[Design] How basic can we stand for email?

[Philippe Bossut]

Katie Capps Parlante wrote:
> Philippe had some good insights into what it would require for him to 
> use it, perhaps he'll chime in when he's back from vacation. ;)
Since I'm back from vacation, I feel compelled to answer that one :)

Here's a short list of basic requirements that I feel would motivate me 
enough to use Chandler's email more and possibly switch to it 
(somewhat... I guess I'll continue to use a full featured IMAP client 
but since I hate switching apps, having those will help me stay in 
Chandler longer). Clearly, this is a personal perspective as a *user* so 
take it as a dogfooder feedback, not as an Apps team member wish list.

Need: Even in the situation where we support only one IMAP folder (as we 
do today), this is what I need to really use Chandler as a basic email 
editing tool:
P1- Large, wide, full screen editing/viewing panel: this is a question 
of comfort but an important one. When typing this message for instance, 
I'm opening a full screen new email in Thunderbird and I really need 
that amount of white space to concentrate. Typing in the tiny note field 
we have today is unpleasant. This is also an issue I have with Yahoo 
mail for instance (terrible editing experience...).
P1- Clear Reply/Reply All/Forward features: of course...
P2- Clear Read/Unread/etc... status: I think we have a good proposal 
here in the Dashboard...
P2- Spiffy address auto complete: this is well done in Thunderbird IMO. 
I don't want to troubleshoot addresses when sending (I'm sometimes in a 
hurry to send before rushing to get my train...)
P3- Fast keyboard navigation: in the email list (summary table view) so 
that I can browse email fast (it's slow right now)
P3- Sorting by column (date, who, subject): we have that today (with 
bugs though), can replace thread view somewhat

Nice to have: of all the "other email features", this is my short list:
- Filtering or tagging with rules: something to sort automatically the 
incoming flow is important. I'm ready to let go with a folder hierarchy 
if I have another way to sift through emails rapidly.
- Browsing performance: fast switching between collections
- Support for attachments
- Display HTML emails

Not needed: I never use those...
- Spell checking: it never works for more than 1 language at a time...
- HTML editing
- Even RTF or other text formating tools

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
- Philippe