Open Bug 199689 Opened 21 years ago Updated 2 years ago

[mailviews] Customize and the Body criteria should be removed

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Search, defect)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Search
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: nbaca, Unassigned)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

Trunk build 2003-03-27: WinXP, Mac 10.1.5, Linux RH 8

Overview: The Body criteria in the Customize Message Views dialog should be
removed since it does not work with IMAP accounts. 

Steps to reproduce:
1. Select an IMAP account
2. In the Message Views drop down select Customize, select New
3. Create a view which search on the Body of a message
4. After the Body view is created switch to another view and back to the Body view

Actual Results: No results display since the Body criteria doesn't work on IMAP
accounts. It does work for POP accounts.

Expected Results: Since this feature does not work for IMAP accounts and Views
cannot be selected per account then the Body criteria should be removed.
Marking nsbeta1 so users are not confused by a feature that does not work.
Keywords: nsbeta1
QA Contact: esther → nbaca
Is there a way to vote _against_ a bug? Because I'd like to vote against fixing
this one...

It's another case of removing a useful feature from Mozilla, like 'Close other
tabs' which returned rather quickly, but now is worse than before...

First, if it works in some cases (POP) then why block this feature for POP
users? Second, searching by body (and other customized criteria) works very well
when you download messages for offline _and_ you go offline. At least in news, I
don't know  about IMAP, but I'd suspect it's the same.

OK, there could be some sort of distinction between mailviews:
- valid for online news (when criteria are subject, sender, date)
- valid for online IMAP (when there are no 'body' criteria)
- valid for POP and anything while in offline mode
and there could be some warning when user selects a mailview which is invalid in
current environment.
Just don't remove this functionality, pretty please...
Mail triage team: nsbeta1-
Keywords: nsbeta1 → nsbeta1-
Blocks: mailviews
*** Bug 201393 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I changed the duplicate from comment 4 to be a duplicate of bug 196605.
Both of those bugs complain that a mailview on the body of IMAP messages does 
not work, even tho at least one of the reporters wants the function to work on a 
local IMAP folder.

Filtering (distinct from MailViews) has related bugs; see: 
Bug 67421: wants to implement 'body' for filtering in any IMAP folder
Bug 127250: wants to implement 'body' for filtering in a localstore IMAP folder
Also see bug 184490, complaining that custom headers in mailviews don't work 
correctly (at least one commenter states this is for IMAP).
Does it really not work for IMAP at all, even if the body has been downloaded?

We could fix it to work on IMAP (and similarly for news) on bodies that are
downloaded, with a clear indication that it will only search downloaded bodies.
 A downloaded-or-not criterion could complement it.  Not sure if we should
auto-download all message bodies in a folder just to apply a view.

Do we have a consensus?
There seem to be a number of bugs opened for this general issue so hopefully I'm
targeting the right one...

The general issue seems to be that mailviews aren't reliable for IMAP folders
because it can't be guaranteed that Mozilla has seen all the messages to date.

My understanding is that IMAP provides some standard headers by default
(subject, date, sender, etc), but custom headers and body content involve the
downloading of the message.  If you have a mailview that uses customerised
headers or is based on body content, you have to download all the messages in
the folder (which could quite large depending on the size of the mailbox).

I think it's a useful feature, but if the IMAP protocol doesn't support a
request like:

"give me all message id's and header <insert custom header>"

the amount of bandwidth involved is to high (for large mailboxes) and there's
little point implementing it on the IMAP level.

Hope that sums up the findings so far and what (I anyway) think is the way forward.
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
Assignee: sspitzer → mail
(In reply to comment #8)
> I think it's a useful feature, but if the IMAP protocol doesn't support a
> request like:
> 
> "give me all message id's and header <insert custom header>"

But the client still downloads some parts of the header, such as the subject.
IMAP allows downloading specific parts of the header or the whole header.
Let's load List-Id in addition to Subject.

Evolution works fine with search folders on IMAP. I can create search folders
for mailing lists. Lack of this feature is the single reason why I don't use
Thunderbird.

I'm fine with removal of body and custom search if search for mailing list
is implemented.  That should include the ability to select messages that didn't
come from mailing lists.

this is odd - this should all work. Searching for list-id works, but views and saved searches do not seem to.
Assignee: mail → bienvenu
(In reply to comment #10)
> views and saved searches do not seem to.
Are you talking about Bug 205501?
Assignee: bienvenu → nobody
QA Contact: nbaca → message-display
Wayne: Does Thunderbird exhibit the same behaviour? (This bug was filed in 2003, and SeaMonkey inherited it from the Suite). If it doesn't, feel free to reassign to SeaMonkey.
Component: MailNews: Message Display → Search
Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)
Product: SeaMonkey → MailNews Core
FYI.

Bug 806308 is report of same case in Thunderbird(IMAP, Body filter, Offline-Use=On case) as original report of this bug(comment #0, IMAP Body filter). Difference is "requested solution is different".
In Tb, "Body" is currently hidden from filter rule selection menu when "IMAP && Offline-Use=On" to avoid user's confusion, but is not hidden at filter definition panel if Offline-Use=On. And, it is not hidden yet at Search/View etc.  

Bug 184490 is for "Custom Filter, After the fact" case applicable to both Thunderbird and SeaMonkey.
For "Search && custom header", code for "fetch of custom header" is recently added for Search case, so custom header will perhaps work well in Search case after the patch.
Sorry, recently resolved one was "Saved Search && Custom header && IMAP" case. "Search && Custom header" case looks worked well since initial.
Sorry, mistake in copy&paste. Corrct one.
In Tb, "Body" is currently hidden from filter rule selection menu when "IMAP && Offline-Use=*OFF*" to avoid user's confusion, (snip)
FYI.
Attached is a quick summary of current status in IMAP.
(1) When Body filter, if "Body filter upon new mail download", there is no workaround such as "put in CustmDBHeader", "Auto-sync=enabled && Offline-use=On" since initial till today, as stated in comment #0 of this bug.
(2) Even if auto-sync is enabled and Offline-use=On is set, if mail data is removed from offline-store file by retention setting, "After the fact filter on Body" can't obtain message body data from offline-store file.
And, even if fetch is requested again and mail data will be stored in offline-store again by auro-sync for a while until next purge by retention, "Body filter upon mail fetch" can't work as stated in (1) and commet #0.
(3) Even if auto-sync is enabled and Offline-use=On is set, if mail data is removed from offline-store file by retention setting, "After the fact filter on custom header" can't obtain custom header data, unless the custom header is put in CustomDBHeader and custom header data is held in MsgDB(.msf).

[ Quick summay of Body filter, Custom header, Received column in IMAP ]
> ----------------------------------   ------------------------------------   --------------------   ---------------------------------------------------
>                                      Custom header                          BODY filter            Received column from Received:
> ----------------------------------   ------------------------------------   --------------------   ---------------------------------------------------
> Upon initial fetch                     O                                      X                    (Fetch of Received: by iniiall fetch is needed)
>   Set in     CustomHeaders            (O,   always set in CustomHeaders)     (N/A)                  O (Received is defined as custom header in filter)
>   Not Set in CustomHeaders            (N/A, always set in CustomHeaders)     (N/A)                  X (depends on Received in CustomDbHeaders)
>   Set in     CustomDBHeaders          (O,   always set in CustomHeaders)     (N/A)                  O (Received is defined as custom DB header by user)
>   Not Set in CustomDBHeaders          (O,   always set in CustomHeaders)     (N/A)                  X (depends on Received in CustomHeaders)
> ----------------------------------   ------------------------------------   --------------------   ---------------------------------------------------
> Manual Run                                                                                          N/A
>   ------------------------------     ------------------------------------    -------------------
>   Set     in CustomDBHeaders           O                                      N/A
>   ------------------------------     ------------------------------------    -------------------
>   Not Set in CustomDBHeaders         (depends on mail data is held in offline-store file or not)
>     ----------------------------
>     Auto-sync=On
>       --------------------------
>       Offline-Use=On
>        held     in Offline-store       O (not removed by retention)           O
>        not held in Offline-store       X (removed by retention)               X
>       --------------------------
>       Offline-Use=Off                  X (never written to offline-store)     X
>     ----------------------------
>     Auto-sync=Off
>       --------------------------
>       Offline-Use=On
>        held     in Offline-store       O (mail is saved by mail view)         O
>        not held in Offline-store       X (mail is not viewed yet)             X
>       --------------------------
>       Offline-Use=Off                  X (never written to offline-store)     X
> ----------------------------------   ------------------------------------   --------------------   ---------------------------------------------------
FYI. Relevant bugs.
Bug 806308 : IMAP, Body filter
Bug 184490 : IMAP, custom header filter
Bug 402594 : IMAP, Received column from Received: header (see also Bug 570355)
If IMAP && Body search in View, other known issue exists.
- No way to request "Online Search" in case of auto-sync=Off || Offline-Use=Off
Further, if IMAP && Quick Search in Quick Filter Bar(internally same as a View), other problems exist in addition to above.
- User can not know about "text search is done on which data of mail" easily.
- Spec of special character in search text box such as space, "|" etc. is
  much unclear than one in View/Search/Saved Search/Message Filter definition,
  as so in spec of search text box of Global Search.
These also tends to produce user's confusions as "Body filter for IMAP" does do, and it also causes unwanted bug open by general users at B.M.O.

I believe consistency among Quick Search(Quick Filter Bar), View, Search, Saved Search, Message Filter, is important. And I think consistency between "them for local mail folder" and "them for IMAP folder" is also important.
However, keeping these consistency is nearly impossible currently.

A current bad situation is:
- Auto-sync=enabled, but some are Offline-Use=On, some others are OfflineUse=Off.
  Both Offline-Use=On folder and Offline-Use=Off folder are included in
  folders to automatically check new mails.
Message filter is account basis instead of folder basis. And, there are 3 options in applying filter : both upon download and manual run, upon download only, upon manual run only.
Body should be hidden or removed at rule definition panel of Message filter? Or Body should be shown? 

A current worst situation is;
- Local mail folder, IMAP Offline-Use=On folder, IMAP Offline-Use=Off folder
  is mixed in search target folders of Saved Search Folder(==Virtual Folder)
  which is used by Unified Folder.
Body should be hidden or removed at rule definition panel of Saved Search Folder? Or Body should be shown? 
Body should be hidden or removed at rule definition panel of View for Unified Folder? Or should be shown?
(In reply to Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec] from comment #12)
> Wayne: Does Thunderbird exhibit the same behaviour?
yes
Flags: needinfo?(vseerror)
No longer blocks: 806308
Severity: normal → S3
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