listarchive is an extension that first and foremost aims to provide sane access to mailing list archives as if they were a simple folder in Thunderbird (and probably Seamonkey as well). From a certain user request, it is likely I will touch on other aspects of mailing lists as well in this extension, e.g., the desired "Reply to List" feature. In addition, however, I will also be using my experience with developing this extension to write a guide to developing extensions involving more complex operations in Thunderbird.
The extension, however, is still very much in the design phases. I would very much welcome any feedback to be sent to Pidgeot18+listarchive@gmail.com (with the "+listarchive" component, it helps me triage replies). Specific pieces of information I am looking for at this point:
- Mailing list archive URIs; I ask in advance to not send any more mailman URIs (unless it happens to be in a different language than English), as I have several already. I am most interested in accumulating a diverse supply of mailing list implementations and international versions to best determine what impact internationalization plays on list archives.
- Ways in which you think a mailing list archive should tie into regular email. For example, I believe it should translate a mailing list URI reference (e.g., http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2008-May/014646.html) into a link to open the message up as a TB email message.
- Any questions or suggestions for UI (this comes more into play once I have some prototypes working).
- Any other question you may have (related to listarchive). I'm quite willing to answer them.
Thanks in advance for any comments you send me. I'm also hoping that this will work out well (no reason it shouldn't).
3 comments:
Wow, just came across this on planetmozilla and this is a great idea! I look forward to seeing this as a useful extension. I regularly read some mailing list archives, but the interface is a bit clunky and I don't want to subscribe to those lists so that I get all their email in my inbox.
One word: genius!
Also, the various Ruby mailing lists have Japanese as well as english and appear to be hosted on some idiosyncratic Ruby based archive:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/
I missed your previous post, but reading it now you're dead-on. I used to be a big Thunderbird user and lover, but now I use Gmail as my main client...but if you can make a desktop client solve the problems you've outlined (like this brilliant listarchive idea), Thunderbird becomes relevant to me again.
I'm excited!
Post a Comment