Mar 15, 2008

Faceted browsing extension "Seek" and Maximize Message Pane


The SIMILE group at MIT has developed the "Seek" extension which adds faceted browsing features to Thunderbird2. Seek provides UI to filter messages in the thread pane as iTunes does by a genre, an artist name and an album title. A screencast in their site is useful to see its look and feel. I don't think the traditional 3-pane layout is good enough because a preview area is too narrow while I read a message; meanwhile, a preview shares too large space while I search a message. I'm very looking forward to see the evolution of Seek from now on.

If you install Seek, the message pane places at right-bottom of the window. You may think it is too narrow to read a message. The UI is changed to the original one by Ctrl-K but you may think the folder pane and the tread pane are not needed while you read a message. Maximize Message Pane can solve the problem. Download and install Maximize Message Pane 1.0.00b2 then open an extension's option form. You can see the textbox titled "Other:". Input "seekStatusPane,seekPane-deck,seek-mainSplitter" to it (without double-quotations). If you don't need the folder pane while reading a message, check the "Folder pane", too. The Seek's panes are collapsed and the message pane is expanded when you click the Maximize button or press F8 button.

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