Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
It's a feature many people prefer. More who prefer it than don't in my experience.
I've never encountered this. I know lots of people who use it, but only out of confusion. You aren't the only person that I've had say that they prefer it, but it is few and far between. Most people think that it is just some kind of screw up like the focused mailbox or clutter and it keeps coming back so they give up in despair.
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
but we know that the two are selected together so how do you define one or the other?
Just as how a thread can be selected as a whole, or just a post in a thread can be selected.
You can delete the thread as a whole, or, you can delete emails in a thread individually at any time. They are not always selected together. Only if you do it that way.
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
but we know that the two are selected together so how do you define one or the other?
Just as how a thread can be selected as a whole, or just a post in a thread can be selected.
You can delete the thread as a whole, or, you can delete emails in a thread individually at any time. They are not always selected together. Only if you do it that way.
Show that to me in Gmail please. I have no clue how you can select just one email.
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
but we know that the two are selected together so how do you define one or the other?
Just as how a thread can be selected as a whole, or just a post in a thread can be selected.
You can delete the thread as a whole, or, you can delete emails in a thread individually at any time. They are not always selected together. Only if you do it that way.
Show that to me in Gmail please. I have no clue how you can select just one email.
This particular "thread" or "conversation", whatever you want to call it (MS calls it a Thread), has 4 emails in it.
I have selected the third one, and can choose to delete just that one.
At the top, the trash can symbol, I can delete the entire "thread" or "conversation", for from the list of emails I can select the thread as a whole and delete it there. In Outlook, in the list view, I can select the thread or "expand" it and select indivicual emails. Here, outlook is a bit better. But below is the Gmail as you asked.
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@Obsolesce okay, but when you select a message to read and you just hit the trash can, what does it do?
So you CAN dig into an individual email to clean it up, but that's clearly a lot of work. You have to expand them, track which one it is in a terrible interface, then go to a hamburger menu.
But the main trash can icon, the one intended to use, what does it refer to, the email you selected, the one you are reading currently, or something else?
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Don't know what to tell you. What's next, the font? Inverted vertical mouse movement?
I work how I work and it works better for me this way versus non-conversation view.
If it works better for you without, then by all means, continue without.
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Don't know what to tell you. What's next, the font? Inverted vertical mouse movement?
I think "intuitive interface that does what is clear" is a pretty basic thing. You are making fun of "can't tell how it will behave". And I'm not sure if you even know. Who can answer reliably either what it DOES do or what is SHOULD do? I don't know the answer to either!
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
I work how I work and it works better for me this way versus non-conversation view.
Except you don't know what it will delete unless you do a lot of work. It sounds like you are making it intentionally hard to prove a point. Without CV, everything "just works" and is fast, simple, straightforward, and I still see the context in an email. In fact, less repetition. CV is clearly adding a lot of work for you, too. Why put up with that risk and effort?
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
You are making fun of "can't tell how it will behave".
Not at all, period. There is no question about it for me. I still am unable to understand how you're still confused about it.
I know exactly what is selected and what gets deleted when it's selected, and where I click to do what. Exactly. No question. It's very intuitive, no question, crystal clear how it will behave.
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
I work how I work and it works better for me this way versus non-conversation view.
Except you don't know what it will delete unless you do a lot of work. It sounds like you are making it intentionally hard to prove a point. Without CV, everything "just works" and is fast, simple, straightforward, and I still see the context in an email. In fact, less repetition. CV is clearly adding a lot of work for you, too. Why put up with that risk and effort?
That's the thing, I do know exactly what it will delete with zero work. I learned it years ago in like 10 seconds when it was first implemented. It does "just work" how it is, very straight forward, and no question about anything. You're doing all of this on purpose to try to prove some wieird point just because you prefer something else. it's just not the case. There is zero extra work involved. I click into the email to read it, regardless of the view. From there I i delete the email or the conversation.
Most of my emails are not part of conversations, though. Still many are, but most are not.
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Not at all, period. There is no question about it for me. I still am unable to understand how you're still confused about it.
Because I asked a simple question about how you know you knew what was being deleted and you couldn't answer. I'm confused as to how that is possible, yet you find this usable. How do those two things overlap?
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
I know exactly what is selected and what gets deleted when it's selected, and where I click to do what. Exactly. No question. It's very intuitive, no question, crystal clear how it will behave.
If that is true, what's the answer to the question of what it SHOULD do and what it DOES do?
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
That's the thing, I do know exactly what it will delete with zero work.
They why can't you tell me? I asked how you could do it and you had to avoid the standard tools and do something complex and cumbersome to make it seem possible, if not usable. What does the intended deletion button actually do?
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Not at all, period. There is no question about it for me. I still am unable to understand how you're still confused about it.
Because I asked a simple question about how you know you knew what was being deleted and you couldn't answer. I'm confused as to how that is possible, yet you find this usable. How do those two things overlap?
Huh? I explained in in the post with my screenshot.
Trashcan at the top deletes the thread, hamburger menu deletes the selected email.
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What it SHOULD do is delete only the email that I clicked on in the first place.
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Huh? I explained in in the post with my screenshot.
No, that was a workaround. What does the trashcan icon do.
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@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Trashcan at the top deletes the thread, hamburger menu deletes the selected email.
Which is explicitly the wrong behaviour. It should delete what was selected (the email) not the thread that it brought along with it. So that was my point all along.
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Huh? I explained in in the post with my screenshot.
No, that was a workaround. What does the trashcan icon do.
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So what I select, an email, is not what gets actioned upon. And as someone else pointed out, this interface is not consistent between vendors. Again, that's part of the point. It's unique and unclear to each vendor. There is no agreement as to what the interface should even try to do. The only thing that can be determined is that it is not clear. Clarity is impossible in this case, as there is no agreed upon implied action. But the most obvious action, deleting what was selected, is not what it does. That you had to learn that, rather than having an intuitive interface that can tell you, is what makes the system confusing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
@Obsolesce said in Does Anyone Actually Use Conversation View Intentionally for Email:
Trashcan at the top deletes the thread, hamburger menu deletes the selected email.
Which is explicitly the wrong behaviour. It should delete what was selected (the email) not the thread that it brought along with it. So that was my point all along.
No it shouldn't.
It should be exactly how it is. The top is the conversation as a whole. If i want to delete a specific email within a conversation, i'll select that individual email, just as I would in non-conversation view.
