Feature Suggestion: Auto-minimize on empty Inbox

[Apesbrain]

Give POP Peeper the ability to automatically minimize back to tray upon Inbox being cleared. Thanks.

[Jeff]

I've heard this suggestion before and since then (and more since I read your post earlier) I've given it a lot of thought and I'll say it's very unlikely that this will be an option.

To explain:
Just off the top of my head, I thought of several gotchas where this wouldn't work well:
- What if you're otherwise doing something with PP
- Switching to another account or refreshing the "view" would temporarily clear the list
- "Remove messages from list"
- A new message comes in that gets deleted or moved via AntiJunk
- Toggle hide read/seen (you may or may not want it to suddenly minimize)
- Do hidden messages count toward an "empty inbox"
- etc etc.

The point being, this would be a frustrating feature to implement and I'm not sure how many people would use it. I suspect people might try it, realize they hate it and turn it back off. Based on years of experience, it sounds like a major headache just to save a few people from having to click a button / press <esc>.

And, personally, I'm not even sure I see the use-case for this. Perhaps you can tell me how you would see this as a benefit and help change my mind...

[Apesbrain]

And, personally, I'm not even sure I see the use-case for this. Perhaps you can tell me how you would see this as a benefit and help change my mind...

I sometimes notice PP still occupying space on my task bar and realize that I forgot to "close" it. This mostly happens when I open the first email in a list, delete it, and PP moves to the next. If in the meantime, I've opened another app, that app can get "between" PP main window and its spawned child. When the last email has been deleted, the child window closes but the main window is still there "invisible" behind the other app I opened. If I saw it, I'd remember to close it.

Perhaps an option to "keep PP main window and child windows together as one process"? Thanks for thinking about it.

[Jeff]

In that scenario, an auto-minimize when *idle* might be a more practical solution... I'll file that one away.

When PP made the transition to modeless (definition below) view-message windows, there were quite a few people who felt the same way. I think it was just getting used to the new way because, imo, modeless windows are far superior in this respect. But I did subsequently add a new setting in response (and I use it myself):
- PP main menu: Tools / PPtweaker
- "Misc" page
- enable: "Focus next POP Peeper window when I close view-message"

It should behave pretty much like you'd expect it to -- it will bring the main PP window into focus when you close the view-message window. And it has the advantage of keeping the benefits of a modeless window (ie. being able to access the main window, opening multiple messages, etc.).



* modeless is a technical term that I don't expect most people to be familiar with --
modeless: "which stay on the screen and are available for use at any time but permit other user activities"
vs
modal: "which require the user to respond before continuing the program"
-- Microsoft

[Apesbrain]

Thanks, I will give this a try.