Closed Bug 17319 Opened 25 years ago Closed 22 years ago

Specify the From header while composing a message

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement, P3)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Composition
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 87987

People

(Reporter: mozilla, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: helpwanted) 

For instance, rather than having to have a different profile for every name or
e-mail address you might want to use, it'd be nice to have an option to type in
a From field at composition time. If not that then be able to specify a bunch
of different From headers for use with a specific account.

This is mostly for fun... it'd be nice to joke around with friends and have e-
mail sent to them with the name being whatever you feel like at the time. Also,
specifically for cases like mine where I have a catch all e-mail address for my
domain, I could specify a different e-mail address whenever I want.

If you have any questions about what I mean, feel free to ask. I've been
wanting this in Outlook Express for awhile, but it doesn't have it, so I always
have to mail my friends with my boring real name and my boring default e-mail
address. Thanks a lot!

Keith
should we add this to the HELP WANTED list?
Assignee: ducarroz → nobody
Summary: be able to specify the FROM name and address at time of composition → [HELP WANTED] Specify the From header while composing a message
Whiteboard: [HELP WANTED]
Our mozilla UI design is that the From header is a combobox which is built from
the identities you have configured in your profile.

We do have the capability to specify an arbitrary number of "identities" per
server account. Our current UI restricts it to one identity per account, but you
could build a UI which allowed multiple identities per account.
alecf@netscape.com would know how to do that.

So, if someone wanted, they could build a UI where the From header is an
edit-text box, or a UI for more easily adding multiple identities to an account.

Adding to the help wanted list.
Not sure what it is called in developer-speak, but on Win32, at least, there are
drop-down list boxes that allow editing as well. You could keep the current UI
and just change that list box to allow editing of its contents. That way there
is no need to fuss with changing how accounts are created and stored, etc.
I really disagree with this because I think it would be bad "net ettiquite" to
make it that easy to change your "From" header.... I think there are a small
number of power users that would use this capability correctly, but far more
that would abuse it, and those abusers would annoy the heck out of those power
users :)

Thus, I think it is appropriate to REQUIRE users to edit their account settings
in order to change the "From" field in the combo box. It should be an extra
effort for special situations.

About the widgets: yes, that's true, but mozilla uses all its own widgets, so
having this capability on one particular widget on one particular platform does
not benefit mozilla at all, sorry :(
"I really disagree with this because I think it would be bad "net ettiquite" to
make it that easy to change your "From" header.... I think there are a small
number of power users that would use this capability correctly, but far more
that would abuse it, and those abusers would annoy the heck out of those power
users :)"

That's a very good point, and I pretty much agree. So this definitely says
that it shouldn't be an option enabled by default. It'd be really nice to
have it available under say the 'advanced' section of the mail/news prefs,
since most people would probably leave that section alone. I've been trying
to think of how this should be under the UI...

Ok, forget everything else. I thought about it for awhile and I have an idea.

Here's what I propose...

There is no reason why the accounts should necessarily include both identity
information and server information. They are separate entities. One pertains to
how I access and send my e-mail, in other words, the transport mechanism, and
the other pertains to the e-mail I send (who it's from, what the reply-to
address is, etc), in other words, the content that flows over the transport
mechanism. There should always be a separation here.

So... I propose having two separate things: "accounts" and "identities". An
account would include the server information, pop, imap, and smtp, etc. and an
identity could include the real name of the person, his e-mail address, reply-
to address and organization, plus whatever else pertains to the identity of the
person.

Then there should be a way from the 'identity manager' to specify what accounts
an identity can use, or a way from the 'account manager' to specify what
identities may be used for an account. I'm not sure which way makes more sense.
(Maybe both ways could be used somehow?)

Anyway, to make it easy and familiar for newbies you could have a
default "simple" interface that would only allow for one identity per account,
for example, and an advanced interface that would allow you to specify
identities independent of the accounts that they are used with.

This way you would still have to actually go through the trouble of setting up
an extra identity so it would protect against people typing in whatever they
want in the from field, but it wouldn't force people to duplicate account
information all over the place just to have the e-mail look like it came from a
different person. As in the case where one person might handle the sales and
the support for a small company... he can have separate identities for
sales@company.com and support@company.com, but could just specify the servers
and username once.

Anyway, I think this makes a lot of sense, and it would still allow the
composition window to just contain a combo box letting you select identities to
choose who the mail is from.
I disagree. Correct use for power users would require an additional Sender
header. If Mozilla would autmatically force a Sender header as soon as the user
types an email address that does not belong to any identity _and_ present an
indication of that in the UI, users would IMO not be tempted to try abusing
that feature. (The user could then select a identity for the Sender header.)
*** Bug 15485 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Bug 18882 is related
As long as Mozilla will automatically allow specifying a munged email when
posting to usenet, I don't mind if we can't do this. Otherwise, I do not want to
have to create an account with a munged address, and have its existence
polluting my "Local Folders" just to avoid being spammed to death.

Another satisfactory resolution would be server-side filters in Mozilla for
email.
Adding myself to the CC: list
Keywords: helpwanted
I think I'm going to mark this "fixed" since we do have separate identities for
news servers, and you can make the email address for that identity whatever you
want.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 25 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Summary: [HELP WANTED] Specify the From header while composing a message → Specify the From header while composing a message
Whiteboard: [HELP WANTED]
And Mozilla will also set our return address according to the address that we 
received mail?

EXAMPLE:

I have two accounts, 1 work and 1 personal. Mozilla gets mail from both. When I 
reply to a message sent jerry@work.com Mozilla will set my From: header to 
jerry@work.com and likewise for each account? If not, this bug is not fixed.
This could be interpreted two ways:ight now replies are based on the server for
the mailbox you're reading....

so if you have two seperate accounts, and you're reading mail in your "INBOX" on
account1, then your reply will default to being from the email address in
account1.

I have a seperate bug for the other interpretation, which I believe is
ultimately the correct behavior: making it look at the current headers displayed
in the 3pane, and choosing the from: based on the headers, rather than the
mailbox which stores the message.

So I think this bug is fixed, and that you might be referring to the other bug.
You should try a nightly build and see if it does what you want..
*** Bug 65403 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I wrote bug Bug 65403 which was marked as a duplicate of this bug.  So,
obviously, I don't think this bug has been fixed.  To keep this post from being
long AND boring, I will summerize what I wrote in Bug 65403:

There should be a feature in the mail client to allow multiple e-mail addresses
for people that have more e-mail addresses forwarded to one e-mail addresses
such as my e-mail addresses that forward spam, lists, and companies sales/technical.

Although the way to set up these "alias" or "identities" should not be easy, it
should not involve setting up a new mail account because a mail account needs
pop server.  And, it also clutters the mail window with folders, and might cause
confusion to the user.

Therefore, I reccomend (with my lack of authority and all...) that this bug be
reopened.

I am sorry if I just beat a dead issue "deader".

you're requesting a DIFFERENT FEATURE. You're requesting MULTIPLE IDENTITIES. It
is not the same.
Mass removing self from CC list.
Now I feel sumb because I have to add back. Sorry for the spam.
I would really like to be able to edit the From header of my email messages and
suggest this bug be reopened.  I have email sent to a different address for most
things I sign up for nowadays to track spam and make filtering easy.  The number
of possible addresses is far too high to make a seperate identity for all my
addresses, or even enter the names into a static form.
The way the To, CC, and such headers are set would be great for From.
I don't care if the option is hidden (not in the UI) but it would actually
increase my "net politeness" because if somebody sent an email to me at
webmaster@elektrono.com then they would get an email back from that address
instead of my regular email address, which requires an explaination that I am
the same person.
This is actually a dup of bug 87987.
reopen to mark dup
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Resolution: FIXED → ---

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 87987 ***
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 25 years ago → 22 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
v
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Product: MailNews → Core
Product: Core → MailNews Core
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