Removal of folder classes incomplete and inconsistent

Support
1

This is slightly in the context of my testing the Thunderbird beta of the same version (8.0b2) in parallel, where it has done odd things with these settings in import, but I shall avoid those details here (in this context, it did not import the top/show/class settings at all, but I think I had a K9/TB version mismatch at the time, not both 8.0b2).

Essentially, I’m not sure what is supposed to be being used instead of folder classes (and couldn’t find anything obvious online). While it all currently seems to be working, albeit mostly without the folder classes, I am getting the impression that the folder classes are still being used under the hood.

E.g., if I am in an email and select Move, I now only see what are/were my first class folders (used to be the lot, I think, but with 1st class at the top). The kebab menu offers Show hidden folders and I then see the rest fine (although that’s a bit annoying as first-class are generally monitor folders and the rest are filing, so in my workflow Move is almost always going to need that extra menu step).

Regardless of that, if I go to Manage folders to now see how to change them, I do not see anything about the old second class folders being “hidden”. There is an option Show folder which may be intended as “not hidden” but it’s poorly named if so.

There is also Show in top group which I’ve not noticed before and it looks as if that might be trying to be an equivalent to first-class folders, but I am only having to guess at what that menu above meant by “hidden”.

Maybe “hidden” refers to all folders that are both not “top” and not shown?

The other discrepancy, which makes me think class is still there behind the scenes is that under account settings / notifications, the Notification folders setting still only has options pertaining to first and second class folders, not the two categories above — but of course, it is now impossible to change a folder’s class to affect notifications.

Sorry if there’s a forum for beta users where all this has been laid out! All I saw was the announcement of folder class removal but with no extra detail.

2

The folder display class was only used to decide whether or not to show a folder. It was never used for sorting. Now, disabling “show folder” will hide a folder.

The app contains migration code that retains the configuration of individual folders. E.g. if the account was configured to only display first class folders, only those folders are marked as visible, all others are hidden.

The sort order hasn’t really changed. It’s

  • inbox
  • outbox
  • other special folders
  • “top group” folders
  • regular folders

The remaining folder class settings (“Poll folders” and “Notification folders”) are left-overs that do nothing and will be removed in 8.0b3.

3

OK, thanks for that.

So a couple of follow up questions, then:

  • if setting up an account for the first time that has lots of folders, are they hidden or shown by default? I guess actually, the real question is: is there an easy easy to change the visibility of lots of folders? (I’ve been using K9 for so long I don’t remember how I set it up!)

  • what will happen to the notification folders setting, or more, what will be the logic to determine which folders notify?

4

Folders are visible by default. There’s currently no way to change the folder settings of multiple folders at the same time. The same was true for setting folder classes of individual folders.

It’s the same for all folder classes. They were changed to an on/off setting on the folder. The folder settings screen now contains a “Notifications” switch. Only new messages in folders that have this enabled will create notifications.

5

Ah, thanks, I must have done all mine manually back in the day!

And yes, I missed that notification option on each folder.

Ta!