177093 - Ability to create filters for Local Folders

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(MailNews Core :: Filters, enhancement)

Description

[Alessandro Minghelli]

I still found this enh in the past (147675). But it was marked as duplicated of
11033. 
Now 11033 is closed but i can't still create filter for local account.

Comment 1

[Simon Spiegel]

I don't really see the point of 'filter after the fact' if it doesn't work on
local folders. I know that some people will disagree but I don't see this bug as
an enhancement but as a fix for a only half working feature.

Comment 2

[Sander]

*** Bug 184819 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Sander]

*** Bug 193365 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

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

mass re-assign.

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 214550 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

*** Bug 218159 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[JoSH Lehan]

The "Create Filter From Message" option is enabled for a message in all folders
that are not part of the Local Folders tree.  This is good.

For some reason, this option is disabled for a message in a folder that is part
of the Local Folders tree!

This seems like an unnecessary restriction to me.  There seems to be no
technical reason why the "Create Filter From Message" option would need to be
disabled simply because a message is in a local folder.

There is an easy workaround for this, though:

1) Move the message into a folder associated with an online account (not Local
Folders).
2) Create Filter From Message.
3) Move the message back to where it's supposed to be.

This is a minor annoyance, but it is acceptable until this bug can be fixed.  

I believe that it is unnecessary to force the "Create Filter From Message" menu
item to be grayed out for messages in Local Folders.

Comment 8

[Seth Master]

*** Bug 206615 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[max]

Actually, you could copy your msgFilters.dat to LocalFolders and it would work.
So GUIs restrictions is really artifical!

Comment 10

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Why restrcit?
Due to Bug 66391 or Bug 180094 problem?

Comment 11

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 218160 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 229521 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[R.K.Aa.]

*** Bug 237869 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 14

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 241218 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Tuukka Tolvanen (sp3000)]

*** Bug 243256 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 16

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

Now that the global inbox changes have been checked in, I'd call this a minor
loss of function with an easy workaround (i.e. severity=minor)

Comment 17

[Alessandro Minghelli]

(In reply to comment #16)
> Now that the global inbox changes have been checked in, I'd call this a minor
> loss of function with an easy workaround (i.e. severity=minor)

I installed new rel (0.7) by a little but i didn't see how I can work around the
problem. I, and I think many other, whish try the easy workaround before
declassing this ENH.

Comment 18

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

If one makes use of Tb 0.7's new global inbox feature, one can no longer filter
incoming mail. This makes it a loss of function. The workaround is simply to
stop using the global inbox feature.

Because function is lost (when using another Tb feature), I suggest this bug be
promoted to Minor (I think it's a bug now, rather than an enhancement request).

Comment 19

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

(In reply to comment #18)
> If one makes use of Tb 0.7's new global inbox feature, one can no longer
> filter incoming mail. This makes it a loss of function. The workaround is
> simply to stop using the global inbox feature.

Note that the UI for this new feature did not make the cut for 0.7; I believe 
it's in current nightlies, tho (see bug 243837).

You can still define folders for the original accounts, and they will be 
utilized for incoming mail.

However, it's still true that after-the-fact filters (Tools|Run Filters on 
Folder  and  Tools|Message Filters|Run Now) are now unavailable for the Inbox.

Comment 20

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> However, it's still true that after-the-fact filters (Tools|Run Filters on 
> Folder  and  Tools|Message Filters|Run Now) are now unavailable for the Inbox.

Yes, that's what I meant - thanks :)

My filters are set up to apply only once the message is read. Because Tb only
runs filters upon receipt and when manually prompted, I can no longer filter
messages into the appropriate folder once read. (It should probably run filters
automatically - perhaps filtering existing messages in an inbox when checking it
for new mail?)

Comment 21

[David :Bienvenu]

Greg, you want to run the Tools | Run Filters on Folder command? So you want to
have filters in the local folders account? The other choice is to be able to run
filters for the deferred account on the local folders inbox, using the message
filters dialog. Currently, that doesn't let you pick the local folders inbox as
the folder to run the filters on, which is a bug...

Comment 22

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> Greg, you want to run the Tools | Run Filters on Folder command? So you want to
> have filters in the local folders account? The other choice is to be able to run
> filters for the deferred account on the local folders inbox, using the message
> filters dialog. Currently, that doesn't let you pick the local folders inbox as
> the folder to run the filters on, which is a bug...

In fact it's this bug :) I think having filters from other (hidden) accounts
being run on the Local Folders account would be too confusing, i.e. why this was
happening would not be clear.

If I were running the show, I'd allow filters to be set for Local Folders. When
an account is deferred to Local Folders, I'd offer the option to move that
account's filters to apply to Local Folders instead.

The user could select, from a list of the newly-deferred account's filters,
which to move to Local Folders (checkboxes, OK & Cancel). If this is
impractical, or just too much hassle, simply the option to move all of them (a
Yes/No dialogue) would be OK.

When accounts are deferred, it needn't still be possible to set filters for that
account (I'm not sure if it currently is), because if the user wanted to
distinguish between incoming accounts, they probably wouldn't be using Global
Inbox. Anyway, they could apply a filter to Local Folders which specifies a
certain To: address.

So, any filters which are not moved by the user when applying Global Inbox
should be deleted (the user should obviously be warned of this before they decide). 

Also, the Message Filters dialogue's folder list should mirror the main window's
folder list (deferred accounts needn't be shown).

The reasoning behind all of this is to present only one inbox to the user, at
all times except in the Account Settings dialogue. The user should not have to
know that one account = one inbox; they should be allowed to think that accounts
and inboxes are separate entities - this seems to be the original motive behind
the Global Inbox option.

Comment 23

[David :Bienvenu]

well, I think we disagree about this - currently, you can define filters
specific to deferred accounts, and they work fine when applied to incoming mail.
It's reasonable to have different filters for different accounts, even if the
mail is ultimately stored in the global inbox.

Having local mail filters run after the fact, or which run in addition to the
per-account filters, would be nice.

Comment 24

[Grey Nicholson (they/them)]

(In reply to comment #23)
> It's reasonable to have different filters for different accounts, even if the
> mail is ultimately stored in the global inbox.
> 
> Having local mail filters run after the fact, or which run in addition to the
> per-account filters, would be nice.

Yeah, I agree that makes sense. In fact, the current implementation of Global
Inbox + Filters makes logical sense. Just the lack of Local Folders
filterability stops the system working fully.

Another idea:
If we're going to have an option for Global Inbox, how about we also have Global
Filters? An All Folders option could be added to the Message Filters folder
list; filters created under it would apply to all mail everywhere.

This would "solve" this bug - we'd be able to create filters which apply to
Local Folders (though not *only* to Local Folders).

Comment 25

[Alessandro Minghelli]

(In reply to comment #24)

> Another idea:
> If we're going to have an option for Global Inbox, how about we also have Global
> Filters? An All Folders option could be added to the Message Filters folder
> list; filters created under it would apply to all mail everywhere.
> 
> This would "solve" this bug - we'd be able to create filters which apply to
> Local Folders (though not *only* to Local Folders).

I think that is not a solution. May be a new function named "Global Filter" but
not a solution for filter on local folder. 

Comment 26

[David :Bienvenu]

you can't have truly "global" filters, because news, pop3, imap, etc, have
different things you can filter on...you could have filters that were "global"
to all pop3 servers, and local folders...

Comment 27

[David :Bienvenu]

taking

Comment 28

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 260404 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 29

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 261004 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 30

[Martin Gill]

I wish to disagree with the severity of this problem.

I'm just trying to migrate away from outlook, and i've wasted a good 2 hours
trying to figure out why I can't create filters on my messages!

Actually.. it's worse. I can create filters, but when I try to run the filters
on the local folders box nothing happens. From my point of view that is a broken
feature, and not an enhancement.

I was going to set thunderbird up for someone else, but there's no way i can
explain to them why this feature isn't working, or how to get around it, as they
are already scared to death of computers.

From a Human Computer Interaction point of view, this behaviour is awful.

Please fix this soonest.

Comment 31

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

(In reply to comment #30)

> I wish to disagree with the severity of this problem.

"Local Folders" was initially intoroduced for IMAP and mainly used for IMAP.
(In addition, used for mail import.)
This is the main reason of some current limitations or restrictions on "Local
Folders" and severity="Enhancement".

Workaround when Global Inbox is used for POP3 accounts :
 - Do not use "Local Folders" as Global Inbox.
 - Use a main account as Global Inbox account,
   and set this main account as Global Inbox account for other accounts.

David, how about disabling "Local Folders" choice on Global Inbox definition
until "Local Folders" related problems will be resolved?
I belive this circumvention will reduce complaints from users.

Comment 32

[David :Bienvenu]

it would be less work to actually just allow you to run the filters for the
deferred account on the local folders...having local folder filters is orthogonal.

Comment 33

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 262483 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 34

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: proposed fix

Comment 35

[David :Bienvenu]

Attachment: fix w/o extra cruft

that last patch had an extra diff we don't need, from a different bug

Comment 36

[David :Bienvenu]

Comment on attachment 161898 [details] [diff] [review]
fix w/o extra cruft

make it so servers by default can have filters (since all servers can have
filters at this point)

Comment 37

[David :Bienvenu]

*** Bug 257759 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 38

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

Fix was verified on 2004101305-trunk/Win-2K.
(1) Created a filter of "If subject contains 'test', Then move to 'Test' folder"
    for "Local Folders" account.
(2) Tools/"Run Filter on folder" on a folder in "Local Folders" account.
(3) Edit the filter of "Local Folders" account.
All of above were successufull.

Comment 39

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Verified with
  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.8a5) Gecko/20041019

Move your votes, folks!

Comment 40

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

*** Bug 268347 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 41

[Doug Wright]

*** Bug 224189 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***