Being an author of a mail -> HTML archiver (mail2html), I'm interested
on what is specifically met by "collect stuff by threads". Thread
detection is not perfect, and relies heavily upon people's mailers to
include the message ids of replied-to mail. I'd like to get your (or
others) ideas on how one would organize mail exclusively by threads.
Technically, there can be threads that are impossible to detect due to
the lack of mailers inserting replied-to mail message ids (using
"Re:..." subjects for mail thread detection has major drawbacks and
problems).
Currently, it is easy to combine your own search capabilites (like
WAIS) with my program (you can automatically add a form into the index
page that interfaces to a search engine). It does thread detection,
but does not generate a special list just for mail threads. Threads
are shown via follow-up/reference links in the individual mail
messages. I find it troublesome to come up with a listing format for
mail threads that works well.
I believe if one combines a decent search index for the HTML mail
archive(s), and individual messages always contains links to
follow-up/referenced messages, then having a special "mail thread"
master list is unnecessary. Once you find a message of interest, you
can easily follow the thread through the follow-up/referenced messages
links.
--ewh