if I had moved it) and the current message selection in the list would advance. I should be able to Undo the action if I made a mistake. Undo would re-flag the message and I'd see it reappear in my smart mailbox.

Wild guess

This behavior is also present for "Seen" in "Tags/Keywords". I'm guessing that it was jarring for users with an "Unread" smart mailbox to see the messages disappear out from under them as soon as they clicked on them to read them in a viewing pane. :)

However, I would argue that "Flagged" (and tags!) should behave differently, since they are intentional acts and not part of passive browsing.

Reported by Matt Gray · July 28th, 2014 @ 08:29 PM

State: fixreleased
Milestone: none
Assigned to: benny benny

Activity

  1. benny
    benny
    • State changed from new to accepted

    Your wild guess is correct, but I don't think all users would expect explicit actions to behave differently. In fact, I just tried creating a smart mailbox for flagged messages in Apple Mail and it behaves like MailMate.

    But that just changes this ticket from “bug” to “request” I guess.

    I've added a quick boolean preference value to disable what I call sticky messages:

    defaults write com.freron.MailMate MmStickyMessagesEnabled -bool NO

    This should not affect the behavior of auto-read messages by the way.

    I haven't tested it. Let me know how it works for you when the next update has been released.

    Other users finding this ticket having the same problem are welcome to add a comment. (At some point I need to decide if this should be a GUI option.)

    August 1st, 2014 @ 10:32 AM

  2. Steve Mayer
    Steve Mayer

    From my very simple testing, the boolean preference works fine. When in my 'Flagged' smart mailbox, I unflag a message, it now is removed from the smart mailbox immediately.

    August 1st, 2014 @ 06:25 PM

  3. benny
    benny
    • State changed from accepted to fixcommitted

    August 2nd, 2014 @ 10:56 AM

  4. Matt Gray
    Matt Gray

    Thanks, Benny! I've been testing this and it works great, except... my cursor position within a mailbox is lost when I perform an action (like "unflag") on the message I'm currently viewing.

    This behaves different from Move and means I can't easily keep my hands on the keyboard to process messages that may be mid-way deep into a list.

    Any chance the cursor behavior can mimic "Move..."?

    August 6th, 2014 @ 07:19 PM

  5. benny
    benny
    • State changed from fixcommitted to accepted

    @Matt: This is unfortunately non-trivial to fix, but it is related to some similar issues with moving messages. If I improve that then it is likely that this can also be improved. Don't expect it soon though.

    August 7th, 2014 @ 11:43 AM

  6. Matt Gray
    Matt Gray

    @benny: No worries. Let me know if you’d like me to log this issue in another ticket so you can close this one out. (However, I would recommend addressing the cursor issue before creating a GUI option for the MmStickyMessagesEnabled setting.) Thanks again!

    August 7th, 2014 @ 02:31 PM

  7. benny
    benny
    • State changed from accepted to fixcommitted

    @Gray: Old issue, but I believe a recent fix to a related issue also improved the general behavior when MailMate finds an email to select. Hold down ⌥ when clicking “Check Now” in the Software Update preferences pane to try it out.

    September 20th, 2018 @ 11:55 AM

  8. benny
    benny
    • State changed from fixcommitted to fixreleased

    November 3rd, 2018 @ 01:45 PM

  9. Matt Gray
    Matt Gray

    @benny: I finally got around to re-testing and this works great! Thank you very much!

    December 30th, 2018 @ 01:44 AM

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