359233 - Filters: User Interface: Browse-style window?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Penelope Graveyard :: General, defect, P5)

Description

[Matt Dudziak]

We need to decide on the user interface for the Message Filter window. Do we want to expand upon the current UI, or make the UI more like the current Eudora?

Comment 1

[David Morrison]

Not sure what the question is....

Comment 2

[Love Eudora]

I think that by "the current UI" he means the Thunderbird UI.  I personally like the current Eudora filter UI, though there have been times I've wished for more user capabilities there.  Unfortunately I can't remember right now what those would be.  :-[

Comment 3

[Matt Dudziak]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think that by "the current UI" he means the Thunderbird UI.  I personally
> like the current Eudora filter UI, though there have been times I've wished for
> more user capabilities there.  Unfortunately I can't remember right now what
> those would be.  :-[
> 

Correct. The question is do we take the existing Thunderbird UI and expand it with Eudora-like capabilities, or do we abandon the Thunderbird UI in favor of a UI similar to the current Eudora, while at the same time expanding its capabilities (more than 2 match terms, more 'contexts' (before incoming, manual, before send, post send).

The reason this bug is here is as a placeholder for making that decision in-house, but we want to gather user opinions. So, the question for everyone is do we build upon the Thunderbird user interface, or bring over the Eudora interface?

Matt

Comment 4

[David Morrison]

It appears that Thunderbird implements filters on a per-account basis, ie, filters are defined in relation to messages to or from a particular mail account. There is a suggestion that for POP, incoming messages can have a global filter. Don't know what happens for outgoing messgaes or for existing messages (Manual in Eudora).

Eudora, has a single list of filters which apply to all incoming, outgoing and existing messages. It is possible, however, to include a personality in the filter itself to get the same effect as Thunderbird.

Eudora's method is much more flexible. Filters may need to apply to all messages, and it would be tedious to have to go around adding the same filter to a dozen different personalities.

It also allows the filter order to be specified precisely. With Thunderbird's account-based and global filters, which one gets executed first?

Comment 5

[Cefe López]

Filters are great but if you have many they become unmanageable. There should be the possibility to group/ structure filters: Conditional filters possible: Given one condition a set of filters to be tested, else other set to be passed.
More conditions available
Filters Editing: multiple selection (Shif, Ctrl) to sort them
Ability to detect outdated/unused filters

Comment 6

[steve]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Filters are great but if you have many they become unmanageable. There should
> be the possibility to group/ structure filters: Conditional filters possible:
> Given one condition a set of filters to be tested, else other set to be passed.
> More conditions available
> Filters Editing: multiple selection (Shif, Ctrl) to sort them
> Ability to detect outdated/unused filters
> 

Thank you. YES. I have asked for this. Need Grouping as with over 150 filters you loose track of what goes where. there was some third part software that could do this. seemed to work

Comment 7

[Pat]

Filtering by account would not be good.  I find Eudora's filter execution order to be extremely helpful.  The ability to rearrange filters in Eudora is awful and needs to be updated.  

Cefe's suggestion to add the ability to detect outdated filters would be a bonus.

Comment 8

[steve]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Eudora's method is much more flexible. Filters may need to apply to all
> messages, and it would be tedious to have to go around adding the same filter
> to a dozen different personalities.
> 
> It also allows the filter order to be specified precisely. With Thunderbird's
> account-based and global filters, which one gets executed first?

Yes use the Eudora filter system but add filter grouping and allow more filtering options than Eudora now has

Comment 9

[mmrevans]

I like the idea of detecting outdated filters.  In addition it would be useful to know which filter was triggered to cause an action on an email.  Once in awhile I get transfers I do not expect and it takes a bit of hunting to find the filter rule that needs to be changed.  Perhaps a way to select a message and see what filter it triggers would be a beneficial addition.

Comment 10

[steve]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I like the idea of detecting outdated filters.  In addition it would be useful
> to know which filter was triggered to cause an action on an email.  Once in
> awhile I get transfers I do not expect and it takes a bit of hunting to find
> the filter rule that needs to be changed.  Perhaps a way to select a message
> and see what filter it triggers would be a beneficial addition.
> 

I agree with this 100%. Grouping would just compliment these features

Comment 11

[Matt Dudziak]

(In reply to comment #9)
> I like the idea of detecting outdated filters.  In addition it would be useful
> to know which filter was triggered to cause an action on an email.  Once in
> awhile I get transfers I do not expect and it takes a bit of hunting to find
> the filter rule that needs to be changed.  Perhaps a way to select a message
> and see what filter it triggers would be a beneficial addition.
> 

Mac Eudora allows you to do this by highlighting the message then, while holding down SHIFT, open the Filters Window. Any filter that COULD match the message will be highlighted.

This is not exactly ideal, nor obvious. I agree it would be nice to have a simple way of finding out which filter moved a message, along with other info. I've been thinking of a 'message history' that would provide info like:

[Date/Time stamp] Message received using account [account name]

[Date/Time stamp] Matched filter [Filter Name], Label [Some Label] assigned

[Date/Time stamp] Matched filter [Filter Name], transferred to mailbox [Mailbox name]

[Date/Time stamp] Message viewed

[Date/Time stamp] Message forwarded to [Address]

[Date/Time stamp] Message marked unread

[Date/Time stamp] Message viewed

[Date/Time stamp] Message transferred to [Mailbox Name]

etc...

Comment 12

[humanengr]

(In reply to comment #5)
> Filters are great but if you have many they become unmanageable. There should
> be the possibility to group/ structure filters: ...

Yes -- and, of course, the grouping should be multi-level and collapsible/expandable -- with collapse/expand to all levels with a single action.

Also:

Include a comment field. One comment per filter (rather than one per condition within a filter) is probably sufficient.

Mark disabled filters using "greyed-out" marking (a la Eudora) or check mark (a la TB).

Make sure all the regex "character classes" ([[:alpha:]], ...) work.

> Filters Editing: multiple selection (Shif, Ctrl) to sort them

Multiple selection (Shif, Ctrl) is a definite -- but only to move/copy/delete. I'm not clear on what Cefe has in mind by "sort."

Comment 13

[humanengr]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> ... The question is do we take the existing Thunderbird UI and expand it
> with Eudora-like capabilities, or do we abandon the Thunderbird UI in favor of
> a UI similar to the current Eudora

The TB interface seems grossly impractical for large filter sets, IMO, as it requires clicking to see the details of each filter.

I strongly favor the Eudora interface, with details of a selected filter the visible in the context of the filter 'titles' on the left, with filter selection by non-modified keystrokes (up, down, pg up, pg down).

> while at the same time expanding its
> capabilities (more than 2 match terms

Yes, de-finitely and in-finitely. I'm running into more situations where this would be helpful.

Comment 14

[steve]

New issue:

Would it be possible to do similar filtering and attachment handling with all the embedded images kept in the eudora win folder called "embedded" I have thousands of images in there and no way to link them to emails except by their cryptic number file name.

Comment 15

[James]

(Not really related to Penolopy but more related to the bug tracker). Could we add a 'filter' keyword to bugzilla for Penelope .  

Comment 16

[Matt Dudziak]

(In reply to comment #15)
> (Not really related to Penolopy but more related to the bug tracker). Could we
> add a 'filter' keyword to bugzilla for Penelope .  
> 

I'm not sure what you are looking for here. When you go to search for bugs here (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi) you can select 'Penelope' from the popup menu to limit the results.

What exactly are you looking to do?

Matt

Comment 17

[James]

Each Bug has a field at the top for "Keywords".  Quite a few refer to filters.  For organization, it might be worthwhile to add some Penelope specific keywords:
....filters....
....Interface....
etc.

Comment 18

[Sachin Shah]

(In reply to comment #3)
> The reason this bug is here is as a placeholder for making that decision
> in-house, but we want to gather user opinions. So, the question for everyone is
> do we build upon the Thunderbird user interface, or bring over the Eudora
> interface?

I am coming to this thread late, but if a decision hasn't been made yet: The Eudora Filter UI is one of Eudora's strengths, even while missing the ability to group filters. Please maintain the Eudora Filter UI rather than trying to extend the current thunderbird ui.

Comment 20

[Massimiliano]

I would like to have a search engine in the filters because when you have multiple it's very difficult to find any duplicate.
Then I would like to have only one personality for filters applying all the messages received.

I prefer Eudora UI though.

Comment 21

[Russ Housley]

(In reply to comment #13)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > (In reply to comment #2)
> > ... The question is do we take the existing Thunderbird UI and expand it
> > with Eudora-like capabilities, or do we abandon the Thunderbird UI in favor of
> > a UI similar to the current Eudora
> The TB interface seems grossly impractical for large filter sets, IMO, as it
> requires clicking to see the details of each filter.
> I strongly favor the Eudora interface, with details of a selected filter the
> visible in the context of the filter 'titles' on the left, with filter
> selection by non-modified keystrokes (up, down, pg up, pg down).
> > while at the same time expanding its
> > capabilities (more than 2 match terms
> Yes, de-finitely and in-finitely. I'm running into more situations where this
> would be helpful.

I often run into cases where I canno construct the filter that I need because
I need more than two terms.  Please allow more.  Here is an example of a
simple filter that I'd like to contruct:

    If TO contains [e-mail]
    Unless FROM contains [e-mail] OR FROM contains [e-mail]
    ACTION MOVE to JUNK

Thanks for your consideration.

Comment 22

[D.J.]

(In reply to comment #0)
> We need to decide on the user interface for the Message Filter window. Do we
> want to expand upon the current UI, or make the UI more like the current
> Eudora?
> 

I thought the whole point of Penelope was to bring the Eudora users interface and features over to Mozilla with Eudora 8. I just installed and un installed it because it's way too much like TB/Outlook with the 3 window split view and lack of Eudora's powers. Please, stick to Eudora's look, feel, functionality as much as possible. TB and Eudora are targeted at entirely different audiences. Incorporating TB's UI into Eudora is counter productive to that goal. 

Comment 23

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Penelope didn't see any activity in the vcs for the last 8 years, closing.