well put. ( not excel, open office calc)

 I do not want to point to and click a record, and be taken to a different record.

If I went into the window and nothing was selected, I would like that better.

windows vista, and now on 7

pmail 32 4.62,4.51,4.XX before that 

I have noticed, over the last many releases of pmail, a behavior that no other program on my computers exhibits.

normally when you enter a folder by clicking on an record like in windows file manager, that entry is the selected record..

if you double click, it opens. 

however,

as long as I can remember, pmail has not behaved that way, and I have no idea why it should be different. 

first click on a record seems to enter the folder, but absolutely selects another record. second click does not open the record but selects it 

point to a new mail folder and double click a record / email and it is now selected. it happens in and only in pmail.

point to an email in a new mail folder and triple click that email and now it opens.

 I can not explain what is happening or why.

[quote user="bobcrownfield"]normally when you enter a folder by clicking on an record like in windows file manager, that entry is the selected record..

if you double click, it opens.[/quote]

The filemanager is not that good example, because  if you select a folder, the folder is opened, but nothing in the folder (even no file). You have to click on a file for selecting.

[quote]as long as I can remember, pmail has not behaved that way, and I have no idea why it should be different.[/quote]

I have an idea. That's no discussion on which behavior is better, but the behavior of Pegasus seems logical to me:

[quote]first click on a record seems to enter the folder, but absolutely selects another record. second click does not open the record but selects it 

point to a new mail folder and double click a record / email and it is now selected. it happens in and only in pmail.

point to an email in a new mail folder and triple click that email and now it opens.[/quote]

Hmm ... I think we should make a difference on the selected view in Pegasus:

• preview mode
  To select a record aka mail first you hav to open the folder with that mail. If you select a folder, the upper mail in that folder is opened (preview) and therefore selected. That's the difference to filemanager. The mailentry in that folder is marked grey. If you click once on this mail, it is deselected ("ungreyed")! If you initially doubleclick on that mail it will be deselected and selected again (and is marked blue ... with my configuration of Pegasus). So .. to open that mail in a seperate subwindow, you have indeed to click three times. I suppose that's the reason why the upper mail isn't marked blue on click on the folder - it doesn't behave like a "normally" selected mail.
  
  If you doubleclick on any other mail in that folder, the mail will be opened in seperate subwindow.
  
  
• window mode (classic view)
  If you click a folder windows, you activate that window. The last selected mail in that folder is marked or, if it is a new folder window, the first mail is selected and marked. If you doubleclick on a mail in a not selected window, the first click activates the subwindow, the second click deselects the marked mail (if you click on it) or selects the mail not marked before. But that's normal behavior of any windows program. What Pegasus in difference to some other programs doesn't do is an "on-mouse-over" for activating subwindows.
  

You have classic view?

bye   Olaf

Olaf:

classic view with all the common folders open.

so when I point to the email that you sent and click, to take me into the folder, but to another email than the one I just clicked on seems strange. I would rather that nothing is selected, rather than the wrong record. the windows rule is double click opens.

when I click on a record, I expect that record to be selected. Any user that points to a record, clicks, and expects anything but that record to be selected has a strange view of user interfaces. No program that I developed would ever fail to do that, nor would any rad environment I have seen ever not default to that. For a click on a record in a list pane to select the list pane but to select a different item than the one clicked just seems silly, and destined to promote errors. 

In classic mode, when selecting a record in a different window(folder), the first click activates that window then it requires a double click to open the record.  Perhaps that window activation click is the one that makes it feel like three clicks?

If so, this behavior is the same as when using a two pane windows explorer alternative or multi-window instances of Word or Excel.  A click is required to activate an inactive pane or window before any work can be performed.

Brian:

 One click + two clicks does feel like three clicks... 

The problem is that the record selected is different from the one clicked. If the folder were selected, but no record was selected, OK. 

If you click on a record, and another one is selected that you did not click on, that is not a good interface. 

in explorer, when explorer window is not selected, dbl clk on a record in that pane selects the pane, selects the file, and opens the file. 

When switching windows the last record that was active is the one selected by default.  I don't find this abnormal since all the first click is doing is activating the window.  I agree that Explorer doesn't work like that but Explorer is not running multiple windows or panes so doesn't need a window/pane activation click.  Sure, it has a Folder pane but that behaves quite differently from the Contents pane.  You can't double click a file and activate it from the Folder pane.

Explorer replacements like QDir and 2xExplorer run multiple panes and require a pane activation click.  Same holds true with Excel windows.  Open two spreadsheets and arrange them side by side.  You will find that the first click in the inactive window activates that window but does not activate the cell that was clicked on.  Instead, the last cell that was active is the active cell.  This behavior is second nature to anyone accustomed to working in apps that maintain multiple windows or panes but I can see where it could take some getting used to for anyone who isn't.

I just ran three instances of open office spreadsheet.After hopping back and forth between sheets, never, not even once, never was any cell selected except the one that I clicked on to enter. In each pane, the last item selected was highlighted until I clicked on the pane, when the clicked cell became highlighted.

Same for multiple instances of windows explorer.

If any programmer anywhere ever allows you to click on a specific item and then allows anything but the item that you clicked to be selected, that is a bad interface design. The people that taught me would have had a talk about interfaces with that programmer.Clicking on the pane or window is one thing, and previous selection is unchanged, but clicking on an item in that pane should never allow anything but that item to be selected. When you click on a record, that record is the only record that should be selected.  Anything else is an interface that is not well designed, and is applying requirements other than logical use to the interface design. 

[quote user="bobcrownfield"]

I just ran three instances of open office spreadsheet.After hopping back and forth between sheets, never, not even once, never was any cell selected except the one that I clicked on to enter. In each pane, the last item selected was highlighted until I clicked on the pane, when the clicked cell became highlighted.

[/quote]

I sure can't duplicate what you describe (Excel 2007).  If I have multiple sheets open and visible (Arrange All|Vertical or Arrange All|Horizontal) the only selected cell visible is the one in the active sheet.  When I switch between sheets using only the mouse the first click does not select the cell I clicked on it only activates that sheet.  The last selected cell in that sheet remains the selected cell.  If I Alt+Tab first then click, the clicked in cell gets selected.  The Alt+Tab took care of activating the pane of that sheet.  I wonder if the behavior is different on different versions of Excel.  It's really a mute point.  In Pegasus Mail, the window activation click is needed when multiple folder windows are open.  That bothers you, it doesn't bother me.  It is what it is.  Perhaps it will be different in v5.