For now, one line in the message list is styled as a whole. It is not possible to give different styles to message elements: Subject, From, Date, flags, etc.
It would be nice to allow giving specific styles to certain elements. This will require a rework of how messages are displayed however:
https://git.sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/tree/0.7.1/item/widgets/msglist.go#L259
I think this would be an opportunity to redesign this message list formatting. Here are some other ideas:
- "columns" with percentage width instead of absolute.
- use "template" formatting instead of obscure printf-like format
- allow message coloring based on header contents (Content-Type, X-SourceHut-Patchset-Status, etc.)
- add missing possible "columns": message size, attachments, signature status, etc.
This may require adding a msglist.format file… When wielding the full power of text/template these format strings can easily get hundreds of bytes long. Take for example what is currently the default:
{{ .Date | DateFormat}} {{.Sender | Pad 17}} {{.Flags}} {{{.Subject}}Adding some ifs, loops, function calls and so on would easily inflate that significantly.
probably a new section in
aerc.confthat would look something like this:[message-list] columns=date:20%,sender:30%,flags:3,subject date={{.Date | DateFormat}} sender={{.Sender}} flags={{.Flags}} subject={{.Subject}}
And to go along with this, this kind of stuff could be added in the styleset:
msglist_*.sender.bold=true msglist_*.sender.fg=#005f87To style based on message headers, I'm not sure if this could be done:
msglist_*.From,~John.sender.fg=#ff0000
Another idea: custom formatting based on non-standard headers. There are uncountable custom or otherwise non-standardised headers such as
X-Priorityfor a priority scoring. Which would be useful to allow highlighting critical mail.
Something like this?
msglist_*.X-Priority,1.fg=#ff0000
On Mon Aug 1, 2022 at 11:59 AM CEST, ~rjarry wrote:
probably a new section in
aerc.confthat would look something like this:[message-list] columns=date:20%,sender:30%,flags:3,subject date={{.Date | DateFormat}} sender={{.Sender}} flags={{.Flags}} subject={{.Subject}}Such a change would break all existing aerc configs out there.
I kind of like the current index-format since it is very expressive and easily customizable by the user but I also see the shortcomings in terms of formatting.
Couldn't we improve the index-format parser so that each format specifier lives in its own ui grid column with its own styleset?
I don't see how we can change this and preserve backward compatibility at the same time. Even if you would modify
index-formatsyntax, it would break existing configs.However, by adding a completely different configuration section, if
index-formatis specified and the[message-list]section is undefined, then, fallback to the old formatting. This will force us to preserve both code paths for a while but I don't see any alternative.
Something like this?
msglist_*.X-Priority,1.fg=#ff0000Well yes, but no. Some clients like Thunderbird add an explanation (just a text like " (Highest)" to explain it. But I like the idea of putting the theme config inside the theme definitions.
Such a change would break all existing aerc configs out there.
Maybe using a different key for it would be an option that only overrides it if set
I kind of like the current index-format since it is very expressive and easily customizable by the user but I also see the shortcomings in terms of formatting.
I also quite like it, and would prefer to put most of it into the theme options (like in Robin's example)
Couldn't we improve the index-format parser so that each format specifier lives in its own ui grid column with its own styleset?
The formatter is full of TODOs as is, so I think a full rewrite might be a good first step.
~konimarti, Aug 01, 2022 at 12:19:
Couldn't we improve the index-format parser so that each format specifier lives in its own ui grid column with its own styleset?
About "ui grid column". In my previous example, I thought exactly the same. Each element in the
message-list.columnssetting would live in its own column with an optional width specifier.[message-list] # 20% of the total width of the message list block # / 30% of the total width of the message list block # | / exactly 3 characters # | | / automatic width # | | | / # | | | | # v v v v columns=date:20%,sender:30%,flags:3,subject
On Mon Aug 1, 2022 at 12:33 PM CEST, ~rjarry wrote:
~konimarti, Aug 01, 2022 at 12:19:
Couldn't we improve the index-format parser so that each format specifier lives in its own ui grid column with its own styleset?
About "ui grid column". In my previous example, I thought exactly the same. Each element in the
message-list.columnssetting would live in its own column with an optional width specifier.[message-list] # 20% of the total width of the message list block # / 30% of the total width of the message list block # | / exactly 3 characters # | | / automatic width # | | | / # | | | | # v v v v columns=date:20%,sender:30%,flags:3,subjectExactly. I would just try to parse the existing index-format field to your column design (if no width/precision is specified, then the column width is set to ui.SIZE_WEIGHT otherwise to ui.SIZE_EXACT with the width given in the fmt specifier. Wouldn't that work? This means of course a complete rewrite internally but we could preserve the current configs.
Exactly. I would just try to parse the existing index-format field to your column design (if no width/precision is specified, then the column width is set to ui.SIZE_WEIGHT otherwise to ui.SIZE_EXACT with the width given in the fmt specifier. Wouldn't that work? This means of course a complete rewrite internally but we could preserve the current configs.
I don't know the internals enough. But yes, adding a new
message-listsection would require translatingindex-formatfor older configs and avoid maintaining two completely separate code bases.
This is mostly solved, yay! However, it might be nice to have a way to template the full line conditionally, instead of having to configure each part. For example, say I want to apply a conditional format to mails from "builds.sr.ht". I would need to write the conditional for every column field:
index-columns = date>12,name<17,flags>4,subject<* column-date = {{if (and (match (index .From 0).Name `builds.sr.ht`) (eq .Folder "INBOX"))}}{{else}}{{.DateAutoFormat .Date.Local}}{{end}} column-name = {{if (and (match (index .From 0).Name `builds.sr.ht`) (eq .Folder "INBOX"))}}{{else}}{{index (.From | names) 0}}{{end}} column-flags = {{if (and (match (index .From 0).Name `builds.sr.ht`) (eq .Folder "INBOX"))}}{{else}}{{.Flags | join ""}}{{end}} column-subject = {{if (and (match (index .From 0).Name `builds.sr.ht`) (eq .Folder "INBOX")) -}}{{- .Style (print .ThreadPrefix .Subject) "msglist_dim" -}}{{- else -}}{{- .ThreadPrefix}}{{.Subject -}}{{- end}}It'd be nice if I could do this in a single place.
Robin Jarry referenced this ticket in commit 2f46f64.