On 18.06.15 20:21, Patrick Shanahan wrote: > * Xu Wang <xuwang...@gmail.com> [06-18-15 20:06]: > > On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 7:28 PM, Derek Martin <inva...@pizzashack.org> > > wrote: > [...] > > > Having answered the question, I am pretty curious: Why on earth would > > > you want to do that?! > > > > The reason is that I have focus problems (attention deficit disorder I > > believe is the English term). I would like to start Mutt and have Mutt > > check for new mail *at the initial starting* and then address all of > > the mail there, and only after that check if there is new mail. If I > > am working on my inbox and all of a sudden a new email arrives, it > > completely throws me out of focus. I imagine this must be difficult > > for many to understand but that is how I am.
As I must turn off the radio before I can properly focus, your plight is not difficult to imagine. (Oddly, people who continuously check their mobile phone, seem to relish being disturbed. Each to his own. :-) > I understand the need for "no distraction" but cannot understand what > checking mail has to do with that unless you have some buffy pgm advising > new mail. My setup only advises where new mail is when I change files > (mbox) and the request to change files provides the next file which has > "new mail". Ie: I do not disable checking mail but do not get a visible > or interruptive announcement of new mail. But my vision my be limited as > I *only* employe mbox and read remotely via ssh into my server box. Reading mail locally here, I see the name of a mailbox with new mail spontaneously appear in the status line, at least when I'm in the index. (Not sure about the browser.) While working in another xterm, the apparent movement is immediately obvious visually. Subsequently hitting '.' does, though, often throw up a longer list of mailboxes, so the buffy display may be done only on the first positive check? It can be a distraction, but that is easily cured by lowering the xterm. (I use four, two per side of a wide screen, auto-launched, and with mutt auto-started in one of them.) If I really had to prevent mutt checking mail too often, then I'd just prevent mutt checking mail too often - set timeout to a very high value, as previously suggested. Erik -- Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to _think_. - Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"
