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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Sparks
Request for Comments: 7842 Oracle
Category: Informational April 2016
ISSN: 2070-1721
Requirements for Improvements to the IETF Email List Archiving,
Web-Based Browsing, and Search Tool
Abstract
The web-based IETF email archive search tool based on the
requirements captured in RFC 6778 was deployed in January 2014. This
memo captures the requirements for a set of improvements that have
been identified during its initial years of community use.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7842.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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RFC 7842 List Archiving and Search Requirements April 2016
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. List Search and Archive Tool Improvement Requirements . . . . 2
2.1. Viewing by Thread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2. Navigation from the Message List View . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Navigation from a Single Message . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.4. Message List UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5. Improve Support for Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.6. Improve Use of Display Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.7. Use without JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.8. Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
The IETF email archive search tool, as specified in [RFC6778]) and
available at [mailarch], has been in use for nearly two years.
During that time, there have been repeated requests for several
improvements. This memo captures the requirements for a concerted
development effort to provide those improvements.
2. List Search and Archive Tool Improvement Requirements
2.1. Viewing by Thread
Currently, when the "Group by Thread" button is selected, the
resulting list of messages is flat. It is very hard to tell where a
thread starts and stops. This flat view interacts badly with sorting
(triggered by clicking on the column headers), leading to results
that are confusing and sometimes incorrect.
This effort will:
o Modify the message list display, when grouped by thread, to show
each thread hierarchically.
o Modify the sort performed by the clicking on the column headers to
sort the overall list first by the parameters in the first message
in the thread, and then sort within the thread (ensuring the
thread grouping doesn't change based on these sorts). When
viewing threads sorted this way, the hierarchy will be flattened,
but the thread boundaries will remain visibly distinct.
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RFC 7842 List Archiving and Search Requirements April 2016
2.2. Navigation from the Message List View
This effort will add navigation to the message list view, whether
viewing flat search results or viewing by thread, making it simple
to:
o Navigate to the previous/next message by date in the set of listed
messages.
o Navigate to the previous/next message in a thread, to the first
message in a thread, and to the previous/next thread displayed.
o Navigate to any References or Replies (displayed as Follow-Ups in
MHonArc) for the currently selected message. These are derived
from the References header field in the displayed message, and the
In-Reply-To header field or the last value in the References
header field of all other messages in the archive).
The UI will make it possible to hide these navigation elements.
2.3. Navigation from a Single Message
Currently, when viewing a single message, the only option for
navigating to related messages is to return to the message list view
(either by date or by thread). This is implemented with a new search
based only on the details present in the message itself. No
information about any search that led to the message is retained.
This effort will:
o Add navigation to the single message view, enabling transition to
previous/next in list and previous/next in thread.
o Add navigation enabling transition to previous/next in search, if
the message page being displayed was arrived at by navigating from
the message list view of a search result.
o Add navigation to any References or Replies (displayed as Follow-
Ups in MHonArc). These are derived from the References header
field in the displayed message, and the In-Reply-To header field
or the last value in the References header field of all other
messages in the archive.
o Make it possible to hide these navigation elements.
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2.4. Message List UI
It is not sufficiently obvious that the message list panel can be
resized. The current handle is not visually distinct enough to
signal the capability to the user, leaving many users believing they
are restricted to the very short default list, even when viewing on
large monitors.
Additionally, there is a flaw in the code that fetches additional
messages when scrolling to the bottom of what's currently displayed.
If the message window is large enough that the default number of
results does not fill it, no scrollbar appears, and scrolling to the
bottom does not fetch additional results.
The filter by list and filter by from sections to the left of the
message list have no values in many circumstances, but it is not
obvious why they are missing. One notable condition is when the
search result is very large -- computing the values to put in these
filters becomes prohibitively expensive. Without foreknowledge of
the decisions captured in the code, the behavior seems arbitrary and
unintuitive.
The current view truncates fields, leaving trailing ellipses, when it
doesn't need to. This leaves space underutilized on large displays
and may make selection (particularly of long email addresses in the
filters) much more difficult than it should be. On small displays,
the column of filters dominates the display, leaving only a small
amount of space for the actual message content.
The current view requires the user to select each message in the
message list to get the URI to that message. This makes it difficult
to open several messages in different windows, or to build a list of
URIs for use in a message or other applications. It is also not
obvious that double-clicking a row in the list will open the message
in a separate window.
This effort will:
o Make the ability to resize the panels on the message list display
easier to find.
o Account for the size of the message list panel when choosing how
many messages to fetch, filling the panel whenever there are
enough results to do so.
o Provide a message explaining any condition leading to filter
values not being populated (such as "Refine search to enable
'From' filtering").
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RFC 7842 List Archiving and Search Requirements April 2016
o Allow subjects to fill the column on large displays. Show fully
expanded list and email addresses in the pop-ups for the filters.
o Provide a link on each row of the list to the URL for that row's
message.
o Add an export type that produces a file containing a list of URIs
to each message in the list.
o Add a hint to the UI that double-clicking on a row in the list
will open a single-message view of the associated message in a
separate view.
2.5. Improve Support for Mobile Devices
The current view becomes difficult to use on small displays,
particularly phone displays in portrait mode. This effort will:
o Add a responsive interface, presenting a useful interface on both
small and large displays.
2.6. Improve Use of Display Space
The current view underutilizes the available display space. This
effort will:
o Make the message content the primary point of each view.
o Reduce the unused space on the display.
o Remove the filter column responsively when the display width is
small.
2.7. Use without JavaScript
The current web-based archive search tool requires JavaScript to
function. This effort will extend the tool to allow users that have
disabled JavaScript in their browser to retrieve and navigate through
search results using the message list and single message views.
This effort will not attempt to preserve all of the functionality
provided with JavaScript enabled. In particular, when running with
JavaScript disabled, these features will not be available:
o Resizing of the message list panels.
o Dynamically filtering by time, list, or from. (The filter column
will not appear).
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2.8. Administration
This project will:
o Add a link from the message view to the admin page for the message
when logged in as an administrator.
o Add correction of the appropriate thread indices to the handling
of administrative imports of messages.
o Implement a redirection handler mapping legacy archive URLs to the
appropriate mailarch page.
o Make the underlying template consistent across all views presented
by the tool. In particular, ensure that the correct logo as
designated by the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC)
appears consistently on all views.
3. Security Considerations
The requirements for improvement to the mailarch tool captured in
this document do not introduce any exceptional security
considerations. They add additional navigation points, and the
implementers should consider the impact of rapid navigation using
these new mechanisms (see the security considerations of [RFC6778]).
4. References
4.1. Normative References
[RFC6778] Sparks, R., "Requirements for Archiving IETF Email Lists
and for Providing Web-Based Browsing and Searching",
RFC 6778, DOI 10.17487/RFC6778, October 2012,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6778>.
4.2. Informative References
[mailarch]
IETF, "Mail Archive", <https://mailarchive.ietf.org>.
Acknowledgments
The following people have provided particularly useful input for this
document: Lou Berger, Chris Bowers, Brian Carpenter, Russ Housley,
Pete Resnick, and Dale Worley.
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Author's Address
Robert Sparks
Oracle
7460 Warren Parkway
Suite 300
Frisco, Texas 75034
United States
Email: rjsparks@nostrum.com
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