Hi, Jerry. Your screenpic does not look like any threaded view that I can create and it does not look threaded. How do you create that view?

When I show messages threaded, they appear in "the main e-mail list". What view are you referring to by "emails classified under the same Threaded"?

Hi, Jerry. Your screenpic does not look like any threaded view that I can create and it does not look threaded. How do you create that view? When I show messages threaded, they appear in "the main e-mail list". What view are you referring to by "emails classified under the same Threaded"?

Hello Rich, thanks for your reply and pls see my new screenshot

I think I understand the issue now. Threads are sorted, as specified, in descending order but the messages within each thread are sorted in ascending order and you would like them sorted in descending order also. Is that right?

See:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1513149

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1515240

https://support.mozilla.org/ml/questions/1462633

I found some pages for this issue, I am confused as to why this simple problem is not solved.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/1bxjwam/how_do_sort_emails_within_threads/ https://support.mozilla.org/ml/questions/1462633 https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/issues/160

I found some pages for this issue, I am confused as to why this simple problem is not solved. https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/1bxjwam/how_do_sort_emails_within_threads/ https://support.mozilla.org/ml/questions/1462633 https://github.com/Betterbird/thunderbird-patches/issues/160

Because your view of threading is the flat one used in the modern look. In the traditional user interface where their were lines that connected the various email you would see they are listed in the order/ precedence of reply.

It is easier to see in the table view where each level of reply to the original message is indented clearly to set it's level.

That same conversation in your cards view is quite confusing.

I think this poor presentation is the root cause of folk wanting to try and display what is a hierarchical display by date. The information is technically linked to a previous reply in the thread not a date at all but the user interface fails to make that distinction clear. Unless there are multiple replies to the same mail in the thread the date has no real relevance in a threaded view. But that is one of the reasons I do not use the space wasting cards view of my mail. I want as much information as I can get at a glance, not a little bit of confusing fluff.

Good point, Matt. I wish that I had thought of that.

Thank you for your reply Matt.

Your consideration is probably correct for you and the users who are still using the table view. But what I want to say is that there are still many users like me who use the card view in this software. The only reason we want emails to be sorted by time is that we want to see the latest emails first. This is very important to us. However, the level of emails is irrelevant to us. For most people, email topics are just two people going back and forth.

Therefore, for a general software, it is important to allow each user to set it according to their own habits. It is entirely possible to let the table view and the card view use different sorting settings. I believe this can be done. I hope you can consider the needs of ordinary users like us.

Thank you.

The issue seems to be hierarchy vs. chronology, not cards view vs. table view.

I understood Matt to say something like: "Threading by its nature, by definition, shows a hierarchy that takes precedence over chronology. You seem to be asking for threading to show a chronology that takes precedence over hierarchy. That's just not what threading does."

This seems correct to me.

In contrast to threading, the conversation view shows related messages in chronological order, without a hierarchy, that can be sorted in ascending or descending order. Does the conversation view show what you want? Does the user interface let you get to it easily enough?

Please see the second picture in Matt's reply.

In this view, the order is always in ascending order, that is, the earliest email is always at the top. Therefore, once there are many emails, we cannot see the latest email at first glance.

My request is that I hope that in this view, I can see the latest email at first glance. This is very important to me. thanks

We are users here, not developers, so we cannot act on your request.

I would be interested in your response to the problem of hierarchy vs. chronology and the idea of using the conversations view.

(edited)

I have been thinking about this issue more. Perhaps this explanation helps:

Threading by its nature is an earliest-message-first hierarchy with messages not necessarily in chronological order. You want a threaded view to be latest-message-first without a hierarchy and with messages in chronological order. That is not what threading is. So you are asking for a threaded view not to be a threaded view.

The conversation view can show last-message-first without a hierarchy and with messages in chronological order.

Hello Rick, Yes, conversation view is OK for me. Hierarchy is not necessary for me. thanks