How do I get TB to automatically scroll to the bottom of the Inbox...............

[Bill Stanton]

How do I get TB to automatically scroll to the bottom of the Inbox when
new emails arrive. As it is, I first notice there are new arrivals,
then I have to grab the mouse and scroll to the bottom.

Thanks,
Bill

[Thomas Boehm]

You could press N or T for the next unread message or thread. Or just
sort your emails the other way around (newest emails on top) by clicking
once on the header of the date coloumn.

HTH
Thomas

[Bill Stanton]

Odd that TB doesn't offer the same flexibility that most other clients
do............hard to teach old dogs new tricks.
Bill

[Bill Stanton]

On 11/12/2011 5:42 PM, Thomas Boehm wrote:

A programmer worth his salt would have thought to support both ascending
and descending displays and adjusted to new arrivals accordingly.

[Christian Riechers]

On 11/13/2011 07:53 AM, Bill Stanton wrote:
> On 11/12/2011 5:42 PM, Thomas Boehm wrote:
>> Bill Stanton wrote:
>>> How do I get TB to automatically scroll to the bottom of the Inbox when
>>> new emails arrive. As it is, I first notice there are new arrivals,
>>> then I have to grab the mouse and scroll to the bottom.
>>
>> You could press N or T for the next unread message or thread. Or just
>> sort your emails the other way around (newest emails on top) by clicking
>> once on the header of the date coloumn.
>>

> A programmer worth his salt would have thought to support both ascending
> and descending displays and adjusted to new arrivals accordingly.

What prevents you from sorting messages with the newest on top?
TB supports both, sorting by date, ascending and descending.
Hint: View - Sort by

--
Christian

[Chris Ilias]

It scrolls to the bottom here.
More details:
I sent myself many test messages to my IMAP account, until the message
list pane was full. Before clicking Send on the next one, I selected
this newsgroup. I then clicked Send and my inbox was updated with the
new message. I selected the Inbox, and the part of the message list that
was displayed was the bottom part, where the new messages are.

Are your details different from the ones above?

--
Chris Ilias <http://ilias.ca>
Mailing list/Newsgroup moderator

[Bruce.]

Same here. Very irritating.

Bruce.

[Bill Stanton]

Yes. I typically have more messages in my Inbox than fits in the
provided pane. As you would expect, new arrivals are added to the
bottom of the collection when the Inbox is sorted in descending order.
However, the Inbox display DOES NOT automatically scroll to reveal the
new arrivals. Rather, I have to manually scroll down to see the new
arrivals.

Bill

[Chris Ilias]

Which details are different from what I described above? Is you Inbox
already selected when the new message arrives? Are you using a POP
account? Do you manually check for new messages, or do you have it set
to automatically check and download new messages?

[WLS]

Why not click on the Date column, and sort by Date, with the new
messages at the top?

--
Earlybird - openSUSE 11.3 Linux - 1.8GHz CPU - 2GB RAM
Get openSUSE: http://software.opensuse.org/114/en
Firefox Support: http://support.mozilla.com
Profile Manager: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Profile_Manager

[Bruce.]

On 11/14/2011 3:29 PM, Chris Ilias wrote:
> Which details are different from what I described above? Is you Inbox
> already selected when the new message arrives? Are you using a POP
> account? Do you manually check for new messages, or do you have it set
> to automatically check and download new messages?

In my case, yes, the Inbox is selected and displayed in the top window.
Mine is POP account. TB is configured to auto download messages and
the top pain never auto-scrolls when new emails are downloaded.

The new email(s) are not visible in the top pane until the window is
manually scrolled down to see it.

Bruce.

[Bill Stanton]

Same for me.
Bill

[John H Meyers]

How long does it take to hit the "End" key?

However, that's not where the smartest
and most convenient email program I have ever used
scrolls to by default (unless the user chooses another option),
which is to the "first unread message of the last unread block"
(think about it).

--

[Bruce.]

On 11/15/2011 4:46 AM, John H Meyers wrote:
> How long does it take to hit the "End" key?

I haven't timed it but I think I can say for sure that it would take
longer than auto-scroll, if that worked.

Bruce.

[Chris Ilias]

> Same for me.

Okay, I can reproduce that behaviour here. Yeah, that's a Thunderbird
bug. I had a look at bugzilla, and there's already a bug report filed
for it.

There's no way that I know of to force what you want right now. As
others in this thread have pointed out, there are workarounds.

[Bruce.]

On 11/15/2011 3:43 PM, Chris Ilias wrote:
> Okay, I can reproduce that behaviour here. Yeah, that's a Thunderbird
> bug. I had a look at bugzilla, and there's already a bug report filed
> for it.

For those of you evaluating Thunderbird as your primary email program,
you should know that bug report is now 11 years old.

Bruce.

[John H Meyers]

The OP was using a mouse to scroll;
the "End" key goes instantaneously to the end,
thus offering a huge improvement to the OP, if he so desires.

For every person who wants something,
someone else can be found who would be upset
by not leaving the focus where it is
(see what I describe below for why that matters to me)
so it's pretty hard to find any one thing to satisfy everyone.

Why don't I add my own related peeve:

In my favorite email program, if I scroll through viewing
successive messages, the "selection" in my mailbox list
moves along accordingly to the next message,
so that whenever I close my message viewing window,
I know exactly where I am in my mailbox.

In TB, the selection stays exactly where it was,
giving me no help in seeing what message I just closed.

The "stars" initially shown on brand new messages
last only until I open one single message for reading,
so those are almost completely useless.

"Read" status is good for one pass only,
and then only if I am always reading strictly sequentially;
on subsequent re-readings, there is no way left
to "keep my place" in my mailbox.

Excellent design by very insightful architects
is something that stands out when encountered,
just as does its opposite.

--

[ron...@gmail.com]

Make Thunderbird work for you by using the tools that it provides.

I have mine set up to
sort all incoming emails into a folder structure so that communications with each of my correpondents is always kept together
display a shortlist of email folders that at any time only shows the folders that contain unread emails
leave all new emails marked as unread until I have dealt with them to my satisfaction (no matter how long I look at each individual message or how many times I look at the same one before I am finished with it)
keep indefinitely any message I mark with a star to signify it is not to be deleted until I choose
dump out old communications where they no longer have any relevance
and it only takes one or two button presses to take me back to the full folder tree display when I need to work with the read files at any point in time.

This substantially does away with the need to work with a cumbersome list of read correspondence just to see the stuff that has not yet been dealt with.

Sure – there is an initial time-cost to set it up but once it is working it makes dealing with emails a breeze! One is only dealing with the small number of folders that contain unread mail each time a new batch of mail arrives.
The structure can be set up progressively as new mail comes in and the set-up work rapidly tapers off as you work your way throught the list of people with whom you communicate.

If any one is interested in the detail of setting up a similar system then please indicate your interest in this column and I'll try to help.

[John McWilliams]

A rather easy solution: Hit the space bar once or twice. That takes you
to the next Unread Message.

[Bruce.]

On 11/14/2011 11:03 PM, Bill Stanton wrote:
> Same for me.
> Bill

BTW, if you hadn't noticed yet, Newgroups suffer from the same
irritating auto-scrolling problem, only worse. If you select a
newsgroup and it downloads more than one window worth of headers, the
upper window often scrolls randomly. Sometimes to the last unread
message, sometimes the first unread, very often some random point in the
middle.

Also another long unresolved bug.

Bruce.

[Ron Hunter]

I have not seen that happen here. However, the best solution in either
case is to sort the messages by date, with the newest at the top.
This works better for email than newsgroups, but you can, at least, jump
to the top of the list.

[Lu Wei]

I would rather not call it a bug; I prefer to read one by one to the
newest. I understand the need to read newest messages first too. So
which message should be located when get into a group, there should be
an option: the oldest unread, newest unread, last read, first reply to
me, or most important as by filter rules?

--
Regards,
Lu Wei
PGP key ID: 0x92CCE1EA

[Bruce.]

On 11/17/2011 3:16 AM, Ron Hunter wrote:
> I have not seen that happen here. However, the best solution in either
> case is to sort the messages by date, with the newest at the top.
> This works better for email than newsgroups, but you can, at least, jump
> to the top of the list.

I see it a dozen times a day and no combination of settings makes it
work correctly.

Bruce.

[Ron Hunter]

I know it is a king-sized pain in the backside, but it may be time for a
new profile. Sometimes it is easier to make a new profile than to find
what is causing the problem in an old one.