Message List Fields

Each row in a message list is spoken as a single line — sender, subject, date, and so on. View → Message List Fields… lets you decide which of those pieces are spoken and in what order. It is also in the command palette as Message List Fields…. It has no keyboard shortcut of its own; assign one in File → Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts if you want one.

Open it and you get a list of every available field, each one a real check box. Check a field to have it spoken, uncheck it to leave it out, and move it to change where it falls in the line.

Move Up, Move Down, Reset to Defaults, and Close are buttons as well. Moving a field says where it landed — “Moved down. Position 4 of 13.” — and adds “Not spoken” when the field you moved is switched off, so a move that changes nothing you can hear says so.

The Spoken preview box at the bottom shows the message you had selected when you opened the window, read exactly as the list would read it, updating as you go.

There is no OK or Cancel — changes save as you make them, and take effect immediately. The window is modeless, so you can leave it open, arrow through the message list behind it, and hear the result.

Row types

The Row type list at the top chooses which kind of row you are editing. Each keeps its own arrangement:

• Messages — individual messages, in the flat list and inside all three group trees.
• Conversation groups — the top-level rows in the Conversations view.
• Sender and recipient groups — the top-level rows in the From and To views.

Fields for messages

Fields for group rows

Conversation groups offer Subject, Message count, Sender, Flag, Has unread, Preview, and Date. Sender and recipient groups offer Sender, Message count, Flag, Has unread, Preview, Date, and Newest subject. A message count is spoken as “1 message” or “3 messages”.

Speaking a state only when it applies

Fields such as Unread, Replied, and Attachments are states rather than text, so selecting one offers a choice:

• Speak only when true — say “unread” on unread messages and nothing at all on read ones.
• Always speak — say “unread” or “read”, whichever applies.

This is how you get “tell me about unread but never say read”: turn Status (combined) off, turn Unread on, and leave it on Speak only when true. Fields with no meaningful opposite — Attachments, for example — stay silent when false in either mode.

Status (combined) and the separate states overlap. Both say the word “unread”, so turning on Unread while Status (combined) is still on says it twice. Whenever that would happen, the About this field note in the options pane says so and tells you which one to turn off. The note is a focusable box, so it is reachable from the keyboard rather than being text only a sighted user would notice.

Field labels

Speak field labels prefixes each text field with its name, so a row reads “From: Chris Lee. Subject: Budget review.” rather than “Chris Lee. Budget review.” It applies to all three row types. States and counts are never labelled, since “unread” and “3 messages” already say what they are.

Starting over

Reset to Defaults restores the shipped arrangement for the row type you are currently editing, leaving the other two alone.

Until you change anything, rows read the way they always have. Empty fields are skipped rather than leaving a gap, so a message with no preview or no subject reads without a pause where it would have been.

This window replaces the old Announce flag status checkbox in Settings — the flag is now the Flag field here, which you can turn off, or move anywhere in the line. If you had that checkbox turned off, the Flag field starts out turned off to match; from then on this window owns the choice.