271767 - allow alternate "From" addresses w/o full account creation

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Account Manager, defect)

Description

[L A Walsh]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: version 0.9 (20041103)

I use multiple "From" addr's for different vendors and different email lists 
(though my name is generally the same).  It's a way of tracking where spam 
comes from and separating out the wheat from the chaff.  

Right now, I have to go through a full account creation anytime I want to 
create an alternate 'from' addr.  I generally use a bogus pop account with a 
bogus server name "h" or "j", or whatever single letter I hit first.  I then 
1) have to uncheck the immediately download messages button
2) specify some ascii text in server field
3) goto account settings and disable auto email checking on the account
4) goto folder settings and have the new account's "Sent" mail point to my main
account's sent mail (I use name "Record", would be nice if it could just take 
the defaults from my main mail account.
5) set the saved and templates folders to the folders under my main email 
account.

-------
Note that even though I have created numerous (>30 from accounts), mail to any 
of these accounts ends up in a folder under my main IMAP account where email 
is sorted by list or domain (or into Spam folders for a few blacklisted 
accounts that are inactive and have been circulated on every spam list known 
to man!)

Note that MS Outhouse has had this ability since Office XP (though Outhouse
doesn't work on XP with IMAP folders after applying a mandatory security patch 
about 2 years back -- MS support was unable to solve the problem -- big 
surprise).

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.




I think this suggestion/bugfix has been suggested in various forms but I 
couldn't find one that fit my description, exactly, so I created this 
one "anew"...sorry if a previous bug exactly described this problem.

Thanks!
-linda

p.s. -- marking this "major", since the workaround is a major pain that forces 
creating of tons of bogus accounts and selecting the correct "From" addr from 
a random list of 30+ entries is getting more difficult as new entries are 
added.

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

Why don't you use the Multiple Identies (Bug 44863)? 
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Multiple_Identities

Where you can specify other adresses for an account (but your SMTP server for
that account must accept that address). You can then select this address in the
FROM field.

Or do you mean something free-editable? That is Bug 87987.

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[L A Walsh]

This is fixed via multiple identity support and via the even
more free-form 'virtual identity' extension...

Multiple thanks....sorry for forgetting about closing
this bug....sorta makes me wonder why I bother
writing bug reports as the feature seems to have
been implemented completely independantly of this
request.  I note of the 13 "bug-about-to-timeout" messages
I received, 2 were features that should have been there but
hadn't been done yet.   Another was a fairly specific
feature not included in Outlook (this one) that was
fixed independant of this report (so that wasn't
worth filing).  1 I marked as working well enough
for me though I didn't perform thorough testing to
duplicate all the problems that I originally had --
this bugfix (multiple ID's) "sorta" cleaned up most
of the problems I was having with the new defaults.
It may still be a bug, but since I'm not creating
new accounts for alternate From addresses now, I
no longer exercise that area of the code, thus my
resolution of "WORKSFORME".  However 9 of the 13
problems are not resolved, so statistically, that
does that mean you are closing out roughly 70% of
the bugs outstanding are unlikely to to be fixed
in the code?  As someone who spent time in QA, 
that isn't a great record, but as you mention...
time and resources are limited....and can I relate
to that(!)...(*sigh*)

Comment 4

[Kevin Brosnan]

We don't know what fixed this worksforme

Comment 5

[L A Walsh]

I believe this was fixed by adding the feature of
alternate user identities/account and by the [non-core]
addition of the "virual-user" extension.

I believe both of these are by design, though the 
arbitrary addition of a "From" address is a non-CORE
extension that is subject to a need for 3rd party maintenance
as the mailer evolves...

Should this be "re-opened", as an "RFE" towards the idea that
as with perl, there might be some base library of extensions
that become part of the core distribution (either that, or the
feature is implemented in the base obviating the need for it
as an extension)?