Open Bug 34973 (GlobalFilters) Opened 25 years ago Updated 6 months ago

Global message filter option to use a filter shared across accounts

Categories

(MailNews Core :: Filters, enhancement)

Product:
MailNews Core
Component:
Filters
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: croberts, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [filter-mgmt])

I just noticed on Netscape 4.7 that I have to set message filters separately for every group. That means I'm setting the same filters for all the groups over and over again. I would like a global message filter that affects all groups on all severs. This would help to get rid of spam a lot. Thanks!
I think this is supposed to be a MailNews bug, not a Grendel bug. Grendel is a java mail/news reader, which has almost nothing to do with the mail/news reader mozilla has in it's browser.
Assignee: grail → selmer
Component: Preferencecs → Back End
Product: Grendel → MailNews
QA Contact: lchiang
enhancement. cc: laurel.
QA Contact: lchiang → laurel
David, is this a dup?
Assignee: selmer → bienvenu
Target Milestone: --- → M20
not that I know of, but my guess is that this is referrring to news filters. It's eminently doable - we'd just append the per newsgroup filter list to the default filters for the news server when evaluating the new headers for a newsgroup.
Assignee: bienvenu → sspitzer
Priority: P3 → P5
And we'd need some UI to control it. Is M20 correct then?
the ui is simply that when specifying filters for a newsgroup, you also get to specify a set of filters for a news server (i.e., the news server is in the drop down list of newsgroups.) M20 because it's an enhancement that we won't do in all likelihood.
I'm noticing on mozilla 0.9.4 that it is ridiculously tedious to transfer many (20+) filters, each with several clauses, to apply to a new email address. There is no way to copy or move them, nor even to have two filter editor windows up to copy them manually. Global filtering could eliminate the need to copy them. However, there may be interaction with the "leave message on server, delete when deleted locally" feature. A global filter would have one destination folder, but I'd guess that that folder would have to know from which inbox each message came in order to delete it when the time came. (I assume it keeps track of this only on a folder-wide basis, not on a per-message basis, and this is why folders are associated with inboxes). Suggest bugzilla entry changes: COmponent: Filtering Platform: All OS: All
If this bug is talking about news filters (which seems to have been suggested), it depends on bug 17483
Depends on: killfile
Component: Mail Back End → Filters
OS: Windows 98 → All
Hardware: PC → All
Summary: [RFE] Would like global message filter option → Would like global message filter option
Reporter's new email is: croberts@gilsongfx.com.
*** Bug 52937 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Keywords: mail3
*** Bug 129883 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Pls change summary to "Would like global news message filter".
*** Bug 161302 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 164552 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Alias: GlobalFilters
*** Bug 179733 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 184661 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 185185 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Are there any plans to implement a global message filter in the near future or is this bug dead? The current behaviour is very impractical, because most rules (especially for newsgroups) are significant for more than one newsgroup or account.
This must not be taken as only for news messages. I find this very irritating in mail reading. You have marked bug 52937 as a duplicate of this one. Bug 52937 was specifically about mail filters. So either this bug is also, or 52937 should not be marked dup.
as far as I was concerned in reporting/commenting on this subject, this is not relivant to news groups (although perhaps it should be). The UI error is that filters in Moz1.? are set up on mail accounts one at a time. Therefore if I have three accounts, I have to set up three sets of spam filters and add the same sixteen terms several times. This is known as a pain. Thanks for reading
Whenever I create a global message filter (by clicking on "Create message filters" in the mail start page of the server) this filter dissappears after restarting Mozilla. Before I restart this filter even works with every newsgroup within this server. Using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3b) Gecko/20030210
Regarding comment #21: is this even an intended function? AFAIK, this feature hasn't been implemented yet, which is probably why the "global filter" that he mentions goes into the bit bucket. Anyway, if this *was* supposed to work, can we reclassify this bug from a P5 Enhancement request to a P2 Bug? I really need a global andkonDOTcom filter! Please!
*** Bug 237049 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 238608 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Is this bug ever going to be addressed.... It is annoying... bloody annoying!!! I have looked through the history and two issues are outstanding... It is not clear if the bug is related to news or mail. Some people have killed mail bugs referenced as this bug without posting comments to this discussion to clarify the matter.... It should be addressed to both. It is quite clearly the same usability issue. Secondly there is no clarity on how the bug should be tackled... Let me propose the following. Looking at how this should work in terms of UI and usability then one shold be able to have a set of filters which are created outside of the domain of the mailbox. Once more mail/news accounts are created it becomes necessary to de-couple the mail account - filter association. Currenntly [moz 1.7.2] we have drop down box accounts - columned box with filters - drop down list with folders - In this order mail account determines filters and filters can then be run on one and only one folder... [again limiting] Filters should be the first box. A user can then have a checkbox list where accounts are specified. [and also let's be realistic here most users, 99.99% , only have between 1-5 mail or news accounts]. A scrollable box could be put here but only when the limit for the interface has been exceeded... someone with >x accounts. I don't know how mozilla works this in terms of data modelling but I assume there is a mini database behind there. This would result in 'a filter can be given an account list id' and 'an account list is created for each filter'. This relation becuase some filters a user may only wish to run on private and work accounts others are run on different sets of accounts. The news and mail filters should also be seperate however it would be nice to have a copy and paste feature. Maybe as an extra contextual button in the group with. [new] [edit] [delete] [help] [nove up] [move down] [run now] The button would then probably have the following states... STATE BUTTON STATE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- no filter selected and no filter in the clipboard - copy disabled no filter selected and a filter in the clipboard - paste enabled a filter selected and a filter in the clipboard - copy enabled a filter selected and no filter in the clipboard - copy enabled
Product: MailNews → Core
C'mon, Keith. It's only been four years now -- give them some time!
*** Bug 294632 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 302131 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Blocks: 66425
Assignee: sspitzer → nobody
Priority: P5 → --
QA Contact: laurel → filters
*** Bug 355909 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #25) > Is this bug ever going to be addressed.... It is annoying... bloody annoying!!! I just saw that one RFE I filed got linked to this as duplicate (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34973#c30). Here's my take on this. Filters are rules which the user wants to be applied on emails. Thus, from an overview perspective, the user should be allowed to create filters/rules and provided the following options: [i] a drop down of existing accounts to which this filter should be linked (do we allow a single instance of a filter to multiple accounts ? Don't know since that usage model does not appear rational) [ii] the folder on which the filter should operate upon [iii] the fields on which filter/rule should operate on [iv] the action ie destination filter for the action taken This would possibly mean that the MessageRules dialog box would be required to be redesigned
Alex in comment #20: > as far as I was concerned in reporting/commenting on this subject, this is not > relivant to news groups (although perhaps it should be). Was it determined this bug is about both mail and news? Would bug 129883 deliver what is needed?
Summary: Would like global message filter option → global message filter option
Why isn't this implemented similarly to Apple's Mail? By default all filters are global and you can narrow the filter scope by adding extra parameters. So the extra parameters could specify the target folder or account. With this model, filters would automatically be transferable from one account to another which is currently impossible to do. Come on people, I can't believe this thing has been around since 2000, what the heck is going on?
Product: Core → MailNews Core
Blocks: 129883
Whiteboard: [filter-mgmt]
Summary: global message filter option → global message filter option (filters shared across accounts)
(In reply to Miguel D'Amico from comment #33) > Why isn't this implemented similarly to Apple's Mail? By default all filters > are global and you can narrow the filter scope by adding extra parameters. > So the extra parameters could specify the target folder or account. One of biggest reasons is; - filter rules is currently saved in "per account msgFilterRules.dat file". - changing of this design/implementation is very tough work. To improve, at least following works are needed. (1) Design/implementation change of "repository of message filter rules". (2) Filter back-end changes according to change of (1). (3) Filter related UI changes/enhancements according to change of (1) and (2). (4) Converter from current msgFilterRules.dat to new repository, and vice versa, for migration. attachment 604268 [details] (attached to bug 151226 comment #11) is an idea of (1), SQLite DB version of msgFilterRules.dat, for "global filter rules", "per folder filter rules", "increased degrees of freedom in filter definition/maintenance" etc. I think the idea is similar to Apple Mail's concept, even though never same. If (1) and (2) will be implemented, (2) can be postponed, because transation/conversion from SQLite DB data or json data to current msgFilterRuls.dat is simple/easy job as far as DB/Object is well designed.
(In reply to Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay from comment #31) Here's my take on > this. Filters are rules which the user wants to be applied on emails. Thus, > from an overview perspective, the user should be allowed to create > filters/rules and provided the following options: > > [i] a drop down of existing accounts to which this filter should be linked > (do we allow a single instance of a filter to multiple accounts ? Don't know > since that usage model does not appear rational) > [ii] the folder on which the filter should operate upon > [iii] the fields on which filter/rule should operate on > [iv] the action ie destination filter for the action taken > > This would possibly mean that the MessageRules dialog box would be required > to be redesigned I like this. this would work very nicely for me...I have many imap/pop accounts and I want to merge into one folder (including sent mail/deleted etc) for ease of reading...this would allow me to define a single filter for all messages incoming and outgoing...life would be sweet!
Summary: global message filter option (filters shared across accounts) → Global message filter option to use a filter shared across accounts
Severity: normal → S3
Duplicate of this bug: 1747875
Duplicate of this bug: 1844993
See Also: → 811124, 267197, 151789

gekacheka
Comment 7 • 23 years ago
I'm noticing on mozilla 0.9.4 that it is ridiculously tedious to transfer many
(20+) filters, each with several clauses, to apply to a new email address.

&

alex
Comment 20 • 22 years ago
"If I have three accounts, I have to set up three sets of spam
filters and add the same sixteen terms several times. This is known as a pain."

&

Miguel D'Amico
Comment 33 • 17 years ago

Why isn't this implemented similarly to Apple's Mail? By default all filters are global
and you can narrow the filter scope by adding extra parameters. So the extra parameters
could specify the target folder or account.

With this model, filters would automatically be transferable from one account
to another which is currently impossible to do.

Come on people, I can't believe this thing has been around since 2000,
what the heck is going on?

Unreal,

I come from here:
https://github.com/RealRaven2000/FiltaQuilla/issues/264

This is a 24 Year Old Issue ...... . I've had the same problem with more than
14 years of waiting till i decided to contact a member of mozilla by email
who decided to create x-unsent support & eml editor ... .

That's why i hardly ever come to bugzilla, i could pass away in a decade,
posting A hopeless fix request..

Please, someone fix that for a next release. even if tb copied the filters file
to new accounts, it could slow the pc. I even have a subject list so long, it's impossible
to even EDIT in the message filters window! Let go copying that file to be loaded by tb
X times! this is nonsense & a crapy approach of message filtering. Message filtering
is Individual! noone needs a different approach of message filtering per different account!

Please fix that for once & for good! I can't believe apple mail could name our email client
"prehistory" because of the time they've been using the Right method!.. .

There's also plugin for that in thebat x64 too, but i can't get to have thebat offer an all in one inbox..

Thanks for adding references Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) I would also vote for this bug strongly, I think Postbox managed to implement this by simply using a copy of the same filter that is updated across all servers once it is edited. For identification of bugs we MUST implement at least a UID attribute, because matching by name is silly and hazardous - this is what I am doing at the moment with the restore facility in quickFilters. So if the name changes it also needs to be propagated across all "clones" of the filter across servers.

There are probably possibilities to mess this up, so a global filter that is stored in a separate file in the profile would be the ultimate solution. We could then choose to either display them separately (drop down from the message filters with a "global filters" entry). With quickFilters it is possible to cut and paste filters across servers, so I might help to add this as patch at a later stage.

Once the source is migrated to github I want to start contributing a little code to the whole filters section (mainly on the JS layer, don't really want to get into the weeds with C++) could you put me together with a mentor in the Core team who has written filter code before? We might be able to get started on this one 128 is shipped, to get more filter goodness for the next ESR + upcoming betas!

Also, would this bug get more traction if we made a fresh one and then we could contribute some proper design specs / requirements?

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