406189 - Support (Lotus Notes, MS-Exchange, RFC) "Importance" header, in addition to current "X-Priority" one

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Composition, enhancement)

Description

[Ben Ramsey]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071106 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Flock/1.0.1
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.9

Thunderbird uses the X-Priority header to send the priority setting. However, I've noticed with Exchange Server 2007 that the X-Priority header is stripped out before leaving the server (when sending messages) and before reaching recipients (when coming into the server). 

When messages are sent using Outlook, Exchange Server uses the "Importance" header to send the priority. This header is present when viewing messages in Thunderbird, but Thunderbird does not acknowledge it as the message priority.

Please support the Importance header by understanding it as priority when viewing received messages and by adding the Importance header (in addition to the X-Priority header) when sending messages (perhaps this can be configurable through the Config Editor).

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.



Priority heading with Outlook/Exchange:
Importance: high

Priority heading with Thunderbird:
X-Priority: 1 (Highest)

Comment 1

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

SeaMonkey  would like/get it too, as it is handle in shared code.
(I had briefly mentioned it in bug 146075 comment 69.)
[Setting "Depends on", as I see this bug as a feature followup to the other one.]

Some related link on the Net:
<http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc4356.html> ("2.1.3.3.1.  Table 3:  Priority Mappings (Internet Message to MMS)")
<http://www.nabble.com/Newest-patch-for-X-SMTP-headers-support-in-Squirrelmal-(SVN-devel-branch).-td15453119.html> ("function getPriorities()")
<http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/OeFilter>

Comment 2

[Zhang Weiwu]

I suggest to change the name of the bug, because IMPORTANCE seems to be an RFC mail header instead of MS Exchange specific.

see http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc4021.html section 2.1.52.

And it is not only adopted by MS Exchange. My customer sends me carefully prioritized messages and I always cannot see these importance information, she uses Lotus Notes. If Lotus Notes + Exchange server uses importance header AND it is RFC, I think TB should prefer using that one instead of X-priority.

Comment 3

[David :Bienvenu]

Not blocking on an enhancement, but patches are welcome.

Comment 4

[Christian Loos]

What about the notes from Zhang Weiwu?
TB uses an non RFC header X-Priority and should switch to the RFC Importance header.
Can the bug name changed as mentioned from Zhang Weiwu and the Severity changed from enhancement to normal or major or should we submit an new bug with the correct name.
I think it ist important that this bug is fixed to ensure the interoperability with other mail server and clients.

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

it's important and wanted, just not a blocker for 3.1

Comment 6

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Summary updated.
Importance left as enhancement: it's a not-yet-supported feature, not a broken one :-|