[ale] OT (slightly): How do you read the ale mailing list?

[William Bagwell]

On Wednesday 11 May 2011, David Ritchie wrote:
> I have been reading the long thread on OT postings, and am curious.
> How many people read the ALE using mail
> software that combines threads, and how many do not? 

KMail, and it threads pretty well.

> If you are 
> reading with a threaded reader (such as gmail),
> if you don't care about a thread, you just discard it. 

Or mark it read so that it collapsed and no longer 'in my face' so to 
speak. Wish KMail could be set to the same 'threads with unread' I use 
with my usenet reader. Then they would be totally out of site unless I 
find them with a search. BTW I archive every thing except spam, each list 
is filtered to its own folder and busy ones such as ALE have an archive 
folder for each year nested under the main. Search has a check box to 
include (or exclude) sub folders. Quite handy!

> Other readers 
> (such as the default views on Outlook) force you
> to touch each mail individually. Is this a possible cause of some of
> the pain people are having reading the volume of
> messages?

If your stuck on a Windows box and are allowed to install stuff, try Forte 
Agent. Not free, think it is about $30 but it threads like a dream. Has 
tons of features I wish KMail had (reverse is also true) and runs well 
under Wine or CrossOver on Linux. Plus it will run from a USB key.

Have used both KMail and Agent daily for the past 8 years and have no 
plans to abandon either. 

William