451886 - msgFilterRules.dat should be stored on server for IMAP mailboxes (lite roaming alternative)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 78858

(Thunderbird :: Preferences, enhancement)

Description

[Bryce Mozilla Nesbitt]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080316 SUSE/1.1.9-1.1 SeaMonkey/1.1.9
Build Identifier: 

This is a duplicate of Bug #451885, since it proposes Seamonkey/Thunderbird interoperability:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm proposing that msgFilterRules.dat be stored on the server for IMAP mailboxes.

I use Seamonkey at home, Seamonkey at work, and occasionally Seamonkey on my wife's computer.  Everything is seamless with IMAP mail, except it is a real pain to keep filter rules in sync.  The msgFilterRules.dat file does not seamlessly move between Seamonkey/Thunderbird instances on different OS's.

The ONLY thing that does not seamlessly transfer are the filter rules.  Without my filter rules I get so much mailing list traffic it is impractical to read mail.

As msgFilterRules.dat is just a flat file, it would be easy to save on the IMAP server.  Doing so may take a lot of the pressure off the full two-way roaming profile synchronization that has been broken for many many years.

Ideally Thunderbird and Seamonkey would be able to parse the same file.

So in summary:
1) store msgFilterRules.dat on IMAP servers
2) harmonize file format and mailbox names between platforms (easy).

Here is example filter rule from msgFilterRules.dat
-------------------------------------------
ame="[e-mail]"
enabled="yes"
type="1"
action="Move to folder"
actionValue="imap://[e-mail]/Z-SPAM"
action="JunkScore"
actionValue="100"
condition="OR (cc,is,[e-mail]) OR (subject,begins with,*{spam}*) OR (to or cc,contains,[e-mail])"
-------------------------------------------

Here's a procmail alternative (I got fed up with this issue, and so installed procmail on my server -- but many people can't do this):
-------------------------------------------
# Tricky DeMorgan's law OR.  Empty line is required before the E rule.
:0
* ! ^Sender: [e-mail]
* ! ^Sender: [e-mail]
* ! ^Sender: [e-mail]
* ! ^Sender: [e-mail]
* ! ^Sender: [e-mail]
{ }

:0 E:
Lists-Misc

:0
/var/mail/bryce
-------------------------------------------

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Steve Simms]

This seems to me like it would be better-suited to be an add-on, rather than built into the Thunderbird code, since it makes IMAP do something it's not designed to do.  A similar add-on exists for syncing address books in much the same way, for example.

One potential problem would be how to keep other E-Mail clients from getting confused by the filter rules and doing something inappropriate with them.

Comment 2

[Bryce Mozilla Nesbitt]

You speak of sync kolab:
http://www.gargan.org/extensions/synckolab.html
Though this one is much simpler: you just need to use IMAP to store and retrieve a flat file.

Comment 3

[Steve Simms]

A couple of other ideas from people on IRC:

Does your server support sieve?  If so, you might check for an add-on for that, or look for a sieve support bug here in Bugzilla.

Also, this might be a good candidate for weave, and I'm CC'ing dmose at wsmwk's suggestion for his thoughts on that.

Comment 4

[Bryce Mozilla Nesbitt]

My server does not support sieve:
http://www.faqs.org/ftp/pub/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sieve-imapflags-05.txt

The advantage of storing msgFilterRules flat is interoperability with any IMAP server, with a very short development time.

The advantage of sieve would be (eventually) the ability to seamlessly switch among different IMAP clients (e.g. Thunderbird to Seamonkey to Mac Mail to Webmail).

Comment 5

[Joshua Cranmer [:jcranmer]]

Old request.