106518 - "create filter" from a "To:" email address in the message pane creates a "From" filter for the address

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Filters, defect)

Description

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

creating a prefilter from a "To:" email address in the message pane creates a
filter for the "From:" email address

say the message is From [e-mail], to [e-mail], and I belong to the
alias, which is how I get the message.

when I right click and create a filter on the "from", we create a "from is foo"
filter.

when I right click and create a filter on the "to" email, we create a "from is
[e-mail]" filter, instead of a "to is [e-mail]".

Comment 1

[laurel]

Current commercial trunk build behavior is correct according to what we intend:
If message is From: [e-mail] and To: [e-mail] and I click
on the To: header and use create filter, the prefilled criteria is "Sender Is
[e-mail]" .

Spec: http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/specs/filters/FilterPrefill1.html

Excerpt: The first conditions line is prefilled with: "the 'Sender' 'Is'
<email_address>".  Regardless of whether the user clicked on a "From", "To", or
"Cc", the filter is created using "the ' Sender' ' Is' <email_address>".

Comment 2

[jglick]

As Laurel mentioned, this is per design. Rational was that the user is creating 
a filter based on the selected email address (vs. the message as a whole), and 
that a filter using email address as "Sender" was probably more common than an 
email address as "To" or "Cc". 

I can see how this might lead to potential confusion though. If you think of 
this feature as created a filter based on the message as a whole (vs. the 
selected email address), folks would most likely expect the filter being created 
to match the "From", "To", Cc" settings of the original message.

Would like to hear other folks thoughts on this one.

Comment 3

[Nathaniel]

This is inconsistent. I can understand the reasoning (frequency) behind making
the filter always default to sender, but in that case it should also deafult the
email address to sender (if we're viewing the message as "a whole" as suggested
by jglick.)

As it is, defaulting to using the specific address but not the specific location
seems very broken. I would suggest either deciding that filters should default
to being filters "from the sender" of the email or not.

My preference would be to make the filter default to being location and name
specific rather than defaulting to "sent by"..."sender".

Comment 4

[laurel]

*** Bug 123453 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[Chris Pickett]

Hi,

I keep all messages from and to a given email address in the same folder.  For
this reason, I need filters to work correctly on the sent items folder as well
as the inbox.  For me, the best behaviour for "create filter from message" would
create a filter that has "any of the following" marked, and then "Sender is x"
as well as "To is x".  This would make me very happy.

If people didn't want this behaviour, you could make a simple preference in the
mail settings for on/off.

Note that actually, I think more advanced filters might be necessary to get this
working, such that I could specify (("Sender is x" && "Recipient is me") ||
("Sender is me" && "Recipient is x")).  This prevents messages from x to me and
y ending up in y's folder (or something like that).  However, that all said, it
may not be a problem if the boolean expression short circuits, which I think it
does.

Cheers,
Chris Pickett

Comment 6

[Michael Hearn]

This behaviour just tripped me up.

In particular I often try this to filter mailing list messages - one way of
selecting addresses from a listserv is to filter on the "To" field which will
always be the address of the list. When creating a filter in this way, the fact
that it defaults to "Sender is" is confusing, and appears to be a bug.

Perhaps the usability people should look at this? Right clicking on a header and
choosing "create filter from message" feels like it should use the header I
clicked on, rather than the message as a whole.

thanks -mike

Comment 7

[laurel]

*** Bug 175772 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Frank]

Using Mozilla 1.2 Build 20021126 the context-menu supports a "Create Filter from
Message" on *any mail adress* right-clicked in the *mailheader* pane. 
(So it would better be labeled "Create Filter From Adress")

Comment 9

[Frank]

Mark fixed?

Comment 10

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

taking all of varada's bugs.

Comment 11

[u32858]

Confirming still present in
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212, build 2002121217

Is anyone working on a fix for this?
JG

Comment 12

[Sander]

*** Bug 189885 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Sander]

Piping up as requested per comment 2. There is an ever increasing desire to
filter on "To:" email addresses as well, as more and more people have their own
domain name and toss out unique email addresses on various websites. As soon as
you get spam abusing one such address, right-click, "create message filter from"
on that To: address would be quite useful. 
The current behaviour of sticking with "sender" but filling in whichever email
address was clicked is definitely inconsistent however and needs to be changed.

btw, the spec quoted in comment 1 no longer seems to be available.

Comment 14

[JoSH Lehan]

I agree that it is misleading and wrong to have the contents of the "From"
header field appear in the generated filter, when the user right-clicked on a
different field.

When the user right-clicks on a header field, the filter should be prefilled
with the contents of that field.  This makes sense, and is the logical
behaviour.  This behaviour is already done for the field name!  It makes no
sense to not do this for the field contents.

The field name is already prefilled correctly: "To", "Reply-To", and so forth. 
It matches what the user clicked on.

However, the field contents will always contain the "From" field, no matter what
field the user actually clicked on!  I consider this to be a bug, since it's a
surprising behaviour, and not expected by the user (I have not read the official
Mozilla spec).

I can't imagine a situation in which the user would want the "From" field
contents always used as the filter, when the user in fact clicked on a different
field name, not "From".

I'd go as far as saying it's a bug in the spec :)

Please make the filter contents have the same behaviour as the field name, and
prefill the correct header that was clicked on by the user.

Comment 15

[Alden Stradling]

Perhaps it's be better to allow the choice in the right-click menu - another
menu level in the Create Filter From Message... that allows you to preselect
"filter To:" and "filter From:" and "filter Subject:" ... allowing one less
level of data entry once one finally gets to the dialog box. Of course, that box
should be able to handle everything from there on out.  

Comment 16

[Nelson Bolyard (seldom reads bugmail)]

This bugs me, too.  When I create a filter from the To: email address,
I expect the created filter to filter on the To: address, not the From.

Comment 17

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Updating summary for searchability; resetting target.

Comment 18

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 271190 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[Nick Hatch]

I think this really should be considered a bug because:

1) Nobody is standing up and defending or explaining the thinking behind the
"current" spec
2) Filtering based on recipient is common to sort mailing lists, etc. The
current behaviour is unexpected.

Comment 20

[Anders Conbere]

The current action makes no sense in context.  You right click on the to address
to recieve a context sensative menu, but the actions that it offers are not
contextual.  No one is going to right click the to address and expect that it
would make a filter for the sender.  That's not in-line with the reasons for
clicking there.  It just doesn't make sense.

If the menu is going to be context sensative, I think that you have to have the
filters adapt to the context.

Anders

Comment 21

[timeless]

let's change the spec.

Comment 22

[[e-mail]]

Anyone attempting to implement this needs to test it with a news post that's
been CC'd - mozilla can't filter on CC in newsgroups.

Comment 23

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

The behavior has changed, I guess -- testing with current trunk builds, both SM and TB create a filter with the expected address, but it's still set to use the From header (easily changed, of course).

xref bug 199274 (an RFE for easier creation of a filter based on any header in the selected message).

Comment 24

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 281016 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 25

[Miles Libbey]

If I got to spec this, I'd want the filter's input box to autofil whatever selector I chose.  If I chose the 'create filter  action from a message:
To: miles
From: Dad
Subject: Happy Birthday

and then chose the 'create filter from message' action and switched to To:, I'd want the input switched to 'miles'.  If I switched to Subject, the input should autoswitch to Happy Birthday, etc.

If onlyt the From can get autofilled, and the input never automagically changes, the feature should be renamed to 'Create filter for this author' to more accurately reflect its behavior.    

Comment 28

[Ingemar Nilsson]

I agree that the logical behavior would be to preselect the field that I clicked on, not the Sender field that it always uses now. If the spec says the current behavior is correct, then let's change the spec, as it currently makes no sense.

Comment 30

[Brandon Sterne (:bsterne)]

Are there any plans to work on this?  I agree with comments 25 and 28.  The "spec" referenced in many of the comments here seems to have disappeared so it shouldn't constitute any roadblock to us changing the behavior.