[pmmail-list] PMMail and Filters

[Frans Morre]

Sorry for the late reply, the one I sent yesterday bounced.

On Sun, 26 May 2002 23:18:19 -0700, Felix Chung wrote:

> 1. Adding a message to the filters option when right clicking on a message.

Yep, a "New Filter" context menu choice might be handy.

> During my trial run, I noticed that once the filter config. window is open,
> I am unable to get to the email from which I want to get the filtering information.

Yep, so you need to open all messages with strings you may need while
composing filters BEFORE starting the filter tool. That one is only
modal with the main panel, not with individual mail windows. I suspect
they made it modal since allowing you to change the directory structure
of your mails would mess with the choices you're presented when
choosing certain options. Changing this behaviour might be a structural
change for the whole filtering tool. OTOH, if you start the filter
builder from the "Tools" menu, common strings could be picked up
automatically.

> 2. Allow for a browse window in the filter configuration window so
> the user can find the appropriate folder (if it is not in the default directory)
> or to create a new one.  I was unable to create the folder I needed, so 
> I had to close the window, create one and start the filtering process again.

As for finding an appropriate folder, why would you need that ? 
Filters work either on incoming or outgoing mail, or you prepare a
manual filter that you will pick later when you are in the directory
where you want it
executed. The filtering tool just edits your filters, it doesn't
execute them. BTW, even if you intend a filter to be executed from just
one folder, manual filters could be executed everywhere.

> 5. Allow the user to enter password at the time of checking email.

You can password protect each account, so you could get by if you close
an account when you're done with it. The next PMMail user (might be you
again) will have to give the password again before re-opening and using
that account. That said, I'd like another option there allowing
automatic mail runs and filtering to continue even when the account is
"closed" this way, so that re-opening with a password doesn't initiate
a very lengthy mail run.

> 6. Have an option for the user to have a log window (scrollable and displays 1-2 lines).
> Double clicking on it opens a full window.

Logging what ? This looks a bit like the message logs in the bottom
status bars of Lotus Notes 4.x ...  Opening the account error log by
double clicking would be a nice touch.

> 7. In filters, allow users to move drag and drop them in order to change
> their priorities.  This is very handy if there are many filters 

Yep, the endless clicking to position a filter in the list is insane. 
If easier on the programmers, I'd settle for a change where a filter
continues to go up or down as long as we hold the mouse button pressed
on the "Up" or "Down" command buttons.


So, let's add a couple more filtering wishes by me ;)

 * allow messages to be copied/moved to other PMMail accounts. If
that's not practical due to the independent nature of the folder ID's
in each account, then just allow this to be done to their InBox (which
has a fixed number). From there, another filter can be set to place it
anywhere in that account.

 * In the filtering tool, allow a "Copy Filter" command as an
alternative to making a new one from scratch. This should open a copy
of the currently highlighted filter for editing (i.c. adapt name and
other details). Maybe substitute "New Filter" as filter name.

Finally, something that's bugging me on the OS/2 version, I've no
experience on Windows. A mail run is considerably slower whith filters,
about 1 to 2 seconds per message here when about 50 filters are
enabled, and the swapfile grows a couple MByte each run. No biggie as
long as I restart the app regularly, but is this normal behaviour ?

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