The RSI of Email

Email is an essential part of my day job; it's how I get most of my work-related information. If I don't have email at work, I feel adrift (before seizing the uninterrupted moment to get some actual work done!). So me liking my email client is essential, too. If I'm frustrated at email, it spills over to work. If my email feels seamless, I'm less stressed and I feel on top of "things" at work.

Today I had the unmitigated pleasure (yes, I'm being sarcastic) of blowing away all of the settings for my Thunderbird email client and starting over, so I once again did a quick status check on available mail clients. Once again, they all-but-one suck on the same point: how much they want me to use the mouse. I'd like to see a lot of messages at once so I can follow long threads, and I'd like to see a lot of the message I'm reading at once so maybe I don't have to scroll down. This means, unlike the rest of the world from what I can tell, I prefer more windows, and I despise panes within a single email window. (This is a preference setting in Mulberry. I like Mulberry.) Once I open a message in its own window, when I press the delete key on my keyboard, I want that message to be moved to the Trash (no longer taking up space in the long list of messages) and I want the next message to show up. No mouse, one keypress, two actions (delete, open next). If I have to use the mouse, it will take me more time and could contribute to a repetitive stress injury.

However, since I was deep in the settings, I did figure out today how to get Thunderbird 3 to pass my non-RSI email client filter! So not only did I blow away my Thunderbird profile (after saving my address books!), I even upgraded from Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3! I thought I was going to be the TB2 curmudgeon forever!

The settings I wanted are:

Thunderbird > Preferences

Advanced > Reading & Display

>> Open messages in: (*) An existing message window

>> [ ] Close message window on delete

For me at least, Thunderbird is the best fit on two points: less mouse RSI / more keyboard speed, and IMAP tags. Of course, I just got migrated to the Exchange server that doesn't support IMAP tags, but I'm still hooked on tagging.

So I do want messages to open in the existing message window, and I do not want to close that window when I delete a message. Whew! I'm upgraded, I finally got all of my accounts added in just so, and work may now resume. Oh, whoops, the day is almost done!