Scott Putterman wrote:
>
> As I mentioned in a previous post, improving the filter dialog and
> filter functionality are some of the things we would like to have
> Netscapeengineers work on in the future. I'd be interested in knowing
> about whatyou think are some of the things that need to be improved the
> most.
Disclaimer: I still use 4.x for mailnews. I have tried Moz (M18),
including setting up filters, but I can't guarantee that my memory of
how it worked is 100% accurate. However...
1) Anything that's still missing to bring filters up to 100% of what 4.x
has (this is a nice catch-all for stuff I might have missed due to
knowing that it's there in 4.x)
2) Apply filter(s) to mail already in a folder. It should be possible to
do this for a single filter, or for all currently active filters. When a
new filter is created, this should be a prominent option (eg an alert
box "run this filter over my inbox now?" as soon as the user finishes
defining the filter).
3) Some kind of advanced filter UI pane, because the following features
are things I would use all the time, but would be guaranteed to clutter
the normal filter UI.
4) The ability to specify whether filter processing should stop after
this filter or not. For example, I would like to immediately mark as
read any messages from my own email address, but I still want these
messages moved to folders per my other rules.
5) Some way to select multiple fields for the same condition. For
example, 4.x allows "From" and "To or CC", but there's no "From, To or
CC" option. One way to do this would be to have "Multiple fields" as an
option in the dropdown, which would then enable a "Choose..." button
bringing up a set of checkboxes.
6) Multiple actions on the same filter. Eg "move to folder
high_traffic_mailing_list AND mark as read".
7) A UI for putting javascript expressions into both the condition and
action part of the filter (separately!). Turing complete filters are
good. And even advanced users don't always like editing prefs.js.
8) More available actions, eg "forward the message to ..." or "send the
following message to my pager address"
9) Real boolean expressions (eg (X AND Y) OR Z)
That's about all I can think of for now. These are approximately in
order of priority, for me personally, with the possible exception of #3
if you can come up with a way to do the others without producing too
much clutter in the main UI.
Stuart.
