271873 - Product should respect the 'hidden' attribute of files it finds in mail repository

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Backend, defect)

Description

[David A. Cobb]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041121 Firefox/0.9.1+
Build Identifier: Thunderbird trunk version 0.6+ (20041121)

MS-Windows creates hidden files, notably 'Desktop.ini' here and there as part of
how it keeps track of user preferences, etc.  Happily, these are at least marked
'hidden.'

On a *Nix installation, files are hidden by convention if their name begins with
'.' -- I discovered more or less by accident that such files/folders are not
displayed in the mail archive.  It was a confusing surprise at first, but now I
see it is a Really Good Thing™.

However, if 'Desktop.ini' files pop up in the archive, Thunderbird expends some
waste effort creating Summary files and even empty Folder directories to match.  
This makes the user interface a touch less convenient: I didn't test what would
happen if one actually tried storing mail in one of them, but they clutter the
display, or worse.  

Please, just choose not to see the darn things at all!

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Open the local folders directory in Windows.  I think this will happen even
if you open a parent of it.
2.  Perform some view customization; say, 'Select Details' and set the changes
as a model for the subfolders.
3.  Launch Thunderbird

Actual Results:  
All (or many) mail folders are now cluttered up with "Desktop.ini" subfolders.

Expected Results:  
Because the existence of these files is an implementation secret of the OS,
applications should silently ignore them.

Comment 1

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Desktop.ini implementation started with Win98.

Comment 2

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

sorry for the spam.  making bugzilla reflect reality as I'm not working on these bugs.  filter on FOOBARCHEESE to remove these in bulk.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

wontfix?