Open Bug 83971 Opened 23 years ago Updated 14 years ago

Ability to search in body in newspostings

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect)

Product:
SeaMonkey
Component:
MailNews: Message Display
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: bugzilla, Unassigned)

References

Details

currently it seems impossible to search for Body in newspostings.
Criteria  to search body is only available with offline usage.  That worksforme
with current 0.9.4 branch. Marking this verified worksforme.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 23 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
I dont understand...?
Couldn't Mozilla support XPATH to search the newsgroup online?
Status: VERIFIED → REOPENED
Resolution: WORKSFORME → ---
I believe you mean "XPAT" and that only works with headers (and not 
necessarily all of them, even when it's supported it may be limited to 
those headers returned by XOVER).
*** Bug 102902 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 124997 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 130803 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Body criteria in searching are currently only available after switching to
offline mode.

But that doesn't have to be enforced so strictly. 
There are facilities in Mozilla that allow to make search much more usable for news:

1. Newsgroups can be selected for offline use separately.
2. There is a "Download now" button in the newsgroup properties dialog that
downloads all messages locally.
2. Messages with and without bodies are differentiated with darker/lighter icons.

So there are currently mechanisms in Mozilla that allow to:
- determine whether all messages in a group are available locally
- if not all are available, which ones are these and how many of them there are
- synchronize those messages to local storage on demand.

I propose that search UI for newsgroups is modified so that:

1. Body (and all headers) criteria are available when searching in a newsgroup
that has the option "select for offline use" turned on.
2. If the group isn't selected for offline use and the user selects a criterion
different than subject or sender, a dialog box is shown with an explanation and
buttons that let the user:
    (Select the group for offline use and download all message bodies)
    (Switch back to "Subject" criterion)
3. After the user clicks "search", a check is made whether all messages are
available locally.
 a) if all are available, a search is executed as if Mozilla were in offline mode
 b) if some are unavailable locally, a dialog box is shown with an explanation
and buttons allowing the user to:
    (Download missing message bodies)
    (Search only in messages with available bodies)
    (Cancel search)
Would be fine! But when?
*** Bug 188935 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
mass re-assign.
Assignee: naving → sspitzer
Status: REOPENED → NEW
To #8:

Why should you change (a newsgroup) to be offline to search it. A lot of people
(including me) are always online and Mozilla should honor that.

The changes should be:

1. Body (and all headers) criteria are available when searching in a newsgroup
that has the option "select for offline use" turned on. Just like when searching
mail.
2. If a part of the message that is not downloaded (fx body) for all messages in
group, a popup warning should come up with the following options:
  A) Never show this again (of course)
  B) a) Download all/500/arbitrary number of newest messages and do search,
maybe a last x days messages option.
     b) Search now, without downloading any more messages.
3. The options (2.) should be setable by a dropdown box in the search window





Ok, sounds reasonable.

I only suggest different wording and dialog design in point 2 (I cannot parse
your sentence), so I propose this:

1. Body (and all headers) criteria are available when searching in a newsgroup
that has the option "select for offline use" turned on. Just like when searching
mail.
2. If there are some messages on the group that only have headers (no body)
downloaded, a popup warning should come up with the following options:

"The messages bodies need to be downloaded first before you can search them.
Choose what to do:
     A) Download message bodies of:
        1) all messages
        2) [500] newest messages ("500" inside an editable text field)
        3) messages from the last [14] days ("14" inside an editable text field)
     B) Search only in currently downloaded messages.

  [x] Remember my decision and never show this dialog again (a checkbox)"
*** Bug 220296 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Does this Depend on Bug 210784 ???
*** Bug 243120 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
It is still not possible to search the headers or body of newsgroup messages in
version 8.0
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=152526&action=view is still true,
even though the version has moved on.
I'm seeing this problem too in TB 0.8. Furthermore when I mark a NG as allowing
Offline mode, I still only see the two options in Search for that NG, Sender and
Subject.

In http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=884580#884580 the impression is
arising that it is to do with what previous TB versions you have had installed.
I started with, IIRC, .7.1, then .7.3 and now .8 (and this is on two separate
PCs). I cannot recall ever choosing any offline mode options as I never ever
work in newsgroups offline, always live online.

I can only say in my case, it is absolutely vital I be able to do full
message-body text searches online as part of my job (software technical
support). OE was able to do this without a problem.
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
This bug is still a probem in 0.90 ... I can only assume 1.0 is pending soon and
it would be a shame for a fairly fundamental issue such as this not to be fixed
in the first official release!
I updated to version 0.9 (20041103, Windows XP) today (29.11.2004) and was
disappointed to see that search in message bodies is still unavailable. I know,
this is free software and all, but I think this feature is essential before
Thunderbird can be considered to be at 1.0 level.
Please read the comments; this is not a Thunderbird-only problem. The suite has
been like this forever, and the fact that thunderbird is just now going 1.0
isn't going to make anyone code harder.  Mozilla went 1.0 in 2002 ( around
comment #8 :), and the bug didn't fix itself then either.

To search newsgroup bodies, you have to fetch the messages one at a time and
search them yourself.  Anyone that wants to code it, go ahead.


How about merging this one with bug 16913 (similar, but about headers not content)
*** Bug 277336 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Pending more featureful solutions to this bug, I think that the Find in Message
and Entire Message search options should be greyed out for newsgroups.
How does this announcement affect the defence that 'we get this behaviour from
the main branch'?

http://www.mozilla.org/seamonkey-transition.html

It would appear that Thunderbird is now the main branch, and this behaviour is
still marring an otherwise excellent product.
Assignee: sspitzer → mail
the saddest part is having to switch to outlook express just to search newsgroup
posts.  waiting for tbird to download all the messages before being able to
search them is just too painful...
Has this been fixed in 1.5?
No. In general, if it was fixed, it would be marked fixed.
*** Bug 323361 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Component: MailNews: Search → MailNews: Message Display
QA Contact: laurel → search
Assignee: mail → nobody
QA Contact: search → message-display
This problem is still present in TB 3.0b4, however I have the *feeling* that it had been corrected before TB 3.0b4, i.e. before that gloda was included by default. Can anyone confirm this ?
(In reply to comment #30)
> This problem is still present in TB 3.0b4, however I have the *feeling* that it
> had been corrected before TB 3.0b4, i.e. before that gloda was included by
> default. Can anyone confirm this ?

Pascal, please note that this bug is posted against SeaMonkey, though the respective code is probably be shared with TB.

Related TB Bug 381258 - Search Message Body in Newsgroups Fails.

One bug that was recently solved is  Bug 249841 - False positives from message bodies search in newsgroups and IMAP accounts  (edit). But that was a different problem.
This, like bug 250141, seems to have gone unadressed for a while.  Leave it long enough and Usenet will have died.
You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.