path: root/docs/superpowers/plans/2026-08-03-post-0.1.0-usability.md

# Post-0.1.0 usability backlog

Status: **open, expandable by design.** This document is not a fixed release
plan. It collects items found by actually using qtmaildir after 0.1.0, and it
grows as more turn up. Nothing here is scheduled; picking what ships in a given
release is a separate decision.

Source: usage notes taken while running the app, 2026-08-03.

Numbering is stable. New items append with the next free number and never
renumber, so a note referring to "item 7" keeps meaning the same thing. An item
that is dropped stays in the table marked `dropped` with a one-line reason.

## Theme

0.1.0 was built to a spec written by someone who lives in neomutt. The result
is a keyboard-driven reader with almost no visible affordances. The notes below
are, with few exceptions, one complaint restated in several forms: **the app
does not tell the user what it can do, and it does not remember what the user
told it.** Two clusters follow from that:

- **Persistence.** Splitter position, font size, window geometry, and the
  account selection all reset on restart. Each is small on its own and
  aggravating every single launch.
- **Discoverability.** Shortcuts are the only route to most actions, and there
  is no menu bar, no toolbar, and no way to see the key bindings from inside
  the app.

Both clusters are cheap to fix. Neither was an oversight in design so much as a
consequence of specifying the app as "a GUI counterpart to neomutt" and then
taking that too literally.

## Status table

| # | Item | Cluster | Size | Status |
|---|------|---------|------|--------|
| 1 | Splitter/column widths do not survive restart | persistence | S | open |
| 2 | No way to see full message details (From/To/Cc/Subject) | information | M | open |
| 3 | Too few clickable affordances, shortcuts are the only route | discoverability | M | **done** |
| 4 | Message-pane font size does not survive restart | persistence | S | open |
| 5 | Thread list is cramped, poor readability | presentation | S | open |
| 6 | Opened message stays unread | behavior | S | open |
| 7 | HTML view should be default for HTML messages | behavior | XS | **verify first, may already be done** |
| 8 | No buttons or menu entries for archive, undo, etc | discoverability | M | **done** |
| 9 | No in-app view of configured shortcuts | discoverability | S | **done** |
| 10 | Reaching an account's inbox takes two steps | workflow | S | open |
| 11 | Icon, `.desktop` file, SlackBuild | packaging | M | **partly done**: icon and `.desktop` landed, SlackBuild open |
| 13 | No visual feedback that an action stuck | feedback | S | **done** |
| 14 | Tag column unreadable, tags need another home | presentation | M | **done** |

Sizes are rough: XS under an hour, S a sitting, M a session.

---

## 1. Splitter and column widths do not survive restart

**Observed:** resizing the thread list pane, or a column inside it, is undone by
the next launch.

**Cause:** `MainWindow::buildUi()` (`src/mainwindow.cpp:195`) builds the
`QSplitter` fresh every launch, sets a stretch factor, and never saves state.
`resize(1200, 800)` at `src/mainwindow.cpp:206` hardcodes window size too. There
is no `QSettings` window-state read or write anywhere in the class.

**Approach:** one `saveState`/`restoreState` pair in
`MainWindow`, driven from a `QSettings` object separate from the hand-written
config file.

- Save on `closeEvent`, restore at the end of `buildUi()`.
- Persist: `QMainWindow::saveGeometry()`, `QMainWindow::saveState()`,
  `QSplitter::saveState()`, `QHeaderView::saveState()` for the thread list.
- Restore must be a no-op when the stored blob is absent or rejected, falling
  back to the current hardcoded defaults. `restoreGeometry()` returns `false`
  in that case; do not assume it succeeded.

**Where the state file goes.** The hand-edited config lives at
`~/.config/qtmaildir/qtmaildir.conf` and is the user's to own. Machine-written
window blobs must not land in it: a base64 `QByteArray` appearing in a file the
user edits by hand is hostile, and rewriting that file on exit risks clobbering
comments and formatting QSettings does not preserve. Use a **separate**
`QSettings` instance for UI state, at
`~/.local/state/qtmaildir/uistate.conf` or the `QStandardPaths` equivalent, and
keep `Config` untouched.

**Confirmed by the user, 2026-08-03.** This decision covers items 1, 4, and 10
as well. Establish it once, in whichever lands first.

**Verification:** manual. Resize both the window and the splitter, restart,
confirm both held. Then delete the state file and confirm the app still starts
with the 1200x800 default rather than a zero-size window.

## 2. No way to see full message details

**Observed:** From, To, Cc, Subject and the rest are not visible for the
selected message.

**Cause:** partially true rather than wholly. `MessageView::updateHeader()`
(`src/messageview.cpp:219`) shows only the thread subject and a message count.
Per-message From and Date *are* rendered inside the HTML body as `.msg-header`
(`src/htmlbuilder.cpp:241`), styled at 9pt grey, which is easy to miss and does
not include To or Cc at all.

**Check before building:** does `MimeParser` already extract To and Cc into the
message struct, or does `src/types.h` / `MimeParser`'s output need extending
first? If the fields are not parsed, that is the real first task and it is
larger than the UI work.

**Approach, two parts:**

- Widen the persistent header at the top of the message pane to show the
  selected message's From, To, Cc, Date and Subject. This is the note's stated
  preference ("should appear on top in right pane").
- Add a shortcut and menu entry for a full raw-header dialog, for the cases the
  summary omits (Message-Id, List-Id, Received chain). Read-only, selectable
  text, no rendering.

Both, not one: the header widget answers "who is this from" at a glance, the
dialog answers "what actually happened to this message". They are different
questions.

**Constraint:** header values are untrusted input. The existing header label is
`Qt::RichText` (`src/messageview.cpp:104`), so every value must be
`toHtmlEscaped()` before interpolation, exactly as `updateHeader()` already
does. A `From` display name containing markup must never be able to inject into
the label. The raw-header dialog should use `Qt::PlainText` and sidestep the
question entirely.

## 3, 8, 9. Discoverability: menu bar, toolbar, shortcut reference

Grouped because they are one piece of work. Item 3 is the complaint, items 8
and 9 are two of its symptoms.

**Observed:** for a GUI app there is almost nothing to click; every action needs
a memorized key. Archive and undo have no buttons. There is no way to see the
configured bindings without opening a terminal.

**Cause:** `MainWindow` has no `menuBar()` and no `QToolBar`. Actions are not
`QAction`s at all: `registerActions()` (`src/mainwindow.cpp:209`) fills a
`QHash<QString, std::function<void()>>` consumed by an `eventFilter`. Nothing in
that structure can appear in a menu, because a menu needs `QAction` objects.

**Approach: convert the action registry to `QAction`s.** This is the core of the
work and everything else follows from it.

- Each entry becomes a `QAction` with text, an object name matching the current
  action key, and a shortcut set from `KeyMap`.
- `MainWindow::registeredActionNames()` and the `KeyMap::knownActions()` drift
  test (already noted in `mainwindow.h` as hand-maintained) must keep working.
  If the conversion lets both lists derive from one source, that test becomes
  unnecessary, which is a real win. Check whether it can.
- The `eventFilter` route may become redundant once shortcuts live on the
  `QAction`s. Removing it is the goal, but verify: the filter may be handling
  focus cases (keys while the query line edit has focus) that `QAction`
  shortcuts resolve differently. Do not delete it on the assumption that
  `QAction` covers everything.
- Menu bar: File (Sync, Quit), Edit (Undo, Redo), Message (Archive, Delete,
  Spam, Toggle unread, Toggle HTML, Load remote content), View (font size, see
  item 4), Help (Shortcuts, About).
- Toolbar: the frequent subset only. Sync, Archive, Delete, Undo. A toolbar
  holding every action is as unreadable as no toolbar.
- Shortcut reference (item 9): a dialog listing action, description, and current
  binding, generated from the same `QAction` list. Generated, never hand-written
  in parallel, or it drifts the way the two action lists already do.

**Constraint:** undo must stay unconfirmed. `CLAUDE.md` is explicit that tag
mutations get undo instead of confirmation dialogs. Adding menu entries must not
smuggle in a "Are you sure?" for Delete.

**Verification:** the existing keymap test must still pass unchanged, proving
user bindings survive the conversion. That is the load-bearing check here.

### Outcome (done)

Built as described: menu bar, toolbar, and a generated shortcut reference.
Four things the plan did not anticipate, all verified by probe rather than
assumed:

- **The event filter was removable, but not for the stated reason.** The plan
  worried that `QAction` shortcuts might lose to `QAbstractItemView`'s
  type-to-search. They do not: shortcut dispatch runs before the focused
  widget sees the key. The filter is gone, and the thread view no longer
  needs its own.
- **Qt already solves the query-bar case.** A plain-letter shortcut is
  suppressed while an editable widget has focus, so the `hasFocus()` guard
  was unnecessary. Removing it also fixed `Ctrl+Q`, which the old filter
  swallowed while typing a query.
- **Three default bindings had never worked.** `N`, `F` and `G` stored the
  unshifted key, which no keystroke emits, so `toggle_unread`, `flag` and
  `sync` were dead in 0.1.0. Fixed in `KeyMap::normalizeSequence()` and
  committed separately from the menu work.
- **The drift test did become unnecessary**, as the plan hoped.
  `registeredActionNames()` is now derived from the `QAction`s, and
  `defaultBindings()` is the single source for the defaults. The two tests
  that pinned the hand-maintained lists together were replaced by ones that
  check a configured binding actually reaches its action.

Defaults moved to modifier shortcuts, since a single letter cannot be a menu
accelerator without claiming that letter window-wide. Existing `[keys]`
entries are unaffected.

## 4. Message-pane font size does not survive restart

**Observed:** described as "very annoying", more so than item 1.

**Confirmed by the user:** Ctrl+`+` / Ctrl+`-` do change the message pane font
size. It is only the persistence that is missing.

**Cause:** qtmaildir does not implement that zoom. There is no `setZoomFactor`,
no zoom action, and no `Ctrl+=`/`Ctrl+-` binding anywhere in `src/`; grep finds
nothing. The behavior comes from `QWebEngineView`, which handles zoom keys
natively in Chromium. `htmlbuilder.cpp:26` separately hardcodes
`font-size: 10pt` as the document's base size, which the browser zoom then
scales.

This changes the shape of the work. There is no application-side value to save,
because the application never learns the zoom changed: Chromium handles the key
and adjusts the factor without telling anyone. Persistence therefore requires
taking ownership of zoom first, rather than hooking a save onto something that
already exists.

**Approach:**

- Add explicit zoom in, zoom out and reset actions calling
  `QWebEngineView::setZoomFactor()`, tracking the current factor in
  `MessageView`. Use `setZoomFactor` rather than rewriting the CSS: it scales
  the rendered document uniformly, needs no re-render, and does not disturb
  `HtmlBuilder`'s output or its tests.
- Bind them to the same Ctrl+`+` / Ctrl+`-` the user already has in their
  fingers, so the change is invisible except that it now sticks. Verify the
  application binding actually takes precedence over Chromium's built-in
  handling; if the web view swallows the key first, the action never fires and
  the factor silently diverges from what is on screen. This is the one real
  risk in the item and is worth checking before building the rest.
- Persist the factor to the UI state file from item 1, and reapply it on every
  `setDocument()`. Do not assume zoom survives a load; `QWebEngineView` may
  reset it on navigation. Verify empirically.
- Config entry as the user suggested: a `[general]` key for the starting zoom,
  with the state file remembering runtime changes on top of it. The config value
  is the default for a fresh profile, the state file is what the user last had.
- Clamp to a sane range. An accidental 0.1 or 25.0 leaves the pane unusable and
  the user with no visible way back. Chromium's own limits are roughly 0.25 to
  5.0; match or tighten, never widen.
- Route the actions through item 3's `QAction` conversion so they appear in the
  View menu, which also makes the reset discoverable.

## 5. Thread list is cramped

**Observed:** rows are tightly packed, everything is uniform, the UI reads as
"stuffed".

**Approach:** presentation only, no model changes.

- Row height: give the `QTableView` vertical breathing room.
- Alternating row colors, or a subtle separator.
- Make unread threads visually distinct (bold), which is the one distinction
  that carries real information and currently does not exist.
- Consider dropping a column. Look at what `ThreadListModel` exposes and ask
  whether every column earns its width.

**Caution:** do not hardcode colors. The app should follow the desktop palette;
a hand-picked grey that looks right on a light theme is unreadable on a dark
one. Use `QPalette` roles. This applies to `HtmlBuilder`'s CSS too, which
currently hardcodes `#bbb`, `#555`, `#000`, `#666`, `#ddd` and no background,
and will look wrong under a dark theme. That is arguably its own item; see
item 12 below if it gets split out.

## 6. Opened message stays unread

**Observed:** opening a message leaves it tagged unread; the user expects it to
become read.

**Decision (user, 2026-08-03): mark read after a 2 second delay, configurable.**

**Approach:**

- A `QTimer` started in `onThreadSelected()` (`src/mainwindow.cpp:373`), fired
  once, removing the `unread` tag from the displayed thread.
- The timer **must** be restarted, not stacked, when the selection changes.
  Arrowing quickly down a list must not mark ten threads read; only the one
  still selected when the timer fires.
- **Decided (user, 2026-08-03): the automatic mark-read does NOT go on the undo
  stack.** The tag change routes through `sendThreadTagChange()` directly,
  bypassing the `ThreadTagCommand` push, exactly as an explicit non-undoable
  mutation would. Rationale: a manual toggle-unread action already exists
  (`toggle_unread`, `src/mainwindow.cpp:242`), so a user who wants the message
  back as unread has a direct route and does not need undo for it. Leaving a
  message read after undoing an unrelated archive is acceptable; hijacking
  Ctrl+Z to undo an action the user never took is not.
- Consequence to keep in mind: `applyTags` is the funnel for all mutations per
  `CLAUDE.md`, and that stays true. What changes is only whether the inverse is
  pushed onto the `QUndoStack`, which is a `MainWindow` decision made above the
  worker. Do not add a second write path to the worker for this.
- Config key in `[general]`, e.g. `mark_read_delay_ms`, default `2000`, with `0`
  meaning "immediately" and a negative value meaning "never". Document all
  three in the README.
- Interaction with item 3's toggle-unread action: if the user explicitly marks a
  message unread, the timer must not immediately re-mark it read. Cancel the
  pending timer on any manual unread toggle.

**Verification:** unit-testable against the throwaway notmuch database the
`NotmuchWorker` tests already build, but the timer logic itself is UI-side and
easier to check by hand. At minimum, verify the rapid-arrow case manually.

## 7. HTML view should be default for HTML messages

**Verify before doing anything.** `MessageView::m_preferHtml` is already
initialized to `true` (`src/messageview.h`), and `clear()` resets it to `true`
(`src/messageview.cpp:164`). HTML should already be preferred where a message
offers it.

Possible explanations for the observation:

- The messages in question are `multipart/alternative` and `HtmlBuilder`'s
  `PreferHtml` mode is not selecting the HTML part correctly.
- The HTML renders, but with remote content blocked it looks like plain text.
- `m_preferHtml` is being reset between messages by a `clear()` the user did not
  intend to trigger.

Reproduce first with a specific message, then decide. If it turns out to work
correctly, the item becomes a documentation gap rather than a bug, and the
user-preference key mentioned in the note (`prefer_html`, `[general]`) is still
worth adding for people who want plain text by default.

**Do not**, in the course of this, relax anything in the web view security
section of `CLAUDE.md`. Preferring HTML is orthogonal to remote content, which
stays blocked and per-render.

## 10. Reaching an account's inbox takes two steps

**Observed:** select account from the dropdown, then click inbox or unread.

**Approach:** cheapest useful fix first.

- Persist the selected account across restarts (uses item 1's state file). If
  the user reads one account 90% of the time, this alone removes most of the
  friction.
- Then: per-account entries in a menu, or saved queries that carry their own
  account scope, so one action gets there. `Account::scopedQuery()` already
  exists in `Config`, so the composition is available; it is a UI question, not
  a query question.

Do not build a full account sidebar for this. Persisting the selection may
resolve the complaint entirely, and it is a fraction of the work. Reassess after.

## 11. Icon, `.desktop` file, SlackBuild

Packaging, independent of everything above, and can proceed in parallel.

- **Icon:** an SVG plus rendered PNGs at the standard hicolor sizes. Needs a
  design decision, not just code.
- **`.desktop` file:** `Categories=Network;Email;`, `Terminal=false`,
  `MimeType=x-scheme-handler/mailto;` only if a `mailto:` handler is actually
  implemented, which it is not in 0.1.0. Do not claim the MIME type until it
  works; a desktop entry that registers as the mail handler and then does
  nothing is worse than not registering.
- **CMake install rules:** icon into `share/icons/hicolor/<size>/apps/`, desktop
  file into `share/applications/`. Neither exists yet.
- **SlackBuild:** per the global workflow, sources are authored here and the
  user builds. Deliverables are `qtmaildir.SlackBuild`, `.info`, `README`,
  `slack-desc`, plus an nvchecker stanza. Depends on a tagged release existing
  to point `DOWNLOAD` at, so it follows a tag rather than leading it.

---

## 13. No visual feedback that an action stuck

**Observed:** selecting a thread and hitting Delete changed nothing on screen.
No way to tell whether the thread was really going to be deleted on the next
sync, which is bad UX for every tag action, not only delete.

**Cause:** not a missing update. `ThreadListModel::applyTagChange()` already
added the tag and emitted `dataChanged` across the whole row, so the Tags
column did change. But `SubjectColumn` was set to `QHeaderView::Stretch` while
`TagsColumn` came after it, so Subject absorbed all free width and pushed Tags
out of view. The feedback existed in the one column that could not be seen.

**Approach:** two changes, since the cause was two things.

- Column order is now Tags, Date, From, Subject. Subject stretches and is
  last, so nothing sits to its right to be pushed out. The other three size
  to their contents.
- A thread tagged `deleted` or `spam` styles its entire row: muted dark red
  (`#8b2c2c`) or orange (`#a85c18`) fill, white text, struck through. Applied
  through `Qt::BackgroundRole`, `Qt::ForegroundRole` and `Qt::FontRole` for
  every column, so no cue depends on a single column staying visible.

Strike-through rides along with the fill deliberately: it survives a theme
that overrides background colours, a colourblind reader, and a screenshot.
Bold for unread still composes with it.

**Decisions:** no status-bar or toast changes, the existing `tagSelected()`
message stays as it is. Archive removes `inbox` and adds nothing, so an
archived thread gets no row styling; whether it should disappear from an inbox
query is deliberately left open rather than guessed at.

**Verification:** four model tests covering the colours, the strike-through,
that styling spans every column, and that undo restores a plain row. Rendered
and inspected: normal, unread, deleted, spam, and deleted-plus-unread rows.

---

## 14. Tag column unreadable

**Observed:** with tags spelled out per row the column ran to 500 pixels of
mostly repeated text ("account-privateemail-danilo.macri attachment flagged
inbox passed replied"), dominated by the account prefix, and consumed most of
the list's width.

**Cause:** presentation, not data. 96 tags in this database, many hierarchical
(`shopping/amazon`, `mailing-list/SBo`), rendered as a joined string.

**Approach:** the column is gone. Tags now render as coloured chips in two
places, split by taxonomy:

- The **account tag** says which mailbox a thread came from. It draws as a chip
  in front of the subject, coloured and labelled from its own `[account.<key>]`
  stanza via new `color` and `label` keys. `label` is display-only; the notmuch
  tag is never renamed.
- **Functional tags** say what state a thread is in. They fill a single row
  under the message pane, with overflow collapsing into a `+N` chip whose
  tooltip lists the hidden ones. A single row keeps the message area from
  shifting between threads with different tag counts.

Colours resolve exact tag first, then top-level prefix, so one `shopping` entry
covers the hierarchy without listing all 96. Unconfigured tags fall back to a
hash of the name, stable so a chip never changes colour as the list scrolls.

**Defect found while building:** QSettings treats `/` in a key as a group
separator, so `shopping/amazon` becomes a nested key that `childKeys()` never
returns. Reading `[tagcolors]` with `childKeys()` silently dropped every
hierarchical tag, and each fell through to its prefix colour. Fixed by reading
`allKeys()`, with a regression test. The same gotcha is already documented in
`CLAUDE.md` for `[account.work]` section names.

**Deferred:** clicking a chip to search that tag. Display only for now.

---

## Deferred, unsized, or split out

Items noted while triaging but not part of the original list. Same numbering
sequence, appended as they arise.

| # | Item | Why here |
|---|------|----------|
| 12 | `HtmlBuilder` CSS is light-theme only | Split from item 5. Hardcoded greys and no background color; a dark desktop theme will render message bodies badly. Fix likely means passing palette-derived colors into the CSS, which affects `HtmlBuilder`'s tests. |

## Adding to this document

Append a row to the status table with the next free number, then a section using
the same shape: **Observed** (what the user saw), **Cause** (the code, with file
and line, verified not assumed), **Approach**, **Constraints**, and
**Verification** where it is not obvious. Do not renumber. Do not delete: mark
`dropped` with a reason.