Yes, Mail’s searching features could use major improvements. It’s strange how, with OS X 10.4, Apple went all the way Spotlight, and in the process somehow “forgot” some basic search needs. It’s the same with file names in the Finder. It’s pretty basic stuff. Why do I need to use a third-party tool to do this?

Here’s hoping that 10.5 will restore some kind of balance…

Forgive a bit more off-topic wandering …

In general, Mail navigation/selection/searching (threaded or not) is begging for improvements.

Something I particularly miss from Mulberry is being able to option-click (IIRC) a sender address and have the message list collapse to only list those from that sender. Basically, a one-click From field search. Option-clicking on other fields would have a similar selective-search-display behavior.

Why can’t Mail search specific header fields except in Smart Mailboxes? I don’t want to create a Smart Mailbox for every style of search. And the “any/all” limitation with Smart Mailbox conditions makes it harder to match in multiple mailboxes.

Then there’s the whacky mailbox list (de)selection/focus, of course.

Re: comment previewing. Thanks for considering it in the Betalogue post-WP-upgrade future.

In addition, these commands are horribly dumb. The Previous command remains enabled even if all messages in the thread are selected, and just plays a system beep when you try to use it. The Select All command remains enabled even if all messages are selected too, which doesn’t make any sense.

I must admit I never pay any attention to that particular submenu.

As for comment previewing, I think I’d have to upgrade to WordPress 2, which I am not planning to do at the moment. But I’ll look into it. Maybe it can be done with a plug-in.

Another frustration is not being able to easily select/display only unread messages in a thread, whether expanded/collapsed and especially when they’re discontinuous.

There’s also an issue (which I haven’t fully analyzed yet) with discerning the parent message of certain replies in threads. Seems that Mail unthreads/rethreads messages that originate from a common parent instead of keeping them all within a single thread. And what criteria “View > Select > All Messages in this Thread” uses is a mystery.

Also, there’s the inability to navigate to the next/previous unread message directly from an open message window, which you’ve probably written about before. It’s tedious deciding how many messages to open at a time, plus having to first expand a thread to see the total number of messages in it or risk encountering the “do you really want to open a bazillion message windows” warning. Sometimes I’ll temporarily turn off threading and/or switch to the default 3-pane mode and fuddle with navigation/viewing from there.

Off-topic, but I’ll toss it in here:

Whatever Cyrus Daboo (of Mulberry fame) is doing at Apple now, I hope some of Mulberry’s smarter ideas/features manage to trickle into Mail (with an emphasis on usability rather than Mulberry’s oft-obscurity). A few times, before permanently switching to Mail, I wrote on the mulberry-discuss list that a “best of” fusion of Mail and Mulberry could come close to being the OS X IMAP mail client I’d be most satisfied using. That’s pretty much describes how I still feel now, preferring some of Mail’s features (including useful plugins like Mail Act-On) yet missing several of Mulberry’s (like identities).

PS: Any chance you’ll add comment previewing to Betalogue? The optional live previewing on Hawk Wings and Red Sweater is quite nice.

As for the work-around, you are right. It works. But of course since expanding the thread causes Mail to jump to a specific message in the thread, this forces you to go back up to the headling line first before you can press Enter. Like you said, if the thread is long (lots of messages), that’s not really a pleasant alternative.

I suspect that… Apple’s engineers tend to use Mail in the default view mode with the “message area” pane open, and tend not to read messages in their own separate windows.

I’m inclined to doubt that, if only because I’ve never known a power user that worked like that.

As to the main issue — there’s a workaround, though it’s certainly not perfect. If the thread is expanded, and you press Enter by selecting the heading line, then when you return to the message list after deleting all messages, it will take you to the next item that was listed after the thread.

This requires a few extra button presses; or many if the thread is long, but it’s still less disruptive.