ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) (10/04/89)
Dave Taylor brought up some good questions prompted by my request for an expanded role for the 't'ag operation. Perhaps I may be permitted to look at them here: >The reason that Elm doesn't currently support tagged/mass replying, forwarding, >etc, is that it isn't at all obvious how one would want that to work. In other >words, if I have, say, three email messages in my mailbox that I'd like to >forward to you, Dave, there are a number of possible things that could happen >if I "tag" them all, then press "meta-forward" [or whatever] to send them all >to you. Among the possibilities; each is sent as a separate message to you, >they are all bundled into a single message and sent to you, or they are added >to a 'meta' message that contains further information about the group, and >are then sent to you. True; but this is true of any feature you may decide to add to a program. I'd suggest that, if others might see this type of feature expansion as desirable, then some discussion concerning the pros and cons of each of the behaviors you outlined would be in order. (I, personally, would opt to send each as a separate message; this would preserve header and subject information, and minimize code changes. Simply enough, behave as if I'd said to forward or bounce to you for each message...as I have to do now, with a number of keystrokes and, more importantly, screen refreshes. >The complexity isn't so much with forwarding, really, as it is with something >like 'reply'. What does it mean, for example, to tag two messages from two >different people, then choose "reply"? Should you be allowed to compose a >single message that would go to both of them? Should they know of each other? >Or should you be creating a 'template' message that would then be automatically >sent to each of them, separately? Well, you're again asking a design question. All of those could be answers-- what would seem the most useful to the most people would be the behavior that should be implemented. (I would think that a "reply" to multiple people would mean a single message to all recipients--this is one I've wanted for a long time, rather than having to construct a message and then run down everybody who needs a response. I would *not* think, however, that they would need to know about each other; that's the purpose of CC. Again, think of just doing it one-by-one, but let the tag perform the repetition.) >What if you want to mass reply to a stack of messages, but also want to include >a separate note to one or two of the people? The 'template' approach might be >the best in that case, but if you *don't* want to personalize any, and/or you >don't care that each learn about the other, it is the wrong solution. I think, by definition, that if you want to customize a message, it then isn't really one of the group you should tag! >One of the big issues to me was also privacy; if I send personal email to >someone about, say, a posting they made on the net, just 'cause I'm part of >a group, doesn't mean that I want OTHER people to read my note to the person. >If they have a mass-reply '+ include text of message' feature, then it's >quite easy to do that. Plus the whole privacy/security issue of knowing who >else sent mail to the person on a specific subject. Huh? You're saying that giving a powerful feature to people may allow them to make powerful mistakes. I think, however, that we've already seen answers to that dilemma; look at the USENET "lotsa machines, lotsa bucks, do you mean this" warning for replies and postnews, a kind of "this means that everybody sees this--do you mean it?" warning if that makes you nervous. Also, I note that another potentially dangerous action--mailbox editing--has been made a conditional in the current version of ELM; a similar approach could be made to tags, if it's an issue. And finally, why would anyone know who else sent mail to the person? As I envision it, 'tag' is simply a replacement for manually running through the message composition and sending dialogue N times. I wouldn't want or expect a special indication that this was a part of a mass mailing. >It really seemed to be a can of worms at the time I added the 'tag' >capabilities, which is why tagging only affects local operations, including >printing, saving to files, &c. I think a lot of the problems go away if you think of tagging as a macro to repeat the same operation for a lot of messages, rather than a new type of action in and of its own right. > I would be interested in hearing more thoughts on this subject. You've got it here. I appreciate your response on this, and really do think that it's a very useful feature that can be greatly enhanced with a little design and relatively little coding effort. -- Dave Ihnat Analysts International Corporation ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address) ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (10/05/89)
In article <9737@chinet.chi.il.us> ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) writes: >(I would think that a "reply" to multiple people would >mean a single message to all recipients--this is one I've wanted for a long >time, rather than having to construct a message and then run down everybody >who needs a response. I would *not* think, however, that they would need to >know about each other; that's the purpose of CC. Again, think of just doing >it one-by-one, but let the tag perform the repetition.) How about adding additional choices at the e)dit, s)end, f)orget (etc.) prompt if there are tagged messages? One choice could add CC: lines for everyone else in the tagged list, one could send seperate messages to each without the CC:'s showing, depending on the nature of the correspondence and whether you want the recipients to be able to do a group reply. By making it a separate command, you would be unlikely to use it accidentally, and you might have the option to view the list before making the choice. Also, perhaps a temporary alias could be defined for the tagged addresses so you could just m)ail to it and get the expansion or give it a name to save permanently. Les Mikesell
rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) (10/30/89)
In article <9737@chinet.chi.il.us> ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) writes:
+Dave Taylor brought up some good questions prompted by my request for an
+expanded role for the 't'ag operation. Perhaps I may be permitted to look
+at them here:
+
+>The complexity isn't so much with forwarding, really, as it is with something
+>like 'reply'. What does it mean, for example, to tag two messages from two
+>different people, then choose "reply"? Should you be allowed to compose a
+>single message that would go to both of them? Should they know of each other?
+>Or should you be creating a 'template' message that would then be automatically
+>sent to each of them, separately?
+
+Well, you're again asking a design question. All of those could be answers--
+what would seem the most useful to the most people would be the behavior that
+should be implemented.
That's not a design issue, it's a requirements issue, i.e. you're dealing
with the functionality from a user perspective.
I think it's rather topsy-turvy to say, "Let's have a new command
(tagging with replying) and then figure out what functionality we want
to attach to it." Normally one asks for certain functionality (a/k/a
requirements) and then designs it in.
So let's begin again with this tagging issue: What functionality do we
wish to add to ELM?
--
Rob Bernardo ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob -or- rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
Product engineer, UNIX/C Reusable Code Library Editor, "Go `C' UNIX"
Office: (415) 823-2417 Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, California
Residence: (415) 827-4301 R BAR JB, Concord, Californiaitkin@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Steven M. List) (10/31/89)
rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo) writes: >That's not a design issue, it's a requirements issue, i.e. you're dealing >with the functionality from a user perspective. >I think it's rather topsy-turvy to say, "Let's have a new command >(tagging with replying) and then figure out what functionality we want >to attach to it." Normally one asks for certain functionality (a/k/a >requirements) and then designs it in. >So let's begin again with this tagging issue: What functionality do we >wish to add to ELM? I agree with Rob's perspective. I, personally, would like to have the following functionality: tag reply: tag a group of messages, include the text of ALL of them in the reply, optionally send the reply to all addressees/senders tag forward: the same (auto-digest?) I'm sure I (and others) will think of more. This would be MY first choice. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ : Steven List @ Transact Software, Inc. :^>~ : : Chairman, Unify User Group of Northern California : : {apple,coherent,limbo,mips,pyramid,ubvax}!itkin@guinan.Transact.COM :