Having an option to manually mark items as read, instead of doing so automatically, would greatly improved my workflow, I don’t think it is very useful with the current functionality which is the equivalent of Read=Previously Displayed.
The problem is that the good-old “email read” paradigm was broken a long long time ago when the “preview” pane appeared in applications. Nowadays people browse with cursor keys the list without any intention of reading everything that shows up in the preview pane between point A and point B - but nonetheless they get marked as read.
Just something to consider, to make the “read” functionality a bit more useful, and not having to resort to tags for that.
I concur. My ideal workflow is to configure DT to mark everything imported from outside as Unread, and let me manually mark an item as Read when I consider it appropriate.
The current implementation of automatically marking as Read on open effectively renders the Read / Unread functionality completely pointless for me. Please consider offering us an alternative option.
As a newcomer, I was just looking for how to manually set an item as unread. I have the same use-case like zinoff: scrolling through a group of imported (or in need of review) items with the arrow keys to select and proceed with a specific case. It’s really annoying that all other items are marked as unread along the way.
Turning off the preview pane is not an option - the pane really helps to browse through the content of a group and select the right file or item.
“Read=Previously Displayed” is pointless exactly as zinoff writes and in my eyes correctly justified. More sense makes “Read=Prosessed” - but for that I have to be able to set the item as read manually.
Therefore I kindly ask for such a feature as well.
You could simply set every document to be labelled e.g. pink on import/creation (using a smart rule) and then unmark documents as you go along, much the same way as you would manually mark them read.
My workflow is different, so the current behaviour of the read indication is fine for me; it would remain equally unproblematic if documents were marked read after being displayed for 5 seconds too, though - that sort of setting might provide the best of both worlds.
Thanks for your help and support, your answers have put me on a track - I have now implemented a smart rule: If an item is marked as “read” set “unread” after opening. This way every item remains unread.
I have been wanting to keep the “unread” status for all unprocessed elements, as I find it useful to have the corresponding counter displayed along the group. The counter would not work with a label as far as I understand.
At the end – another smart rule marks “read” either after I move the item or set a determined label.