Stop email being marked read in preview but still marked read on opening
Email is marked in my experience in Thunderbird from the perspective of the programmer NOT the user. In Thunderbird if email is set to be marked "read automatically on read" it will be marked read if the email is simply viewed in the preview window or if it is opened and actually read. In past years questions to support have resulted in it being explained that the email has to be read from the server to be show in preview window so of course it should be marked as read any time a email is show in preview. This is quit correct from the programmers perspective. It is also very incorrect from the user perspective as preview and reading a email are very different user experiences and not logically equivalent from the user perspective. Thunderbird currently marks each email as read even if ones quickly scrolls down to "preview" each email to decide what email to open, read and deal with. To try and address this issue a timer function was added to Thunderbird so marking email read will happen after n seconds. This is from the user's perspective logically flawed as there is no "correct" time for previewing or opening a email to determine it has been read. I hope some day this behavior will be addressed and the marking of email as read will be implemented logically from the user's perspective. That is a email preview does NOT automatically mark as read no matter how long open in the preview window and a email will always be marked as read as soon as opened to be read. To allow any current user base that finds the current implementation desirable improved user logically correct marking as read can be implemented by adding a option of "do not mark as read on preview" I hope this is addressed in a release as it is a user perspective logical flaw that has prevented my widely deploying Thunderbird for may years and that is a great pity as this is otherwise a very excellent email client.
All Replies (4)
There is no preview, much as people appear to like calling the viewing pane a preview. If you can accept that there is no preview, the rest is obvious.
If you want a preview mode, I suggest you file a bug requesting it. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
" people appear to like calling the viewing pane a preview"
Consider logical equivalence theorem or if you wish... If it looks like a duck , walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is in fact a duck. The rest is obvious.
Functionally, viewing the message in what you call the "preview pane" is equivalent to double-clicking it and seeing it in a tab or a window. Both constitute "reading" of the message.
I have never understood the attraction of this second approach, double-clicking to read in a tab or window. More clicks, less certainty about what happens when you navigate to the "next" message. Do it all in the thread pane and you know exactly where you're going, with fewer clicks. Most "power users" and keyboard aficionados never use the double-click; it's too inefficient since it involves the mouse.
There are a very few occasions where an html-formatted message is rendered more completely in its own window or tab but I rarely find this useful or necessary.
So, it is not a "preview pane" regardless of how much of a waterfowl you consider it.
Modified by Zenos
See this for a description of the preferred names for the various panes. Note it is called the "Message Pane". No mention of "preview"; that is your own nomenclature.