Re: Deleting filter doesn't work - Conclusions

[Rick Lecoat]

Um, to be honest, I wasn't really making a distinction between  
received and sent dates when I posted that. I was simply thinking of  
a 'date' and because I tend to sort my mail via date received rather  
than date sent (too many of my correspondents have dates wrongly set  
on their computers -- or maybe its their mail servers) I typed Date  
Received in my reply to Rene. If the filter criteria 'Is Older than'  
refers to date sent rather than date received then that is good to  
know and thanks for determining that. However, for the sake of my  
(simplistic) example, where I was envisaging removal of messages  
over, say, 3 years old, the distinction is perhaps unnecessary.


Rick

--
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On 25 Jan 2008, at 12:00, MB wrote:

Good advice, Rick, but why do you think "Date" is the same as  
"received

date" in this context?

Re: Deleting filter doesn't work - Conclusions

[Rick Lecoat]

Rene;

Perhaps the filter condition is there precisely FOR manually  
activated filters. I know that in my own PM set up I have a bunch of  
filters down at the bottom of the filter list that are designed for  
manual use, not automated. If I wanted to move all of my mail over a  
certain date to a specific folder, for instance, I could perform a  
search that would list every message in my database (eg. Date  
received is before Jan 1, 2020), Select All, and then apply the  
'messages over x age' filter manually.


And yes, I realise that I could locate all those age-specific  
messages via the initial Search, but that was only a simple example;  
filters allow for much more sophisticated criteria than Search does,  
and I could therefore move just those messages that were (eg.) over a  
certain age AND from senders within a certain address book group AND  
have attachments over a certain size.


BTW, To make some filters manual-only just make a 'stop point' filter  
(condition: Always; action: stop applying filters to this message),  
and put it at the bottom of your filter list. Then put all your  
manual-activation-only filters *below* this stop point.


Rick

--
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On 24 Jan 2008, at 10:14, Rene Merz wrote:

And how do you explain the fact, that you can choose the condition  
for a

(non-manually started filter!):
"Date is older than X days"?

This filter-condition doesn't make sense at all!

Re: exporting message status

[Rick Lecoat]

On 14/1/08 (05:52) MB said:

>One way to know would be to export from Mail and see if an import back
>to a newer version retain this status.

Do you mean an import back into a newer version of Mail or a newer
version of Powermail?
Rick
-- 
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exporting message status

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi; I'm experimentally exporting my email (folder by folder) to Apple
Mail. I'm not on the latest version of PM but can anyone tell me whether
5.6.1 still has the issue of every message exported (whether read,
unread, redirected, forwarded, or whatever) getting imported as 'Unread'?

Thanks;
Rick

-- 
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Re: deleted accounts

[Rick Lecoat]

On 8/1/08 (13:43) Marlyse said:

>how about avoiding any possible problem and don't delete the accounts...

Oh good lord no.
I'm an anally-retentive idiot nutcase, Marlyse, so I'm afraid any such
common sense approach is utterly out of the question. But thanks for
your clear thinking and rationality.

Rick

-- 
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Re: deleted accounts

[Rick Lecoat]

On 7/1/08 (03:16) Tim said:

>The only thing I can recall is something I noted about Apple Mail.  If
>you deleted an account in Apple Mail, all the mail associated with that
>account would be deleted along with it.
>
>I'm not aware of any problems in PowerMail associated with accessing
>mail belonging to deleted accounts.

That bit about Mail wiping everything if you delete an account is a bit
of a horror, I hadn't realised that. Currently I'm wrestling with
whether to stick with PM or jump ship to the more basic Apple mail,
prompted in part by acquiring an iPhone and needing to sort out my email
in quite a major overhaul. 

To keep this on-topic, anyway, I've been reducing the number of email
accounts that I have. Instead of having accounts A, B, C, D & E (each
with a separate mailbox on my mail server) I now have Account X with the
addresses for A, B, C, D & E set as aliases -- something I should have
done from the get-go perhaps, but I did find that having  each address
as a separate account in PM gave me added control.

I have found that deleting the account from PM means that any messages
that were retrieved from that account no longer have an account
associated with them (which makes sense). But I don't like having
'holes' in PM's information database -- that sort of thing can only
cause trouble if PM looks for some info that it expects and it isn't
there. So before deleting accounts  A, B, C, D & E I've been amending
them to be associated with account X. The only way I could find to do
this was to set up a filter and run it manually on search-for results. A
bit of a fiddle but worth it because now I don't have any messages with
the 'account' part of their info left blank; they all reflect the
correct new accounts.

I'm just passing this technique on in case it's of interest to anyone else.
Hell, I'm even boring myself now. I'll stop.

Rick

-- 
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deleted accounts

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi all;

I'm about to 'rationalise' my email setup which might mean getting rid
of some email accounts in PM. I seemed to recall that someone on this
list had problems with Powermail after removing accounts from the
Accounts list -- something about displaying mail in the browser if the
account used to retrieve it was no longer in existence? However, my
memory might be playing tricks on me, because no amount of searching
through my PM list archives has thrown up anything.

Am I just misremembering, or does anyone else recall seeing something
about this matter?

Thanks;
Rick
-- 
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Re: problem with PM search function

[Rick Lecoat]

On 30/11/07 (11:22) MB said:

>Rick Lecoat suggested
>
>>Which leaves the question of 'when would PM notice that the index was
>>missing?' I assume that having PM verify the location and condition of
>>the index on a near-constant basis is not feasible -- too many calls
>>back and forth between PM and the file directory or something (sorry,
>>I'm not a programmer). But maybe it should check at startup and at the
>>start of each search... and perhaps when brought to the foreground?
>
>I leave that detail to the PM engineer, but most likely a good
>opportunity would be the first time the index is accessed, which beside
>the moments you describe could be when fetching messages, which contents
>are included to be in the index. Messages normally are included into the
>index of course, but mail filters may set them not to be.

Yes, that sounds about right Mikael. I would still think that the
beginning of any search would be another good time to check index
validity. But now we're just tweaking our own fine tuning, so I reckon
at this point it's in the hands of CTM to implement it or not.

After they give me my 'Retain Recent Mail between sessions' option, of
course! (Sorry, couldn't help myself).

Rick
-- 
G5 2GHz x2  ::  2GB RAM  ::  10.4.9  ::  PM 5.5.2  ::  3 pane mode

Re: problem with PM search function

[Rick Lecoat]

On 25/11/07 (23:16) MB said:

>I was advocating that the user that had deleted the index should at
>startup or even the minute the index file got missing if running
>already, be prompted with appropriate information, asked to put it back
>- perhaps by the asking the user where to look for it-  or to rebuild it
>from scratch. This whether it happened intentionally or not. If none of
>the two options of relocate or rebuild was chosen, possibly by the user
>canceling the dialog, PM could be used without an index. but the user
>would at least be informed something needed to be done at some point.
>Then at certain times for example at startup PM could remind the user
>that a rebuilt index was needed to retain proper search functionality. 

I agree. We were, perhaps, talking at slightly crossed purposes before;
I think your main issue was with PM not alerting the user that the index
was missing, whereas I was focusing more on whether PM should silently
begin an automatic index-rebuild. Just different aspects of the same
issue, really.

I agree that PM should offer an alert if the index is missing or damaged/
out of sync. Probably at startup, and each time a search is initiated
would be the best times to offer a warning to the user. An warning
should the user try and manually delete the index would be nice, but I'm
not sure how that would be achieved *prior to deletion* since PM does
not offer the ability to delete the index from within itself; such a
file deletion would necessarily be done from the Finder (or Terminal, if
you like to do things that way...), and AFAIK PM would not be able to
intervene *directly* with Finder operations -- it could only react to it
*after* the event, when it subsequently detected that the index was missing.

Which leaves the question of 'when would PM notice that the index was
missing?' I assume that having PM verify the location and condition of
the index on a near-constant basis is not feasible -- too many calls
back and forth between PM and the file directory or something (sorry,
I'm not a programmer). But maybe it should check at startup and at the
start of each search... and perhaps when brought to the foreground?

Then provide suitable dialogues to the user if needed.
Rick

-- 
G5 2GHz x2  ::  2GB RAM  ::  10.4.9  ::  PM 5.5.2  ::  3 pane mode

Re: Aperture and PM - how to?

[Rick Lecoat]

On 26/11/07 (03:16) Matthias said:

>Hello,
>
>does anyone know, how to set in Apple's apps the mail client to PM?
>These apps, like Apertue don't respect the standard mail client and let
>one choose only between Mali, Eudora and Encourage, this is of course
>not what I want ;-)
>
>Thanks and all the best
>
>Matthias

Matthias;

My guess would be that if an application does not respect the 'Default'
mail application (which is set, somewhat controversially, via Apple
Mail's preferences) then the only way to force the application to use PM
would be with an app-specific patch/hack, like the one that forces iCal
to use PM for its email alerts, or the one that adds PM to iPhoto's list
of email options.

I'm no programmer, so I can't help you further than that I'm afraid,
although a search on somewhere like Version Tracker might throw up a
useful result.

All this is guesswork of course. If anyone knows different, do tell!
Best regards...

Rick
-- 
G5 2GHz x2  ::  2GB RAM  ::  10.4.9  ::  PM 5.5.2  ::  3 pane mode

Re: problem with PM search function

[Rick Lecoat]

On 23/11/07 (23:46) MB said:

>Indexes are such things I, and I suspect many users with me, generally
>would expect to be rebuilt without user intervention in most cases.

Generally I would agree, but my experience would show that rebuilding
the index can take a while (several minutes for my modest -- 450MB --
database) and I would guess that, like database compacting/rebuilding,
it is not a process that should be interrupted once begun. So whilst it
might be okay to automatically rebuild indexes in the background, the
user *should* IMHO be given an indication that it is going on, in order
to prevent them from quitting PM or shutting down their mac or whatever
mid-process.

There is also the issue that a 'possibly-lengthy, shouldn't-be-
interrupted' process might be inconvenient at certain times (if I have
to to shut down the mac for the night, for example, I might not want to
wait an extra 15-20 minutes whilst an index rebuild finishes) and so
perhaps letting people choose the time by initiating it manually is not
such a bad idea, just in terms of being courteous to the user.

My 2¢.
Rick

--
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Re: Time Machine and Powermail

[Rick Lecoat]

On 12/11/07 (19:22) Richard said:

>I respectfully disagree.
>
>First, my experience with SuperDuper is different from yours. It
>automatically backs up my disk drive while PowerMail is running. I have
>no problems restoring my mail. 

Fair enough, but this does go against the recommended practice, which is
to close down any database prior to backup. Maybe you've been lucky with
your data integrity, but I still prefer the safer option -- backups
being as important as they are.

Your other points I don't necessarily disagree with, but the fact
remains that I have to close down Powermail prior to making a backup (if
I wish to do so safely, as noted above) and that messes with my
workflow. Note that the issue of having multiple backups of the database
file is not my main concern (although I would prefer a better solution);
my workflow is the hot topic for me.

If powermail provided an option to retain the contents of the Recent
Mail Window between PM sessions then my backup problems would largely
evaporate. Smart Folders would also be a viable solution -- perhaps a
better one, in fact. 

Without coming to a definitive conclusion about whose 'fault' it is, the
fact remains (for myself, if not for others) that using Powermail as my
email client makes it difficult to implement a rigorous backup strategy.

Rick

-- 
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Re: Time Machine and Powermail

[Rick Lecoat]

On 12/11/07 (13:13) MB said:

>If one can make do with manual export it is possibly the best approach
>to search and find on after a specific received date and export that in
>PowerMail exchange format. 
>However I do have messages in my DB that was fetched on a future date by
>mistake (wrong machine settings) and they end up on every backup unless
>I search on both after a date and before the next date. 

Yes, an export solution may be a workaround.

Of course, the whole point of Time Machine, as I understand it, is that
it frees the user from having to jump through hoops in order to maintain
an up-to-date backup. "Set And Forget".

To my mind, "Forget" does not mean "Remember to close down a database
application on a regular (hourly?) basis or initiate a convoluted
workaround of exports".

As far as I can tell, Powermail is still in direct conflict with
anything resembling an automated backup (at least with regard to my
workflow -- others' mileage may of course vary), simply by dint of the
fact that it needs to be shut down before a backup takes place.

Superduper can run a script prior to backup that could deal with the
shutting down of PM, but it still messes with my Recent Mail-oriented
workflow.
And Time Machine, AFAIK, has no such facility to shut down apps before
activating (I'm still on Tiger so correct me if I'm wrong there).

Rick
-- 
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Re: Time Machine and Powermail

[Rick Lecoat]

On 12/11/07 (12:24) PowerMail said:

>As with all other backup softwares, making a backup of PowerMail's
>database while PowerMail is open (especially with a scheduled
>connection) can probably produce a corrupted backup. Additionally, your
>entire mail database will be backed up every hour (assuming you have
>received at least one message since the previous backup), so if it is
>large, it will be slow and use a lot of space on your backup drive, as
>Time Machine will keep many versions of the entire database. Also,
>PowerMail's own .old backup (done when you compact your database) as
>well as the spotlight cache (if spotlight indexing is enabled) are
>probably not worth to backup.

Which rather brings us back, full circle, to the point I made a couple
of weeks ago: that I find an automated and regular backup strategy is
made difficult by Powermail, (and it's insistence upon erasing the
recent mail record if the application is closed down -- for backup
purposes or any other).

-- 
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Re: Slow Address Book

[Rick Lecoat]

On 17/10/07 (02:24) Sean said:

>The contents of the Recent Mail window change if you quit PM and
>relaunch it.  Mail is no longer "recent" at relaunch.

That is of course, a definition of 'recent' imposed by the developers.
In my real-world workflow, whether I deem a piece of mail to be 'recent'
or not is something unrelated to how many times I quit or launch my
email client -- it is to do with (amongst other things) the length of
time elapsed since the message was received.

The RMW collates all of my received mail into one place, which is useful
since most of my mail gets automatically filtered into folders as it
arrives. Hunting through hundreds of nested folders looking for 'bolded'
folders and opening them to look at the mail is unnecessarily
convoluted, which is why I rely on the RMW.

Having that collation wiped between restarts is incredibly unhelpful to
me, regardless of whether it conforms to CTM's view of what constitutes
'recent' mail.

Of course others may feel differently, which is why I would suggest
adding a checkbox in preferences to let the user decide whether the RMW
gets cleared out at quit.

Other solutions would include: Flagging (NOT labels, they serve a
different purpose) and/or Smart folders.

Rick

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Re: Slow Address Book

[Rick Lecoat]

On 17/10/07 (06:36) Barbara said:

>That is what Rick [and others] want--- have to say I can see their point;
>it is one of the reasons I never bother with it.

Actually what I want are Smart Folders. But failing that, I would dearly
love a simply preference: "Clear contents of Recent Mail Window at Quit:
yes/no".

I've been asking CTM for this for about as long as we've had the RMW.
During that time PM has been updated at least half a dozen times. And I
recently sent a support email to CTM (generated from PM's help menu)
making the request more formally. In it I outlined my reasons for
requesting the feature (ie. that it's absence was having a serious
impact on my backup schedule) and suggested several ways in which a
solution might be implemented. I also stated that the problem is of
sufficient importance to me that I need to know whether or not CTM have
any intention of *ever* implementing the feature, otherwise I will
reluctantly need to look around for a replacement email client.

I'm not saying that CTM should implement the feature just because I ask
them to. But they never replied, even to acknowledge receipt of an
officially-generated support email.

I for one am concerned about CTM's level of support for their product.
If Mail (Leopard edition) improves its filtering abilities and allows me
to apply specific filters to just incoming or just outgoing messages,
I'll be switching. (I doubt it will though).

Rick
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Re: Slow Address Book

[Rick Lecoat]

On 17/10/07 (23:00) Mikael said:

>That's a known bug, but I don't remember which app is responsible for
>not playing nice with the other. One clue is that I don't have this
>problem with another backup application. So I wouldn't blame Powermail
>for this particular bug necessarily, at least not outside of use with
>Retrospect.
>
>Mikael

IIRC, the standard best-practice advice is to quit PM before doing a
backup; not because of any particular bugs in any particular software,
but because it is deemed 'best' to  close down a database of any sort
before backing up or copying it.

I find this to be something of a problem, because I want to do regular
backups, but I *don't* want to regularly shut down PM -- due to the
clearing of the Recent Mail Window. (My person soapbox that one, I know,
but it's a substantial problem for me).

I have considered simply preventing any receive or send operations (and
not performing any other actions in PM) for the duration of a backup,
but leaving PM running... but I'm nervous about doing so on account of
the best-practice advice noted above.

What do other list members think about this? Would I be likely to f**k
up my database doing backups this way? (Backups are made to external
drive using SuperDuper, btw).

Thanks in advance;
-- 
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Re: Exporting from PowerMail - all mail is Unread

[Rick Lecoat]

On 18/9/07 (03:49) Steve said:

>I have over 100 nested folders, somewhere between 50k-100k emails, and
>the read and unread are interspersed throughout. Creating an "unread"
>folder and moving all unread mail there, then putting it back, would be
>a massive undertaking.

Steve;

If you're moving the messages into Mail, then you have the Wonderful
World of Smart Folders open to you (hey, CTM? You listening?).
You should be able to create a smart folder with the criteria "Show
unread messages". It'll list all your unread mail WITHOUT moving it from
it's actual nested location, and you can simply select all and Mark as
Read or whatever. Then you can simply delete your (now suddenly empty)
smart folder.

Shazaam!
I'm here till Thursday. Tip your waitress.

Rick
-- 
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Re: Network Interface Errors

[Rick Lecoat]

On 30/8/07 (22:32) Ira said:

>>Subject: Network Interface Error
>>From: "Ira Lansing" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:00:28 -0700
>>
>>Pg0KPlN1YmplY3Q6IFJlOiBBIG5ldHdvcmsgaW50ZXJmYWNlIGVycm9yIG9jY3VycmVkICA8LSB0
>
>Well, I sometimes see this gobbledegook in other postings, but never in
>mine.  What seems to be the cause?  I am not using any special encodings
>or non-standard fonts.

Ira, I received your original post to the list without any of the
gobbledegook (ha! Apple spell check understands gobbledegook! how very
fine!) that you quoted in your repost.

So it would appear to be a local display error that did not go past the
front door. Except that... I just looked in the headers for that message
and saw one I've never noticed before:

X-MIME-Autoconverted: from base64 to 8bit by sharkattack.co.uk id [000-
deleted by me for security-000] 

Maybe there's a 64bit issue here? But I have no idea how that might
affect things, so I'll pass the baton to someone with technical chops.

Rick

-- 
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Re: Smart folders

[Rick Lecoat]

On 30/8/07 (15:43) Georges said:

>Has any of you ever tried to replicate smart folders?

No, but I really want CTM to *implement* them.

I've been asking for them for at least a couple of years now, but there
has never been even glimmer of response -- positive or negative -- on
the matter from CTM, which I find extremely frustrating. (Likewise my
repeated requests to know whether retaining the contents of the Recent
Mail Window between PM launches will ever be a possibility. But that's
an even longer and more vexing story).

Really, Smart folders show up in so many other apps that they can hardly
be considered an obscure and unattainable goal, can they? And they would
solve so many, if not all, of my pet gripes with PM.

So, CTM, I'm calling you out: 
Are you, or are you not, planning to introduce Smart folders in Powermail?

Rick

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Re: changing account on send

[Rick Lecoat]

Marlyse;

Are you sure you didn't have a filter somewhere set to switch accounts
under certain conditions? It's a long shot, I know, but that's all I can
think of (I used to have a filter set up to make sure that mails to
certain people all went from a specific account). 

Rick

-- 
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--
**ORIGINAL MESSAGE**
Received from Marlyse Comte 
on 4/6/07 at 18:07(London time):

>coming across a really weird bug :
>
>select account A for the email when composing. all good. click on send -
>puts it in the outbox (correctly) but while doing so, changes the from
>name to a different account (one which I do NOT want to use and have not
>selected and is nowhere set in the account prefs to be that for account
>A. basically it switches the identity from selected account A to account
>B while putting it into the outbox.
>
>anyone see this behavior? any simple remedy, next to deleting accounts
>and trying to re-setup?
>
>note: I ended up deleting the account because it was doing this to
>several email going out and I needed it to go out with the correct
>account. the moment the account B was deleted, all other accounts would
>stick as set originally.
>
>but still curious if somebody else has come across this and if there was
>an easier solution.
>
>thanks!
>
>---marlyse

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Original message:
Received from PowerMail Engineering on 1/5/07 at 11:23

>"set filter criterion result to true" will set the result of the
>AppleScript condition.

"set filter criterion result to true" being a line in the Applescript,
presumably? (Sorry if that's really stupid-sounding, but I don't know my
Applescript from my elbow).

>The "Move attachment" filter action erases the Finder comments (it seems
>to be a Mac OS bug).
>And if a filter moves the attachments, the following filters will have
>trouble to find them to add Finder comments (this one is a PowerMail bug
>that I will try to fix).
>
>A probable workaround would be to use an AppleScript, in place of the
>built-in filter action, to move the attachments to another folder; and
>to execute this filter *after* the filter that sets the Finder comments.

A-ha, now THAT'S the kind of hard and fast information that I was
looking for. Of course, I need to know how to write an Applescript to
move a message to a specific folder, which I don't. (See my
parenthesised comment above). Any volunteers?

The Mac OS bug is particularly annoying, though, because it implies
that, even if the PM bug is fixed, the Tag with Comments script-filter
will need to come *below* the filters that move the attachment to the
required folder. Whereas of course the Tagging filter should really come
as high up the filter list as practical so as to act on ALL attachments.
The further down the list it comes, the more chance there is for a
higher-up filter to stop the filter cascade (if that's the right term)
with a 'Do not apply subsequent filters...' action.

But here's a thought (one which may be complete nonsense, for which I
again draw your attention to my disclaimer re. my scripting skills):Can
a script be set as a folder action and still link to PM via the PM
Applescript dictionary? In other words, could the attachment be moved
via a regular (non-script) PM filter and the *destination folder* be set
up with a tagging Folder Action script that adds the info into the
comments field?

Or is the link to PM broken if the script is not run from *within* PM?

Am I way off base here?
Rick

--
G5 2GHz x2  ::  2GB RAM  ::  10.4.7  ::  PM 5.5.2  ::  3 pane mode

--

>
>
>Jérôme - CTM Engineering

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

>Well, are you really using PM version 5.5.2 instead of 5.5.3? (I don't
>know that would cause problems for scripts in filters, but you never
>know.) Is there a reason you haven't upgraded?

Laziness combined with no pressing need. I might update PM just to see
if it makes a difference with this script issue but I don't see that it would.

To answer some of your questions, then...

1. Attachments that get moved remain on the same volume -- just a couple
of folders away from the default attachment folder.

2. Mail is checked frequently, about every 5 minutes, so the build-up is
never huge, even on very spammy days.

3. I guess I use a condition to check for the presence of an attachment
because if that determination is left to the Applescript then the script
has to run for EVERY mail received, which seems like waste of processor
overheads. PM can probably do that part of the process more efficiently
internally than by calling a 3rd party script, and only involve the
script if there is something for it to work on.

4. Yes I'm using Spamsieve, but I have no other Applescripts running via
filters.

5. The script is in the Custom Scripts folder, which has no child
folders. But the script location presumably is not a problem since it
runs okay as long as no *other* filters move the attachment. That is the
key factor.

6. I did in fact check permissions on all my attachment folders (default
and client-specific). Permissions looked okay to me.

I agree that my Mac should be more than speedy enough for this humble
task, so I think some factor other than speed or bottlenecks must be in
play. At this point I've got nothing more to add to the enigma, however.

Hope the beer was good.
Rick

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from cheshirekat on 30/4/07 at 19:16

>Do your filters that move attachments, move the attachments to a
>different volume, drive or external drive? My scripts that act on
>attachments always move the attached files. If it's spam, it is moved to
>the trash. If it's attached from a mailing list, it goes in the trash,
>if it's from certain people who like to continually forward garbage, it
>goes in the trash. But the ones that get moved to another folder, same
>volume/drive instead of the trash aren't bothered by the script either.
>I haven't tried to move them to another volume/drive because I can see a
>potential for a problem with slower drives. I would not attempt it on my
>slow PowerBook with USB 1.1 and 4500 rpm nearly full drives, unless I
>wanted email retrievals to be nearly an all day event.
>
>Your G5 should process the scripts quickly so I wouldn't imagine there
>would be a bottleneck in timing conflicts with the filters. It isn't a
>very lengthy script after all. PowerMail is so fast retrieving email
>that it almost seems that it couldn't possibly be filtering the messages
>(I have many many filters!) but I'd have major troubles with my email if
>filters weren't working. At least on my new Mac Pro - the old PowerBook
>was a different story. But I did check each time that my attachment
>script worked and that attachments were moved by other filters. I even
>sent attachments to myself from other email accounts when testing.
>
>Both scripts, as far as I can tell, tested for the existence of
>attachments for each message, so there would be no need for a filter
>that calls the AppleScript to test for the existence of attachments as
>well.  At least, that makes sense to me, but I don't know anything
>absolute when it comes to scripts in PM's filters. Actually, I only
>skimmed the other script because I knew I had one similar.
>
>How often do you check your email? Are you having to filter a ton of
>messages at once, or frequent checks, so there are only a few messages
>retrieved with each check?
>
>Do you have any other scripts running in filters? Are you using SpamSieve?
>
>What about permissions? Did you check permissions on the folders your
>attachments get moved to? No. that couldn't be the problem, else the
>attachments wouldn't get moved whether or not the script was used. Where
>in the hierarchy did you place the script in the script folder? I put
>mine in a subfolder within the "Apply To Selected Messages" folder.
>
>We have a home network. I can try the script on my PowerBook, assuming I
>don't have to shut down my Mac Pro because of licensing with two copies
>of PowerMail. I've had problems with other apps that don't like the same
>serial number on more than one computer on the network, so I avoid using
>my PB for anything internet related. (I try to abide by license
>agreements, but it takes a while to make sure everything transfers okay
>moving to a new computer.) But, I'm curious, so I might shut things down
>later and see what happens with the script on the PB.
>
>Well, my husband just brought me a beer, so I probably won't make sense
>shortly and I can't think of anything else to suggest or ponder. We've
>been figh

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

It's a puzzler, no doubt about it. 
I've tried both my earlier script and the one you kindly supplied,
putting each at the top of the filter list with the settings that you
specified. I also tried each one with the following:

Act on: Incoming mail
Condition = attachment size > 0k
Action = execute Applescript
[DO pass this message to subsequent filters].

Act on: Incoming mail
Condition = Always
Action = execute Applescript
[DO pass this message to subsequent filters].

(Actually I had never noticed the Applescript option as a filter
*condition* before. How does that work? I mean, how is 'Applescript' a
true or false condition?)

In each case, I got the same result: if I *deactivated* the filters
further down the list that move the attachment into a folder other than
the default attachment folder, then both the scripts would run fine. But
if any filters further down the list *did* move the attachment then the
scripts would fail (silently).

CheshireKat, did any of your subsequent filters *move* the attachments
that the script was acting upon? If they did and the script still runs
okay then there may be something specific to my setup.

I think that some clarification from CTM would be useful here, because
it would appear that we (the users) are misunderstanding the way
Applescript and PM interact in this instance.

Rick
-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from cheshirekat on 27/4/07 at 05:07

>I don't know what else to suggest to you. I have been testing the script
>I sent for several days. I haven't had any problems and the few files I
>have received have the appropriate text in the comments. The other
>filters continue to work on messages that have attachments.
>
>I placed the filter at the very top of my filter lists - before all
>other filters with the below criteria. 
>Condition - AppleScript/Mark Attachment Comments
>Filter incoming messages - checked
>Actions - no action
>Don't apply subsequent filters to this message - UNchecked
>
>I'm using PowerMail version 5.5.3 build 4480 English (intel)

Re: the list vs the user base (was"Re: bug or feature ?")

[Rick Lecoat]

That's your answer?
Oh, Mikael.

Or should I call you 'Mr Spock'?
; -)

Rick
--
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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 26/4/07 at 13:42

>Rick Lecoat said:
>
>>Well, if you want 100 percent accuracy then you have to poll every
>>single user of Powermail on every single question that comes up for
>>discussion. That is clearly near-impossible, and certainly ludicrously
>>impractical. If even a single PM user's opinions are omitted from the
>>statistical data then the data is less than 100 percent precise.
> That's just being irrational.

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Wayne;

Thanks for the illumination. Can you then hazard a guess as to why my
Tagging script (well, not 'mine' but used by me) fails if filters
further down the filter list are set to move the attachment?

If PM waited for the script to finish its job, as you say, then the
later filters should not interfere with it at all, surely?

Rick

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from Wayne Brissette on 25/4/07 at 23:09

>While the premise of this sounds good, it is not the case. Once PM
>starts an AppleScript, it waits for the result of the script (or for it
>to fail) before moving on. This is the expected and proper behavior of
>scripts. 
>
>Wayne

Re: the list vs the user base (was"Re: bug or feature ?")

[Rick Lecoat]

Well, if you want 100 percent accuracy then you have to poll every
single user of Powermail on every single question that comes up for
discussion. That is clearly near-impossible, and certainly ludicrously
impractical. If even a single PM user's opinions are omitted from the
statistical data then the data is less than 100 percent precise.

Which means that we are talking about statistical approximations here,
just as most marketing decisions are, and, that being the case, I repeat
my notion that this list can serve as a practical cross section of the
user base. Is it completely accurate? Of course not. But I never
suggested that it was.

Rick
--
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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 25/4/07 at 20:45

>Rick Lecoat said:
>
>>However, in the absence of
>>direct input from every single PM user out there, can we not, for the
>>purposes of discussion and friendly debate, assume that this list
>>represents something approaching a representative cross section of the
>>user base and proceed on that basis?
>
>
>No we can't if we mean us and CTM to be accurate of what the user base
wishes.

Re: bug or feature ?

[Rick Lecoat]

Clearly this list is not all Powermail users. However, in the absence of
direct input from every single PM user out there, can we not, for the
purposes of discussion and friendly debate, assume that this list
represents something approaching a representative cross section of the
user base and proceed on that basis?

I thought that *that* was a given.

Rick

--
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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 25/4/07 at 14:38

>This list is NOT all PowerMail users.

HTML globe button behaviour

[Rick Lecoat]

Currently, the little globe button exhibits the following behaviour:

Quick click: loads HTML version of email into mail browser.
Click and hold: a) View message in web browser
b) Show HTML

I always opt to view the message in a web browser (Click and hold, opt. A).
Is there any way to change prefs to obtain this action via a quick click
rather than having to click and hold? (I know this sounds REALLY lazy,
but those seconds add up, and I'm just S busy ;-)).

Rick
-- 
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Re: auto-move msg after reading

[Rick Lecoat]

And once again I'm going to climb on my 'feature request' soapbox and
ask for a preference to make the recent mail window retain its contents
between restarts.
This would make my workflow immeasurably easier, and also make regularly
scheduled backups (which properly require PM not to be running) a viable
option for me.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Matthias Schmidt on 25/4/07 at 06:30

>> Is there a way to auto-move a message into the "Read Mail" folder after 
>>reading it?  
>
>I'd suggest your customer to use the recent mail window and filter the
>mails in appropriate folders when they already arrive.

Re: auto-move msg after reading

[Rick Lecoat]

The non-HTML version will print okay *only if* the sender's email client
was correctly set up to include a non-HTML text part. Otherwise, you're stuck.

Rick

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from Dave N on 24/4/07 at 04:20

>The one person that is trying out PowerMail also wants to print html
>messages, including the short message header - Sadly, all I could do for
>her was to set her PM prefs to not favor the html version if any, as the
>non-html version prints as expected.

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi cheshirekat.

Moving the script filter to the top of the filter list won't work,
because any other filters in the list that  are set to move attachments
to specific folders -- even if they are WAAAY down the filter list --
will cause it to fail. I don't know whether this is because the script
is still running when the attachment gets moved, or whether it's because
the script is postponed until all non-script filters have done their
work and PM loses track of the file's location, but it seems that the
script will only work on attachments that are in (and are staying in)
the default attachment folder.

Currently I can either tag attachments, or move them to specific
folders, but I want to do both.

Thanks for your help though.
Rick

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from cheshirekat on 24/4/07 at 22:16

>If I were to receive a lot of attachments, as you apparently do, I'd
>move this AppleScript to the top of the list of  filters. But you have
>to make sure you UNmark the box for "Don't apply subsequent filters to
>this message". That way, all your attachments will have information in
>the comments, but other filters can still act upon the messages you
>receive and change the message labels or move the messages to specific
>folders.

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Follow up:

Looks like anything that moves the attachment prevents the script from
working. If the attachment is moved *after* the script is called (but as
part of the same filter pass, eg at incoming mail) then the script just
fails silently -- presumably it starts to work but the attachment gets
moved half way through the tagging process.

If the attachment is moved *before* the tagging script is called (eg as
part of a single filter where the Action is to move the attachment then
tag it) then I get the report "The attachment has been moved since download".

It looks like this is part of the script though, not PM.
Maybe the script needs updating to accommodate filter-moved attachments;
I don't think that functionality was available to PM's filters when the
script was written!

That's beyond my abilities right now tho.
Anyone want to have a go?

(NB I've not tried Cheshirekat's script yet. Does that take account of
filter-moved attachments?)

Rick

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from Rick Lecoat on 24/4/07 at 09:29

>Not sure what the workaround it yet, but I'll try adding the 'Tag
>Attachments' script to any filters that move attachments into specific
>folders, and see if it helps.

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

There are a few earlier-placed filters that have that box checked, but
they are all for highly specific conditions (specific account PLUS
specific subject line, etc) and would not be cause for the complete
failure to trigger that I'm seeing with this Applescript.

But I think I've nailed the problem. I have some filters that move
attachments into certain folders, depending upon whether the sender is
known or unknown to me, and also for certain clients. I assumed that if
they came *after* the 'Tag Attachments' script in the filter list then
they would not be a problem. It would appear that even if these filters
are way down the filter list, far below the 'Tag Attachments' one in
order of activation, they still prevent it from working. I had assumed
that the Applescript would run before moving to the next filter, but
this appears to be incorrect -- presumably because Applescript is a 3rd
party thing and not part of PM itself.

Not sure what the workaround it yet, but I'll try adding the 'Tag
Attachments' script to any filters that move attachments into specific
folders, and see if it helps.

Rick 

-- 
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--
Original message:
Received from Bruce Barrett on 23/4/07 at 22:28

>Hi,
>Of course it should not follow any filters that get triggered
>that include "[x] Don't apply subsequent filters to this message"
>
>I assume you've checked for that, but just in case.
>Sometimes it is the simple things. :-)

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Original message:
Received from cheshirekat on 23/4/07 at 13:49

>Is your filter at the end of your list of filters, or where is it
>located? To act on all attachments received, it would need to be at or
>near the top of your list of filters. Or, at least should not follow any
>scripts that move the attachments.

The filter in question is pretty high in my filter list (no. 15-ish out
of about 90+) and does not follow any filters that move attachments.

>
>Does the script run properly if you manually run that filter on your
>messages that have attachments? 

Yes, it does. Sorry, should have mentioned that in my original post. I
guess that this rules out any incompatibility between the script and
PM's applescript library/dictionary. 

>Have you tried copying the entire
>contents of the script into a new script file and saving? (Don't delete
>the original too quickly, but the AppleScript Editor would probably tell
>you if there was a syntax error with the script you have been using, or
>trying to use.)

I've not tried rebuilding the script in this way, but the fact that
thefilter works when manually applied (see above) implies to me that it
is unlikely to have any affect. But I might try it anyway when I have a
spare few minutes. Thanks for the alternative script.

>/snip/

>If you don't get a lot of attachments,
>you can manually run your script, or the above script on individual
>messages, or several messages at once, or even an entire folder of
>messages if the script works for you outside a filter.

I know I'd never remember to do it, and I get enough attachments that it
would become a problem. Also, the filter needs to be run on the message,
not the attachment per se, and my mail is nearly all auto-filtered into
hundred of different folders, making manual application of the filter or
script time consuming.
>
>Good luck!

Thanks!
Rick

-- 
G5 2GHz x2  ::  2GB RAM  ::  10.4.7  ::  PM 5.5.2  ::  3 pane mode

--

Re: Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

Okay Tim, thanks.

Maybe the script is just too old then. Like I said, I have no
applescript skills at all, so I can't diagnose whether it might be the
script that has fallen behind the PM library.

Here, then, is the full code of it, complete with comments and notes:

. . . . . . . . . .

(* tag attachments v1.0 is tested against powermail 3.1.1 on os x 10.1.2 *)
(* this will put identifying information into the comments of files *)
(* it looks for the attachments in the attachment folder, if the
attachment is not there *)
(* the script will put up a dialog telling you the file has moved. *)
(* use as a filter for incoming messages *)

(* includes, sender display name and email, message subject, and date sent *)

(* many thanks to tim lisauskas for helping debug this script *)


property pmSender : ""
property pmID : ""
property pmSubject : ""
property pmContent : ""
property pmTimeSent : ""
property pmDisplayName : ""
property pmAddress : ""
property pmAttach : ""
set x to 0

tell application "PowerMail"
try
set pmAttach to attachment folder

set theMessages to the current messages
repeat with msg in theMessages
set pmSender to sender of msg
--return pmSender
set pmAddress to email address of pmSender as string
--return pmAddress
set pmDisplayName to display name of pmSender as string
--return pmDisplayName
set pmSubject to subject of msg as string
set pmTimeSent to time sent of msg as string
set pmID to ID of msg as integer
set pmAttachments to name of attachments of msg as list
-- New code by Wayne Brissette
-- Check to see if attachment exists
set MyAttachment to item 1 of pmAttachments as string
if MyAttachment is "" then
set HasAttachment to false
else
set HasAttachment to true
end if
--- End of new code by Wayne Brissette
--return pmAttachments

if length of pmAttachments > 1 then
set numAttach to length of pmAttachments
repeat with i from 1 to numAttach
tell application "Finder"
try
set x to x + 1
set theAttach to item x 
of pmAttachments as text
if ((file theAttach of 
folder pmAttach) exists) is true then
set 
pmAttachFile to ((file theAttach of folder pmAttach) as alias)
my 
tagAttachment(pmAttachFile)
else
tell 
application "PowerMail"
display 
dialog "The attachment " & theAttach & " has been moved
since download." with icon 2 buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell
end if
end try
end tell
end repeat
else
tell application "Finder"
set pmAttachments to item 1 of 
pmAttachments as text
if ((file pmAttachments of folder 
pmAttach) exists) is true then
set pmAttachFile to ((file 
pmAttachments of folder pmAttach) as alias)
my tagAttachment(pmAttachFile)
else if HasAttachment is true then -- 
New else statement by Wayne
Brissette
tell application "PowerMail"
display dialog "The 
attachment has been moved since download."
with icon 2 buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end tell
end if
end tell
end if
end repeat

on error errMsg number errNum
beep
display

Applescript not triggering, WAS Attachment link failing

[Rick Lecoat]

On a sort-of-related note:

I have an apple script (not written by me -- I have no skills in that
arena) that is supposed to fire any time a message comes in with an
attachment. The script writes to the attached file's Finder comments
(are they still called Finder Comments?), making a note of who sent the
file and the date. This is really useful because, although I also have
had no problem with PM losing the links to attachments, I often want to
track the other way and find out who sent a particular file in my
attachment's folder, and when.

Or, at least, it *would* be really useful if it were not for the fact
that the script does not fire. PM appears to not activate applescripts
if they are called automatically by a filter, as mine is (the condition
is set to [Attachment > 0k] which I know works as a trigger because I
also use it in another filter to set the label colour for messages with
attachments. That other filter works fine.

This is not the first time I've flagged this problem (it's been plaguing
me for several years now), but despite many versions of PM coming and
going, it seems never to have been fixed. It must be seen as a bug, surely?

Is it just me?
Rick

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Shark Attack: A Design Studio


--
Original message:
Received from Alan Harper on 22/4/07 at 14:40

>I can confirm that I also do NOT have this problem (perhaps you are the
>only one!) One thing I love about PowerMail is that it usually can track
>an attachment link even after I move the attachment to another folder
>and rename the file. (Though I usually have to quit and relaunch the
>program). I assume it uses aliases to track attachments.

Re: bug or feature ?

[Rick Lecoat]

Hmm.
I've been following this thread for the last couple of days and I'm
surprised that many of the people contributing to it are taking a stance
that seems to be: "this is not a problem in my own workflow, so I fail
to see that it should be a problem in yours". The implication would seem
to be that Winston is somehow being ridiculous in having a life and/or
workflow that DOES require that this function work as expected -- which
is of course entirely unfair to him and does something of a disservice
(IMHO) to the list as a whole.

I, for one, also rarely print emails; and, like many of you fine folk,
most of my HTML email goes in the trash. But that isn't the point. The
merits of HTML mail are not the issue here. How to get HTML mail onto
paper at such times as it becomes necessary *is*.

The browser workaround is okay in some instances but as Winston pointed
out early on, it does not include the mail headers (long or short) that
can be very important -- if I'm printing an email, the chances are that
I'll want the date, sender, etc, at the top of that sheet of paper.
Printing from the browser does not do.

No amount of semantic acrobatics re. email standards and protestation
that "this isn't a problem for me, why should it be for you?" will get
away from the fact that PM will display HTML mail but won't print it. I
do consider that a bug, or at the very least a flaw (the difference is
blurry at best). No one is asking for PM to compose HTML mail. But if it
will render it then it should be able to print what it renders. That to
me is a no brainer.

Is this something that I actually care about? No, because as I said, I
hardly ever print any sort of email. But Winston cares about it, and I
think that he is right to (and *has* every right to). He's not out of
line here.

I *do* care that a valid concern by a list member is being trivialised
on the grounds that his needs do not tally with the needs of others. 
We're better than that.

Rick

-- 
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Shark Attack: A Design Studio

Re: Mail Accounts

[Rick Lecoat]

A combination of key and brute force. The confusion came from the fact
that when it's unlocked, it *feels* locked -- and you need to apply some
strength to twist it free. When it's locked it just rotates freely,
which feels broken, but isn't, evidently.

New car, new ways.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled topics...

Rick
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Shark Attack: A Design Studio


--
Original message:
Received from Dave N on 12/4/07 at 23:08

>So how DO you unlock that petrol cap??? :-) 

Re: Sound still disappears from PM

[Rick Lecoat]

Yeah, all my alert sounds. 'Played' sounds, eg iTunes and QT, still
function normally, as do the feedback sounds when changing volume with
the keyboard

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Shark Attack: A Design Studio


--
Original message:
Received from Tim Hodgson on 13/12/06 at 13:26

>Not here; I've never used iChat. But my symptoms are different from
>yours anyway - IIRC all your system sounds disappear along with PM's.
>That doesn't happen here.

Re: Sound still disappears from PM

[Rick Lecoat]

I'm thinking that the problem might be originating with iChat. I just
restarted iChat and I think that it reinstated the sound alerts. I say
*think* because I hadn't asked Powermail to do anything that would
generate a sound for a while, so it might have gotten its sounds back earlier.

But iChat is top candidate right now.
My iChat has the Chax modifier applied to it, anyone else?

Rick

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Shark Attack: A Design Studio


--
Original message:
Received from Peter Baral on 25/11/06 at 09:13

>Exactly the same symptoms here, except that I'm using Apple Mail  
>instead of PowerMail. So it seems to be unrelated to PowerMail. I  
>guess that the sounds are gone on sleep/wake up.
>All sounds are back on restart of the Mac.
>
>Just reinstalled the Mac OS X 10.4.8 COMBO Update and sounds are back  
>for the last day or so. Hope this solves this issue

Re: Sound still disappears from PM

[Rick Lecoat]

Following on from the posts (partially-) quoted below, I can confirm the
following:

1.  My PM alert sounds have disappeared again (a few hours ago in fact,
no idea of the trigger).

2.  The Mac's alert sounds are also kaput -- no 'whoop' in iChat for
example, and nothing heard if I tinker with the Sound Effects panel of
the Sound Prefs Pane (changing the alert sound or moving the Alert
Volume slider, for example). So it is not restricted to PM.

3. iTunes plays fine as do QT movies.

4. Changing the Output Volume (whether via the Output Volume slider in
Sound Prefs Pane or by hitting my vol up/down keys) does still deliver
the 'volume change' feedback noise.

5. Neither changing PM's alert sound in PM prefs *nor* changing the
alert volume in Sound Prefs Pane causes anything to be written to
system.log, according to Console.

So... where does this leave us? Is it unrelated to PM? Or is PM
triggering an audio alert fallover at system level? It's a bit beyond my
diagnostic skills at this point.

Rick

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--
I wrote:
>I'm still finding that after a while the alert sounds (well, all the
>sounds) from Powermail are being silenced. I have no idea what triggers
>it -- maybe something to do with iTunes or Quicktime? -- but it's
>actually rather annoying and more of a productivity block than I wold
>have expected.

Then Hiro wrote:
>I don't think I have ever seen anyone reported this.  When you lost PM
>sound, you are sure your Mac alert is still alive?
>
>When you lost PM sound, open Console.app, have it display system.log, go
>to PM pref and make PM sound by selecting different sound.  Do you see
>any new error entry in system.log

Sound still disappears from PM

[Rick Lecoat]

I'm still finding that after a while the alert sounds (well, all the
sounds) from Powermail are being silenced. I have no idea what triggers
it -- maybe something to do with iTunes or Quicktime? -- but it's
actually rather annoying and more of a productivity block than I wold
have expected.

I'm not so bothered about losing the sounds effect for when I send mail,
because I know that I've done it; it's more the alerts for new mail that
are conspicuous by their absence.

The only way to rectify the problem is to quit and restart Powermail --
which gets me back to my most-often-moaned-about issue: the emptying of
the recent mail window at restart. It's been over a month since I've
jumped up on this soapbox, but I figure that if a new version of PM has
come out in the intervening time that has not addressed the matter, then
I'm allowed to bleat on about it again like a cracked record. So here goes:

The Recent Mail Window (RMW) is a major centre of productivity for me;
mail stays there until I decide to either read it, delete it, or
whatever. I treat it like a "Things still to act on" tray and it
performs this function superbly because it pulls together all the mail
that has been shifted, upon arrival, into hundred of sub folders by my
vast phalanx of filters.

This works wonderfully, until I need to restart Powermail, which clears
the RMW. Suddenly I am forced to hunt through all those folders looking
for messages that until a moment ago were conveniently shown together in
Recent Mail, so the memory-jogging value of the RMW is entirely lost. 

The result is that I try and avoid shutting down PM if at all possible.
This means I delay in compacting my mailboxes, I put up with glitches
like the loss of sound (noted above) for longer than I would otherwise
need to, and -- most important by FAR -- I delay in making backups of my
data, because to do so safely I need to quit PM. So, as far as I am
concerned, PM interferes with my backup routines and that is a VERY BAD THING.

ONE SINGLE CHANGE would make this problem go away: a simple preference
to let me choose whether the RMW gets emptied at restart, or is
retained. Is it really THAT hard? I've been asking for this since PM 4.1
-- that's over 3 years. 

C'mon CTM, you may as well do it... you *know* I'll just keep on
badgering you until you do...;-)

Rick
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Re: broken mails not retrievable

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Jérôme;

It's hard to be certain about whether the broken message is a ghost
message or not, as there was nothing to see in the headers (it got as
far as "RFC822 Header Follows" and then nothing. I have a lot of
incoming mail from the same people all the time so it is difficult to
determine whether the content of the broken message is actually
replicated in a message that I have fully received.

You may be right and the messages have actually been retrieved but leave
a phantom presence on the server (or whatever it is that is happening).
The broken messages have been deleted now so I have nothing to check
against, but if it happens again I'll see what I can determine.

Thanks for your help.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from PowerMail Engineering on 8/11/06 at 13:33

>I think that no message is lost. The message with the boken icon has
>probably lost the reference to the message on the POP server (something
>that I will try to fix, of course), so on the next connection, a new
>message will be retrieved, instead of retrieving completely the partial one.
>If you can determine with certitude that a partial message is really
>lost (if the partial message contains a unique subject or date, or if
>you are sure that someone sent a message that you never received),
>please let me know.
>
>
>Jérôme - PowerMail Engineering

Re: Feature request; fixed-width toggle

[Rick Lecoat]

Yes, I'd love this feature as well. Way back in the day before I
switched to PM I used Eudora and I found it surprisingly useful.
Often I receive emails that I can see, from the text spacing, were
composed using a fixed width font -- generally because the sender was
dividing text into columns, eg. for a price estimate.
In those situation it would be nice to be able to see what they wanted
me to see without having to do a lot of opening, changing and saving
preferences (and then changing and saving them again when I'm done).

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Tim Hodgson on 7/11/06 at 13:59

>I think this may have come up before, but not for a while. I'd love a
>command to set the current message's font to a fixed-width. Handy if
>you're sent tabulated data, ASCII sketches etc. Eudora and some
>newsreaders have the feature.
>
>(From a quick glance at the PM Applescript dictionary, I don't think
>there's a way to script this, but I'm certainly no AS expert.)

Re: broken mails not retrievable

[Rick Lecoat]

And it's still going on (which is to be expected I guess as nothing has
changed). But this is getting serious. Notwithstanding that the fact
that primary issue is that my ISP can't sustain its connection in the
evenings, Powermail's inability to deal properly with a prematurely
broken connection is not acceptable.

PM has many quirks in its interface that I don't like but can live with
because it does its core job in a solid fashion. But this issue means
that I am losing email -- something that an email application should
never permit. I just received a message from a client that I had been
waiting for and it only half came through (because of the severed
connection). The connection is re-established, but PM will not retrieve
it, so it is lost.

Absolutely unacceptable and needs to be fixed as a priority.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Derry Thompson on 7/11/06 at 17:40

>Sean McBride at [EMAIL PROTECTED] said on Sat, 4 Nov 2006 11:12:37 -0500
>
>>>For some reason, I've been getting regular internet connection outages
>>>at around the same time every night -- nothing to do with Powermail of
>>>course, but it does have a side effect. Often the connection goes down
>>>during a mail fetch, and I find that I am left with a half-downloaded,
>>>broken-icon message.
>>>
>>>The problem is that if (once service is restored) I use either of PM's
>>>options for dealing with this message -- 'Retrieve completely now' or
>>>'Retrieve completely at next connection' -- the message is NOT retrieved
>>>but it's Status icon changes to indicate that it is no longer on the
>>>server. So it's lost, and I have no way to know whether it was just spam
>>>or a request for me to do a billion dollars worth of design work for the
>>>Apple. (I know, I know.) 
>>
>>I reported the exact same problem to this list on Oct 24.  I'm glad
>>someone else is having the problem. :)  It's happened both at home on my
>>Mac Pro and at work on my G5.  Two entirely different network setups/
>>servers/etc.

broken mails not retrievable

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi all.

For some reason, I've been getting regular internet connection outages
at around the same time every night -- nothing to do with Powermail of
course, but it does have a side effect. Often the connection goes down
during a mail fetch, and I find that I am left with a half-downloaded,
broken-icon message.

The problem is that if (once service is restored) I use either of PM's
options for dealing with this message -- 'Retrieve completely now' or
'Retrieve completely at next connection' -- the message is NOT retrieved
but it's Status icon changes to indicate that it is no longer on the
server. So it's lost, and I have no way to know whether it was just spam
or a request for me to do a billion dollars worth of design work for the
Apple. (I know, I know.) 

Is this a fault with PM? I have to assume that it is, since it is PM
that is manipulating the messages on the server (flagging them for
deletion, deleting as necessary, etc).

FWIW, my settings are for PM to leave messages on the server for 1 day
after download, just in case (which was supposed to avoid this problem).

I guess I should update to the full finished version of 5.5 (to be
honest, until I checked I thought I was using the last previous non-beta
version; I'd forgotten that I'd upped to the 5.5 beta2 a while back).

Is there anything different about PM's handling of broken messages
between the beta I'm using and the full version?

Cheers; 
Rick
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Re: Strange bug.

[Rick Lecoat]

Mikael;

Just to clarify your question: Do you mean that text that is copied out
of PM and pasted into (for example) OmniOutliner should take its
formatting from the paragraph that it is pasted into?

If so, then what this needs is a quick way of stripping formatting out
of text held on the clipboard. And I have just the utility to do it.
Actually it's a 2-parter: a utility and a plug in for the utility.

The utility is Spark , which is a simple keyboard shortcut tool. Set it to launch at login.

And there is a neat plugin for Spark called Plain Clip Plug  that lets you assign a
keyboard shortcut to strip out all formatting. (I use F16). You can even
have the shortcut include the paste command, although I find that a bit
invasive.

I copy text (be it HTML, formatted Word text, whatever), hit F16, and
paste it. Blam, it's now plain text and picks up whatever contextual
format it finds itself in.

Of course, if I misunderstood your needs then this will be no use to you
at all.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 13/10/06 at 00:36

>Anyone know how to get pasted text in any app or specifically in Ragtime
>6, OmniOutliner 3 and Word to adjust font, size and color to the context
>(paragraph)?

Re: 256 User License (was: Re: PowerMail 5.5 final candidate)

[Rick Lecoat]

Ah, the old cowboys and endians problem.
Quick, pull the macs into a circle...

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from CTM info on 12/10/06 at 10:59

>Seems like a multiple-personality disorder on Intel, about 128 per core.
>I tell you, what endians do you...

default addresses

[Rick Lecoat]

Right, here's the thing. I realise that PM allows me to define which
email address is the default one for a given correspondent by opening up
Powermail's own address book and marking the relevant address with a
yellow dot.

Unfortunately, sometimes this gets overwritten/reset when the PM address
book is updated from the Apple address book. Sometimes, however, it
doesn't get reset -- and I've not been able to work out what the pattern is.

Has anyone else had this sporadic and slightly vexing issue? And does
anyone else have any insight into what might cause that yellow dot to
jump back to a different email address in PM's address book?

Rick

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Re: dock menu always says 'force quit'

[Rick Lecoat]

Well, whatever, I relaunched PM again and the weirdness appears to have
vanished. I'm back to having a regular Quit at the bottom of the dock menu.

Perhaps not unconnected, the reason that I relaunched PM was because I
minimised the Recent Mail window to the dock, and it didn't want to come
out again. Pressing Cmd-Ctrl-R called a second instance of the RM window
(leaving the original one wedged in the dock), and at that point I
thought that things had gotten wiggy enough and just restarted Powermail.

Perhaps the Force Quit thing was due to a window management error
waiting to happen?

Anyway, it's all sweet now.
Rick
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Re: dock menu always says 'force quit'

[Rick Lecoat]

No, no Alt key. Just a simple ctrl-click (actually a right-click with my
2-button mouse). As an idiot-test I also tried the normal-click-and-hold
which also calls the contextual menu for the dock item, and that also
shows Force Quit.

How strange! Apart from that small glitch PM is working fine.
Rick
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--
Original message:
Received from Rene Merz on 18/8/06 at 11:58

>Do-you press the "alt" key too when clicking into the dock icon?
>Then it offers allways "force quit".
>"quit" is given with mouseclick and mouse key down only or with mouse
>click + "ctrl" key

dock menu always says 'force quit'

[Rick Lecoat]

I've just noticed that for some reason, the contextual menu on PM's dock
icon always says "Force quit" at the bottom instead of just "Quit". I
have no idea why this should be; the application has not crashed and
seems to be responding as normal -- mail is retrieved and sent without
any problem.

A quit and relaunch has made no difference. Activity monitor reports
nothing unusual (at least to my untrained eyes) regarding Powermail, and
yet right-clicking on the dock icon still gives me the disconcerting
option to Force quit, as if the app had hung.

Anyone else?
Rick

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Re: dock menu always says 'force quit'

[Rick Lecoat]

No, if the button that is supposed to give me a 'ctrl-click' is actually
giving me 'alt-ctrl-click' I think that I'd have noticed by now.

My mouse settings are correct. And PM is the only app who's dock icon
menu shows Force Quit.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Rene Merz on 18/8/06 at 13:59

>I think that it could have to do with the programing of the buttons of
>your mouse.

Re: Back up options

[Rick Lecoat]

>I could easily automate a system to quit PM, perform a backup
>of all my files, and relaunch PM, but the RMW, which sort of serves as a
>"things to deal with" tray for me.

Whoops, that sentence should have ended:
'...but the RMW, which sort of serves as a "things to deal with" tray
for me would be completely cleared out.'

Rick

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Re: Back up options

[Rick Lecoat]

I've said it many times before, but PM's insistence upon wiping clean
the Recent Mail Window whenever it Quits severely hampers my backup
strategy. I could easily automate a system to quit PM, perform a backup
of all my files, and relaunch PM, but the RMW, which sort of serves as a
"things to deal with" tray for me.

A simple preference setting to retain the RMW contents between PM
restarts would make my overall backup strategy much more effective and
thereby increase the overall disaster-proofing level of my entire computer.

Plse?
Rick

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Re: Listarchive [was: Two feature requests - sort of]

[Rick Lecoat]

Can I also request that all the times that I've given advice that turned
out to be completely and utterly wrong also be obscured?
Cheers!

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from A-NO-NE Music on 27/7/06 at 16:25

>Matthias Schmidt / 2006/07/28 / 11:18 AM wrote:
>
>>I will also ask that Hiros last name will be obscured.
>
>It would be very much appreciated if my studio name and URLs are also
>obscured.
>
>-- 
>
>- Hiro
>
>
>
>

Re: Hanging downloads

[Rick Lecoat]

Frank

If the mystery email is only half downloaded then you can right-click
(ctrl-click) and choose "Retrieve message completely now" from the
contextual menu. (it might not say precisely that; I'm going from memory
and don't have a half-message to hand to test with).

But maybe you don't mean that, and the message is completely downloaded
but blank. In which case I don't know, but maybe it is an empty stub and
you actually do have the message included in the ones that downloaded
properly. What I mean is that you might have 'Message A' twice: once as
a useless stub and once as a complete download. Of course the stub
should be deleted when the full version comes in but maybe PM lost the
link between the two.

Just an idea. I have no evidence of any sort.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Frank Mitchell on 11/7/06 at 06:48

>Occasionally, when downloading my messages, PM hangs part way. After
>waiting, I stop the download and immediately reconnect. PM then downloads
>the rest of my messages.
>
>When this happens I find an empty email has appeared in my inbox  - no
>subject, sender or message. Show Full Header is not very informative.
It shows
>
>-- RFC822 Header Follows --
>---
>
>Is this a known problem? Does it matter?. If so, any ideas as to what is
>wrong?
>
>MDD G4 with OS 10.2.8
>PM v 5.0.2
>
>Thanks,
>Frank
>
>-- Frank Mitchell, Scottsdale, Arizona
>
>
>
>

PM sound loss

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi all. List has been fairly quiet recently so I thought I'd try you lot
with something that is far from being a crisis but is enough to be annoying.

After PM has been running for a while it seems to suddenly lose its
sound. No incoming mail noises (that's the most annoying one, really),
and no other PM-generated sound, like Sending Mail noises. No other app
is affected. Restarting PM restores sound, but I hate to restart PM
because it wipes my recent mail window (my biggest personal gripe with
PM, but well-covered in other threads).

Anybody else have this?
System specs below.

Cheers;
Rick

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Re: Problem running AppleScript that creates email

[Rick Lecoat]

I also have trouble with Applescripts not performing when called by a
filter during mail collection but working fine when called manually (ie.
from the "Perform Filter" menu item).

The one that most annoys me is a script that adds some info such as the
sender's name, the date, etc, into the comments for any attached files,
so if I can't remember who sent me file signo-abb24.sit I just have to
Cmd-i and I can find out. But the script never runs automatically, only
if I cal it from the menu. Not very useful. It used to work... but I'm
not sure when it stopped working. A while ago, that's for sure.

rick

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--
Original message:
Received from George Henne on 2/6/06 at 16:16

>(Wayne: I think I understand you, but the changed code does the same thing)
>
>Here's the latest code.
>
>tell application "PowerMail"
>   set theMessages to current messages
>   repeat with msg in theMessages
>   -- put your code here to do something on each message msg
>   
>   if exists (attachments of msg) then
>   set fileList to attachments of msg
>   repeat with theFile in fileList -- this code does not 
> handle multiple
>CSV attachements
>   set fname to theFile's name
>   if fname contains ".csv" then
>   set myFile to theFile's file
>   set theText to my readFile(myFile)
>   end if
>   end repeat
>   else
>   set theText to the content of msg & time sent of msg
>   end if
>   end repeat
>end tell
>
>-- now send the text to Hypercard
>set the clipboard to ((theText) as text)
>tell application "SuperCard 4.5"
>   activate
>   do script "go to card 1 of stack NSB Invoice SC"
>   do script "send mouseUp to cd button CopyClipboard"
>   do script "send mouseUp to cd button UpdateImport"
>end tell
>-- SuperCard will now generate the reply
>
>on readFile(theFile)
>   read theFile
>end readFile
>
>
>>Try moving your tell statements. 
>>Close the tell for PowerMail, then run your SuperCard, then open a new
>>Tell statement for Powermail to create a new message. That should fix
>>the problem. It will also prevent PM having to wait for SuperCard to finish.
>>
>>Wayne
>>
>>-Original Message-
>>>From: George Henne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>Sent: Jun 2, 2006 9:34 AM
>>>To: Wayne Brissette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>Subject: Re(2): Problem running AppleScript that creates email
>>>
>>>Wayne,
>>>
>>>That's very kind. 
>>>
>>>I simplified the explanation a bit on the board. The AppleScript
>>>actually calls Supercard, which is sending the message to Powermail; but
>>>I think the principle is the same.
>>>
>>>tell application "PowerMail"
>>> set theMessages to current messages
>>> repeat with msg in theMessages
>>> -- put your code here to do something on each message msg
>>> 
>>> if exists (attachments of msg) then
>>> set fileList to attachments of msg
>>> repeat with theFile in fileList -- this code does not 
>>> handle multiple
>>>CSV attachements
>>> set fname to theFile's name
>>> if fname contains ".csv" then
>>> set myFile to theFile's file
>>> set theText to my readFile(myFile)
>>> end if
>>> end repeat
>>> else
>>> set theText to the content of msg & time sent of msg
>>> end if
>>> 
>>> -- now send the text to Hypercard
>>> set the clipboard to ((theText) as text)
>>> tell application "SuperCard 4.5"
>>> activate
>>> do script "go to card 1 of stack NSB Invoice SC"
>>> do script "send mouseUp to cd button CopyClipboard"
>>> do script "send mouseUp to cd button UpdateImport"
>>> end tell
>>>  -- SuperCard will now generate the reply
>>> end repeat
>>>end tell
>>>
>>>on readFile(theFile)
>>> read theFile
>>>end readFile
>>>
>>>
>>>
I'll be happy to take a look at it if you want.

Wayne

-Original Message-
>From: George Henne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Jun 2, 2006 9:05 AM
>To: PowerMail Discussions <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Problem running AppleScript that creates email
>
>I have an AppleScript that runs as a result of a mail filter. One of the
>things it does is create a PowerMail message. The script runs fine by
>itself: the problem is that it hangs when it is called from PowerMail.
>
>From what I c

Re: Invisible Mail in Folders

[Rick Lecoat]

Chris;

Make sure that the offending folders have 'View All" selected, not 'View
Unread' (from the View Menu). This works on a folder-by-folder basis I
believe.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Christopher Plummer on 24/4/06 at 12:45

>Hello All,
>
>In a recent effort to take advantage of PM's fast search, and to
>simplify my mail folder structure, I started pulling mail out of
>subfolders, dropping it into the parent folder, and then deleting the
>subfolder. Sometimes this works, as far as I can tell in 'newer' folders
>(I've been using PM  for quite a few years...). When it doesn't work,
>the mail from the subfolders disappears.
>
>For example, I have a 'Vendors' folder that appears to have nothing in
>it, but at the bottom of the window it says "0 displayed of 547".  
>
>I have used all the utilities to rebuild the entire database, index, 
>etc. to no avail. Is there any way to make these invisible messages re-
appear?
>
>Many thanks in advance,
>
>
>- Chris
>
>Christopher Plummer
>ZebraTale, LLC
>Macintosh & Lotus Domino Consulting
>===
>** CHRIS'S UNPREDICTABLE and OCCASIONAL Newsletter for Mac Users **
> Check the UNPREDICTABLE archive - 
>===
>
>
>
>

Re: error 43

[Rick Lecoat]

Howard, my problem doesn't freeze Powermail, the only interruption comes
from the fact that the error dialogue box needs to be OK-ed before PM
will do anything else. Which is fine if I'm sitting there at the
computer, but not so good if I'm away from the office for the day and
have left the mac on to collect mail and do all those other things that
we let our machines get on with in our absence. 

I've not had an error since I moved the spam filters back to high up the
filter list, but the mac has been asleep for a lot of the intervening
time (ie. not much mail retrieved) so I'll have to wait longer before I
can assess whether it's worked or not.

I'm still of the opinion that it might have been caused by receiving a
spam email carrying an attachment that gets filtered to the trash before
reaching the spam filter -- which then also tries to move the attachment
to the trash. Maybe PM loses track of the attachment location between
the filters -- like when you manually move an attachment in the finder,
and then you have to deselect the message in PM and reselect it for PM
to relink to the new location. 

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--
Original message:
Received from Howard on 13/4/06 at 08:10

>I'm getting the same thing occasionally, both on my G5 and on my
>PowerBook Ti. It seems to happen when retrieving a spam file, probably a
>Windoze virus. And, yes, it freezes PowerMail. I usually have to restart
>PowerMail. One time, even after multiple restarts, it continued to
>freeze PowerMail. I stopped it by accessing webmail on the account that
>I guessed had the bad file, and deleted it there.
>
>Yes, it's annoying. I'd like to hear CTM's comments.
>
>Howard
>
>
>

Re: error 43

[Rick Lecoat]

Off-list, Olaf Drümmer sent the following:

>Could it be this has to do with filters? If so, it might show up if you
>just try filtering again some messages.

I had speculated earlier that it might be something in my filter set.
The only thing that I can think of that I have changed recently in that
regard is moving my Spam evaluation and action filters to the end of the
filter list, to ensure that nothing acted upon by the rest of my filters
could be flagged as Spam (most of my filters have the "do not apply
further filters to this message" option checked).

Having gone through the whole list, the only thing that I can see that
might cause a conflict is that there is a filter designed to
automatically send certain attached file formats (.exe, .pif,
signature.asc, etc) straight to the trash. This filter *does* pass the
message on to later filters for further processing. But my spam filter
is also set to put the attachments of spam messages into the trash.
Maybe the two are fighting, although I would have thought that PM could
handle that sort of thing; if I have two filters each set to move a
message into a certain folder, the message simply gets moved there -- no
error report.

Anyway, I'll move my spam filters back to higher up the list and see if
it makes any difference.

Rick

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Re: error 43

[Rick Lecoat]

Right, gotcha.
Well, if it was an issue with something at a system level, or at the
mail server, then I would have thought that it would give an error for
every piece of mail that it tried to retrieve. (Of course, I'm guessing
about that, as I'm way out of my depth with 'system calls' and such like).

But it only gives the error in some instances, and since there will
always be a batch of messages and they come in over my fast connection
at blistering speed, there is no way to tell by eye which is the problem
one(s) -- if it is message-specific at all, that is.

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--
Original message:
Received from Ben Kennedy on 12/4/06 at 14:51

>Rick,
>
>Hiro is not disputing that PM is presenting the error message.  What he
>is questioning is the context of the error number: is it a PM-defined
>error code, or is it one returned by some system call?  If the latter,
>then it definitively indicates a filesystem issue since that's what -43
>means.  If the former, then we would have to ask CTM.  Indications point
>to the former, though.
>
>-ben

Re: error 43

[Rick Lecoat]

Hiro;

I'm certain that this is a PM error report (PM is the only part of my OS
that ever gives me error reports -- apart from the occasional
"Application 'X' has unexpectedly quit" that does crop up from time to
time, usually with the incredibly unstable GoLive)

I suspect that, since the error only (and regularly) pops up when
retrieving mail, it is due to a filter or something not being able to
fulfil its specified actions... but I'm not sure, nor is it going to be
easy to find the problem.

CTM must already have a list of the various error codes in-house (I
mean, they're *their* codes after all); could this not be made public in
the support section of the website?

It would be great to look up Error 43 and discover that it is caused by
a filter not being able to operate correctly. It would be even *greater*
if the error dialogue itself said "Error-43: the mail filter 'My Filter'
was unable to move the message 'Re: error 43' to the folder 'Powermail
discussions' because the folder could not be located". Or something similar.

Although the above does not completely identify the message that causes
the error (just gives the subject line) it is a lot more help than the
current error message which seems to be there solely to be obscure and opaque.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from A-NO-NE Music on 11/4/06 at 16:29

>Do you know if this is a PM error or OS error by looking at the error
>message window?  If it is an OS error, it is telling the file system is
>reporting file, container, or target can't be found.  Your file system
>might be sick, and/or pref might be corrupted.  If it is a PM error, I
>don't know what it is.

error 43

[Rick Lecoat]

Recently I've started to get a lot of errors when downloading mail --
"Error -43, Operation could not be completed".
I'm not sure when this started (at least, I know it started a week or so
ago but don't know if it was because of something that I changed in my
set up).

Without being given a clue as to the nature of the operation that cannot
be completed, I'm not sure how to start trouble shooting. I did try a
compact of the database and a rebuild of the search indexes, but it
makes no difference.

Wh`at is really annoying is that the error reporting dialogue box seems
to be modal so that I have to be there to click 'OK' or nothing else
will progress.

Rick

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Re: Solving filter list management problem (was "RMW in browser")

[Rick Lecoat]

I do the same thing -- 'dummy' filters that act as dividers. Folders
would be preferable, of course, as they would, when collapsed, actually
shorten the filter list considerably, whereas our current workaround
lengthens it.

From my own point of view, the filter organisation issue is a completely
different discussion/wish to the smart folders thing (although I
acknowledge that there is some tangential* overlap, as Marlyse pointed out).

Rick

*Tangential to me, possibly not to others.

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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 22/3/06 at 14:16

>Currently as my solution to this problem I mark up the list with inactive
>filters in a fashion to become headlines and organize the relevant
>filters under these.

Re: RMW in browser

[Rick Lecoat]

Oh, think we can have both, don't you?
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Matthias Schmidt on 22/3/06 at 14:07

>On the other side, imho smart folders would be even nicer to have

Re: RMW in browser

[Rick Lecoat]

Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 22/3/06 at 13:39

>I'm still thinking about the problem space and trying to understand the
>somewhat obscure suggestions that have been made.

Good for you. Me, I'm going to get on with some work.
Rick

Re: RMW in browser

[Rick Lecoat]

Actually Matthias, the folders that I would like to see in the filter
window would be for organisation only and would be completely
transparent to the filter run-order. Ie:

Folder A
filter 1
filter 2
filter 3

Folder B
filter 4
filter 5

Would still result in the filters being applied this:
filter 1
filter 2
filter 3
filter 4
filter 5

So no change to to the functionality.
It would just help me to navigate through an increasingly unwieldy
filter list by grouping filters visually.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Matthias Schmidt on 22/3/06 at 04:18

>But the GUI would be broken, if we'd get folders in the Filters-window
>and then those filters wouldn't work hierarchically.

Re: RMW in browser (was "Re: MacBook Pro, PM 5.2.3 "Rebuilding Sort Indices")

[Rick Lecoat]

Mikael;

I certainly agree that newcomers should be amply catered for; they are
the lifeblood of any small developer. However, this is POWERmail... and
having a greater degree of sophistication available for those who want
it would seem to go along with the name, and cannot be a bad thing
provided the GUI is sensibly and well implemented.

I do agree that your argument about the message browser being for
listing messages in *definite* locations has a certain logic to it. But
I am not convinced that it outweighs (for me) the usability factor. By
your argument there is no place in the browser for any sort of 'smart'
folder (which would surely operate in the same way as the recent mail
window, displaying messages from disparate locations according to
specified criteria), and smart folders are something that I would love
to see implemented in PM -- they would do away with many of my recurring
gripes in one fell swoop.

The problem for me is one of screen real estate. I want to have both the
browser and recent mail windows showing at the same time because I'm
always looking at one or the other, and because I want to have several
columns showing in each, they inevitably overlap each other all the
time. If I put both windows side by side, even without showing all of
the columns that I want to refer to, they take up the whole width of my
monitor -- and that's a 23" cinema display.

Constantly having to bring one or the other to the foreground is a bit
annoying, and to keep closing one and reopening it would be even more
so. Really, though, I think that it comes down to the fact that I really
want all my email activity to take place in one window, not two, just
for visual neatness. I'm aware that that is a personal taste thing, but
visual neatness is a hallmark of PM and this would not, IMO, be out of
keeping with that.

The ideal, for me, would be to have the ability to set up smart folders
in the browser -- which would effectively do away with the need for the
RMW. Off the top of my head, I would simply reserve a section of the
folder list for Smart Folders, in between the In/Out Trays and the
'regular' folders.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 21/3/06 at 10:11

>This doesn't make much sense actually. What's the gain? The Recent Mail
>window is one button press action away. It's an overview of what recent
>messages there are in in the browsers database. These are not part of the
>mail DB in that location. To not clearly put these somewhere else other
>than in the browser would be confusing for many, especially newcomers.
>
>CTM should design for newcomers, many newcomers. We need them.

Re: MacBook Pro, PM 5.2.3 "Rebuilding Sort Indices"

[Rick Lecoat]

Well, the previous discussions about this subject (and there have been
many!) would seem to favour having the RMW turned into a sort of smart
folder in the folder list, presumably positioned alongside the In Tray
and Out Tray. Thus it wold be no more intrusive than any other folder --
if you don't use then you would presumably simply not click on it.

Inevitably everybody has slightly different interface preferences (I
mean personal preferences, not app preferences!). These are mine; I have
no idea whether I am in a majority or not.

Making those features that divide the user base preference-configurable
is generally a good idea I think.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from computer artwork by subhash on 21/3/06 at 09:02

>Rick Lecoat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb:
>
>> And the Recent Mail window integrated into the browser...
>
>NO! please do not do this! Or let me select an option to do not show 
>it. I NEVER use this window, it is completely unneccesary to me.

Re: MacBook Pro, PM 5.2.3 "Rebuilding Sort Indices"

[Rick Lecoat]

Yes, the filtering options are one of the primary reasons that I always
return to PM after checking out each new incarnation of Mail (which I do
with every new 'full' version of OS X -- Jaguar, Panther, Tiger etc.)

Still, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I would DEARLY love to
be able to group filters into folders rather than have to scroll through
a list of 100 or more. The folders would not need to disrupt the order
in which filters get applied; they could simply be invisible as far as
that is concerned. I see them working in much in the same way that
Photoshop's layer sets work.

Pretty please CTM?
And that option to not have the Recent mail Window wiped clear at restart.
And the Recent Mail window integrated into the browser...
And...

Aw, you've heard this all from me before anyway.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Victor Orly on 20/3/06 at 17:30

>The main reasons I use PM are for its outstanding 
>filtering structure (I don't use it for Anti-Spam, I own a 
>Barracuda for that), but PM's ability to strip attachments 
>from the mail database automatically- which to my 
>knowledge, neither Apple Mail or Entourage can do
>
>Victor

Re: MacBook Pro, PM 5.2.3 "Rebuilding Sort Indices"

[Rick Lecoat]

I can't help thinking that maybe PM should be able to deal with such
corrupted HTML messages more gracefully than this. Victor alone would
seem to have lost 24 hours or more of time to this problem. Certain
things need to be acknowledged I think:

1. Whatever our feelings about them, we all receive HTML messages.
2. HTML messages can become corrupted.
3. By the very nature of email, many people will have mail databases
dating back several years.
4. If one corrupt email can throw PowerMail completely for a loop, then
there *must* be a better way of assisting the user to locate that
problem message than simply relying on them to sift through 30... 50...
100,000 messages trying to find the one. Assuming that they can get PM
to open in order to do it of course.

Even if it's just a crash log entry recording where the offending
message is in the database, that would be some help.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from A-NO-NE Music on 20/3/06 at 16:55

>Victor Orly / 2006/03/20 / 11:16 AM wrote:
>
>>Now, three time over the last two days, it wants to 
>>rebuild the sort inces - which takes 12+ HOURS. When it is 
>>done, it just closes right away and wants to rebuild 
>>again.
>>
>>What is going on?
>
>I had this a while ago, and the culprit was a corrupted HTML message
>from years back.  Took me a while to find that one.  I ended up deleting
>3-4 suspicious ones.  After that, all has been well.

Re: oops

[Rick Lecoat]

Ha HA!
Hell, I just love it when my guesses turn out to be right. It happens so
rarely...

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Willem Smelik on 16/3/06 at 15:11

>Well well, I have recovered my PowerMail database. What I had not
>thought of before, was the possibility that I used my database on an
>external HD (which of course I did not find by searching the internal
>HD). And indeed, this is the database I have been using all along.  

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests (attachments)

[Rick Lecoat]

Yes, I wondered about that too. Perhaps the script is called too soon or
something. However, as I say, when it comes to the 'under the hood'
stuff I don't really know nuttin' so I'll leave it to better folks than
I to work out the nitty gritty.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Olaf Drümmer on 16/3/06 at 11:32

>maybe it has to do with the fact the an incoming mail filter works on
>the mail in an intermediate state (i.e. the mail has not been "fully"
>received/saved yet), whereas manual operation/running all filters
>processes the selected mail(s) after it/they has/have been "fully"
>received/saved?
>
>Just an idea...
>
>Olaf

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests (attachments)

[Rick Lecoat]

An update to my message below.

Justin: sorry for giving you a bum steer. Order of filters may NOT be
the problem in your case. I think it's a bug with PowerMail itself.
I've just found an example of the same problem (filter-activated script
works when called manually but not when called as part of a mail
retrieval operation) in my own setup, and I know my filter order is fine.

I have a script called 'tag attachments' that puts some info about the
sender into the 'comments' field of any file I receive, so I can trace
who it came from in the far and distant future. In theory. But it's not
working, and the problem is not the script and it's not the order of
filters. The script works fine when called manually, and (more to the
point) it also works fine if I use the Mail > Perform Filter > Perform
All Filters command, which runs through the whole list. If the filter
order was the problem, then the Perform all filters command would not
activate the script, yet it does so.

So there is something wrong with PM that prevents scripts activated by
filters from working correctly when they are called *as the mail is
being retrieved*. Not being a coder I don't know what the reason might
be but it's a reproducible problem here.

So looks like I was teaching Justin to suck eggs when the problem was
actually with the chicken.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Rick Lecoat on 16/3/06 at 08:53

>Hi Justin;
>
>Since the script works when you run the filter manually then I'd say
>that the problem is most likely not in the script but in your filter
>list. Probably there is some filter higher up the food chain that is
>stopping the message from reaching the script filter. Remember, filters
>(when run automatically) run from the top of the list to the bottom, in
>sequence. So, if a given message meets the criteria of a filter higher
>up the list, and if that filter has the "Don't apply subsequent filters
>to this message" box *checked*, then the message will never reach the
>filter with the script, so the script won't run.
>
>Try moving your script filter to the top of the list and see if a normal
>'automatic' run works then. If it does then the order of your filters is
>probably the issue.
>
>HTH 
>Rick

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests (attachments)

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Justin;

Since the script works when you run the filter manually then I'd say
that the problem is most likely not in the script but in your filter
list. Probably there is some filter higher up the food chain that is
stopping the message from reaching the script filter. Remember, filters
(when run automatically) run from the top of the list to the bottom, in
sequence. So, if a given message meets the criteria of a filter higher
up the list, and if that filter has the "Don't apply subsequent filters
to this message" box *checked*, then the message will never reach the
filter with the script, so the script won't run.

Try moving your script filter to the top of the list and see if a normal
'automatic' run works then. If it does then the order of your filters is
probably the issue.

HTH 
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Justin Beek on 15/3/06 at 22:42

>OK. I have modified the script that Christian Roth posted and have run 
>into a weird problem.
>
>If I run it thru Script Editor - it works
>If I set it as an incoming filter - it doesn't work. (the folder name 
>is "-1")
>If I *manually* run it via the "Mail / Perform Filter" - it works.
>
>Any idea what I did wrong here?
>(See script below)
>
>Thanks,
>Justin

/ script snipped off for brevity /

Re: emails gone?

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Willem;

Glad to have you back, sorry to hear about your trouble.
Since I have no knowledge of databases and suchlike, the only thing that
I can think of is that maybe when you returned to using Powermail after
your little flirtation with Mail, you inadvertently started a new PM
database. Then, when the crash happened and PM had to ask where the
files were, you pointed it toward the old one.

This is most likely not the case (since you would surely have noticed,
when the new database was created, that it was empty as opposed to
containing all your old email!)

However, is it possible that you have a backup copy of the PM Files
folder? And that you have recently been using this backup (without
realising it) rather than the original one? In that case the same thing
could happen: you think that you are using database A when you are
actually using database B; PM crashes, asks for the location of the db;
you naturally show it database A... which in fact hasn't been used since
26 Jan.

Highly speculative, but I'm just throwing ideas out, more or less at random.
At least we can maybe eliminate one possibility?

HTH
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Willem Smelik on 14/3/06 at 23:18

>Hi,
>
>I recently returned to PowerMail when I discovered I could reroute my  
>IMAP mail to my private POP account. That seemed like a good idea,  
>when I had two incidents of an email sent, which duely arrived, nut  
>disappeared from my own sent email box under Mail.
>
>But two days ago Powermail crashed (while I was doing something  
>unrelated to PM, in another ap), and yesterday PM asked me where the  
>PowerMail Files were located. I indicated where, but all emails  
>received or sent after 26 January have disappeared
>
>How on earth
>
>I have the crash log if anyone is interested, but I'm most  
>disappointed in the lost emails. 6-7 weeks of them!

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests

[Rick Lecoat]

This thread is starting to evolve into several separate discussion threads. 
Maybe we should start to rename the subject line appropriately?

Rick

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Re: PowerMail Feature Requests

[Rick Lecoat]

At one time I started to use a Folder Action script on my attachments
folder called FolderOrg -- on version tracker here:


When applied to folder, anything moved into that folder is moved into a
newly created subfolder B, which is given the day's date (in -mm-dd
format). Useful for keeping one's folder date organised, and as long a
you don't receive more than one attachment with a given name in a single
day, it gets past the renaming of attachments issue.

Having said that, there was some reason that I stopped using it and now
I can't remember precisely what it was, but I think it might have been
causing PM to  lose track of where the attachments were -- ie. the
attachment icon at the bottom of the message was greyed out. Oddly I
don't think it lost track of *all* attachments for some reason, but I
never traced the causality of it -- lacking the time and inclination, I
just removed the folder action. I think I might give it another go though.

HTH
Rick
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--
Original message:
Received from Mikael Byström on 25/2/06 at 23:37

>Andy Fragen said:
>
>>You can manually create those Finder folders within Attachments to
>>correspond to you PM folders
>
>I know that of course and it's the "manual" labor that has prevented me
>so far. I'd rather make a script that does it. Possibly.

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests

[Rick Lecoat]

Oh that is odd, my set up (clearly) doesn't exhibit that behaviour. I
wonder if dumping your PM preferences would cure that?

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Andy Fragen on 24/2/06 at 16:19

>Rick,
>
>I do this as well, but I find that the sync settings are lost with
>almost every restart of PM.

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Hey don't worry about it Karel. I envy both your new Dual G5 and the
skiiing (more of a snowboarding person myself).

Maybe someone else can rustle up an 'Export messages to separate files'
script, but for me it is more of a 'would like' than a 'need'. That worm
isn't doing me any damage and I'm not likely to send it on to anyone.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 15:50

>Sorry, Rick, I migrated to an new Dual G5 some months ago and I was sure
>that I made a backup of all the 'non-critical' stuff on a few DVD's, but
>I have not been able to locate the script so far. Unfortunately for you
>I'm out for some skiing the next few days so I won't be able to look
>further but in a week or so.
>Maybe someone else can be of some help the next few days
>
>Karel

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Ah ha. I had a look on the PM Script archive but didn't see anything
that looked like it would do that particular job. And since I know as
much about Applescript as I know about the inside of the sun, I'm not
about to try and write one myself.
Anyway, I feel better knowing which mail folder the wormy message is in.
But if I can dump the message I'll be happier still -- otherwise it'll
show up every time I run a virus sweep (which isn't that often I admit;
I swept my whole hard disk -- 400 GB -- and it took about 12 hours.

If you or anyone else can locate a script to export a folder as
individual message files, that would be grand.

Cheers;
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 14:35

>I used to have an Applescript for that, still searching where it is.
>
>Karel

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Well, I've narrowed it down to a particular mail folder, and Karel's
suggestion of exporting that folder as individual messages and running
them through ClamXav is a very good one -- except that I can't see a way
to export each message as a separate file, only ways to export all
selected messages as a single mailbox (of different formats) or as a
tabulated text file. Either way I get one file, which won't help me
pinpoint the offending message. Am I missing something obvious here? (I
so often am...)

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 12:01

>I think you should make a backup of your PM folder here and perform the
>filter on this backup. And -for instance- move the potentially suspect
>messages to a separate folder.

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

My problem with the filtering option is that the filter needs to DO
something to the message. And I don't want to move these messages, or
relabel them, or anything like that. I just want to leave them as they
are and see them displayed in a window.

Maybe I'll just *have* to move them to a temporary folder and move them
all back to their normal locations again afterward.
Bit of a pain though.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 11:27

>Just an afterthought (I hit the send button too soon)
>You could also try:
>"Other Field..." "Content-Type" "does not contain" "plain" AND "Other
>Field" "Content-
>Type" "Contains" "Windows-1252"
>This might narrow your search,as most likely your spam message is of the
>1252-type.
>
>Karel
>
>
>Op vrijdag, 24 februari 2006 schreef Rick Lecoat:
>
>>>Anybody have anything to suggest? How can I perform a search that will
>>>find every HTML carrying message in my database (but not the plain text
>>>ones)? And, more to the point, how can I ID the specific virus carrying
>>>message out of a database of over 38,000 messages?
>
>
>
>

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Ah, gotcha Karel. Sorry, your follow-up message arrived before the first
one for some reason. So I was pointing out mistakes where none existed.
Sorry about that.

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 11:27

>Just an afterthought (I hit the send button too soon)
>You could also try:
>"Other Field..." "Content-Type" "does not contain" "plain" AND "Other
>Field" "Content-
>Type" "Contains" "Windows-1252"
>This might narrow your search,as most likely your spam message is of the
>1252-type.
>
>Karel
>
>
>Op vrijdag, 24 februari 2006 schreef Rick Lecoat:
>
>>>Anybody have anything to suggest? How can I perform a search that will
>>>find every HTML carrying message in my database (but not the plain text
>>>ones)? And, more to the point, how can I ID the specific virus carrying
>>>message out of a database of over 38,000 messages?
>
>
>
>

Re: Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Only one problem with that Karel; the Other field option appears in
Filters but not in Search. At least, it doesn't seem to appear in my
search dialogue box. I had thought that searching by Other headers was
the way to go too -- until I tried it and realised that the options was
not there.

I don't really understand why all the options available for filtering
messages are not also available for Searching the database, and vice versa.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 24/2/06 at 11:27

>Just an afterthought (I hit the send button too soon)
>You could also try:
>"Other Field..." "Content-Type" "does not contain" "plain" AND "Other
>Field" "Content-
>Type" "Contains" "Windows-1252"
>This might narrow your search,as most likely your spam message is of the
>1252-type.
>
>Karel

Searching (was: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert)

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Karel, thanks for your ideas.

The only problem with your exporting idea to narrow down the offending
message is that I have hundreds of nested folders in my database, and
the culprit could be in almost any of them (the Powermail Discussions
List folder is about the ONLY folder that I can guarantee doesn't have
any HTML mail in it).

I tried to work out a way to do a search that would at least list every
HTML-bearing message in my database, but couldn't see how to do it.
Mainly because the 'Content-Type' header for HTML can be any one of
several different things, depending on how the message is put together.
I thought I'd try searching for any message who's content did NOT
contain the phrase "Content-Type: text.plain" (which assumes that the
'Content' parameter in the search dialogue box includes headers, which
is not explicitly stated). But discovered that you can't search for
'does not include the words...' unless you are also searching for some
other condition as well -- why is that? Makes no sense to me. Surely "I
want to find all messages that DO NOT mention Aubergines" is a perfectly
reasonable example of a search request? Maybe not one that would be used
often, but why lock it off unless the user puts in other conditions as well?

So I tried the following:
Content ... includes the exact phrase ... Content-Type
Content ... does not include the words ... "text/plain"

I also tried it without the apostrophes around text/pain. Neither search
gave the result I was after, both showed me lots of messages that had
Content-Type: text/plain headers, which implies that PM is not searching
the headers (otherwise the second line of my search criteria should
ensure that those messages would not appear in the search results). Yes,
I had Show Full headers turned on, in case it mattered.

Anybody have anything to suggest? How can I perform a search that will
find every HTML carrying message in my database (but not the plain text
ones)? And, more to the point, how can I ID the specific virus carrying
message out of a database of over 38,000 messages?

Rick
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--
Original message:
Received from Karel Gillissen on 18/2/06 at 16:11

>It is a worm which is only harmful in 'the other side' and is completely
>dead on a OSX machine. It is resided in a HTML message and contains some
>malicious Java code which does nasty things on a windoze system.
>For more info: virusid=26268>
>
>So the best thing to do to be sure it is gone is to remove any non-
>relevant html message from your database.
>If it is not obvious which message it could be, maybe you could export a
>suspicious mailfolder into a bunch of individual messages and run
>ClamXav on those messages to pinpoint it.
>
>Hope this helps,
>
>Karel

Re: PowerMail Feature Requests

[Rick Lecoat]

For one thing, Powermail dates back to OS9 which, of course, did not
include Apple Address Book. When the OS X version of PM arrived (or
maybe it a revision or two later) CTM provided a way for the existing PM
address book to integrate with the Apple one. And for people like me,
who for quite a long time couldn't be bothered to populate Apple's AB
from scratch, this was (and probably still is) a good thing.

At the same time, I have certain addresses that reside ONLY in PM's
address book because they relate only to email -- addresses like this
discussion group.

The one safety measure that I make sure of using is ONLY to let the
address book synchronisation go one way or the other -- not both. I use
Apple AB as my 'master' address book and let it update PM's one, but not
the other way around. Having both updating each other seemed to lead to
unpredictable (well, unpredictable to me anyway) data loss.

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Andy Fragen on 23/2/06 at 00:54

>Is there some reason that PM keeps it's own address book anyway? Why not
>just use Apple's AddressBook full time?

Re: iPhoto and Powermail

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Mark, welcome to the list!

There is a script called iPhoto Mail Patcher that will adjust things so
that iPhoto can use Powermail (amongst others); you can download it from
versiontracker here:


Whether it works with the latest versions of iPhoto I'm not sure; the
last release date for this thing was January 2005, at which time it was
certified for iPhoto 4. Worth checking out though -- it might still be
perfectly okay to use.

Best regards;
Rick
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--
Original message:
Received from Marc Matloff on 22/2/06 at 21:56

>
>Hi all,
>
>This is my first posting.  I have been a PM user for about a month now and  
>have enjoyed learning about PM's capabilities.  I don't know if this  
>question has been asked recently, but it is along the lines of the default  
>application to open HTML messages.
>
>The other day my wife was using iPhoto and mailed some pictures to a  
>friend.  Then she looked for a copy of the sent message in PM.  It was not  
>there of course but was in Mail, the default mail client for iPhoto.   
>iPhoto does allow the use of different default mail clients, but PM is not  
>one of them.  Is there a way to change the iPhoto plist file (or wherever  
>it stores the optional mail client list) to include PM as a choice?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Marc
>
>

Re: HTML file 'Open with...' settings

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Jerome, thanks for your response. 

I've followed your suggestion (in fact I changed all the text.html MIME
types, not just the first one). Now I guess I'll just have to wait for a
suitable HTML message to come in before I know whether it's worked.

Cheers for your help.
Rick
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--
Original message:
Received from PowerMail Engineering on 22/2/06 at 20:13

>Rick Lecoat wrote:
>
>>Does anyone know if there is a way to change the 'owning application'
>>for HTML files generated by Powermail?
>
>This should do the trick:
>- Open Internet Explorer's preferences
>- in the receiving files / file helpers pane, click on "MIME type" (to
>sort by MIME type)
>- select the first entry with a text/html MIME type
>- click "change"
>- click "browse"
>- select the application you want to assign to those HTML files

Re: HTML file 'Open with...' settings

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi there Hiro.

Yeah, sadly I need to retain MSIE as part of my collection of browsers
used for web testing -- the Mac version is definitely a minority
candidate now, but I still test in it as it often throws up weird
behaviours that are worth ironing out of a web page.

Sooner or later I'll decide that not enough people use it (on the Mac at
least) to warrant keeping it around. Having said that, there are still
some banking sites that will allow MSIE Mac but not Safari. So it's
useful for that too, and in those situations Safari's 'disguise' doesn't
always cut it.

Cheers though.

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--
Original message:
Received from A-NO-NE Music on 22/2/06 at 21:07

>I don't have dreaded MSIE.  It didn't come with Tiger!
>And I don't have this problem :-)
>
>Do you really need MSIE?  You know Safari can masquerade to MSIE. 
>Besides FireFox is nice, too.

Re: HTML file 'Open with...' settings

[Rick Lecoat]

Hmm, yeah, something scripty seems to be called for (unless the matter
can be traced to something in PM's code base itself, in which case maybe
CTM could provide a solution (?)

Maybe I'll have a look at Automator (which I've never really tried out
properly yet) and see if it can help. The ideal, at least for dealing
with the legacy explorer-assigned files that I have, would probably be
something that could search by an 'Opens with...' parameter (rather than
a file suffix) so I could just locate any and all files on my machine
that are set to open with Explorer and reassign them to Safari in one
go. Wouldn't that be charming and sweet?

Addendum: I just did a search via Creator parameter, giving MSIE as the
search string and located what are hopefully all the Explorer assigned
files in my home folder. Then I could Cmd-Alt-i to change all of their
'Opens With' settings in one go. Thing is, although they now open in
Safari, the creator is still MSIE, so they'll still show up in
subsequent searches, which is a  bit annoying.

Anyway, that sort of works around the legacy stuff, but I'd still like
to know why PM is assigning HTML attachments of it's own creation (in
the sense of creating them out of the content of the incoming email) to
Internet Explorer.

Jerome, do you have anything to add that might shed some light on this
enigmatic issue?

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Paul Collett on 22/2/06 at 14:17

>Obviously too easy an answer ;-) I have safari set as the default for
>html docs as well as the default browser; but as you say, you don't want
>to do that. How about a filter to run a script changing the creator of
>the file. I'd like to see something like that for all the text files I
>receive that automatically open with MS Word, for example.

Re: HTML file 'Open with...' settings

[Rick Lecoat]

Thanks Paul, but Safari is already set as my default web browser -- and
has been so for two or three years now. I don't know why certain HTML
files get assigned Explorer as their 'open with...' parameter. 

Apart from the PM issue, the only time that I normally see Internet
Explorer-assigned documents is with HTML Help files supplied on a 3rd
party disk image (eg. shareware) where presumably the author has, for
their own reasons, actively assigned Explorer as the creator. But why
the HTML portion of an email (which, as I understand it, gets separated
off from the 'rest' of the email -- headers, plain text content, etc --
by Powermail) should have Internet Explorer assigned as its creator is a
mystery.

(Note that this only applies to those HTML mails for which PM is unable
display the HTML in the browser window and thus provides the HTML
portion as an attached file -- although I'm still not sure quite what
determines which way PM deals with a given HTML message).

Could it be a bit of legacy code in PM dating back to it's OS9 days, ie.
pre-Safari, when IE was the default installed browser on the Mac?

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Paul Collett on 22/2/06 at 06:30

>Not sure about PM level settings, but setting Safari as the default web
>browser (Safari Preferences - General) does what you want for me.

HTML file 'Open with...' settings

[Rick Lecoat]

Evening all.

Does anyone know if there is a way to change the 'owning application'
for HTML files generated by Powermail? Eg. sometimes I receive HTML
email and for some reason it is received as an empty email with an HTML
file attached -- something to do with the message-type header I think.
These HTML files are always assigned to Internet Explorer -- which I
never really use in anger, but need to keep on the system for web site
testing purposes.

I would love to have all PM-generated HTML files assigned to Safari, but
I don't want to use the Finder Info method to "Open with/Change all"
because that would probably change all of the HTML file that I've
created in apps like GoLive, and which should stay assigned to GoLive
for future editing purposes.

Is there something that can be done at a PM level?

Thanks as always;
Rick

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Re: New MacOS X trojan/virus alert

[Rick Lecoat]

Coincidentally, a few days before this trojan-or-whatever-it-is came to
light a friend of mine had been waxing enthusiastic about the open-
source virus scanner for OSX ClamXav (a GUI front end to the command-
line ClamAV antivirus engine). So as soon as the malware appeared, I
decided to download a copy of The Clam and install it. It's working like
a charm (it detected a couple of viruses in my attachments folder -- at
least, that part of my attachments folder where files from people I
don't know get diverted to... those files NEVER get opened, I just clear
it out every month or so) and it's FREE!

However, it also detected a virus of some sort -- called 'WScr.Unsafe.D'
-- in my Powermail database file. Now AFAIK this virus is not causing
any problems, and it is part of a message not an attachment (the
aforementioned virus was not found in the scan of the attachment
folders, just in the database file itself), but does anyone have any
idea of how to eliminate it from the database? Since the database is one
solid file there is no way for ClamXav to determine which message is the
carrier, and with PM not using an mBox structure I can't even locate it
by moving messages about (not that I'd try to; it would mean moving
38,000 messages a few at a time).

Frankly with the alleged virus not seeming to cause any bother I'm
mostly inclined to leave it as it is, but the fussy bit of me (a big
bit) would like to clear it out so that it doesn't show up every time I
scan the mac.

Anybody have any suggestions?
Cheers;

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Rishi on 16/2/06 at 16:38

>I just read this on mac rumours that there is some trojan / virus
>circulation. A note of caution to all

Re: PM key, cont

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi Shell, and welcome.

I think that you may have gone about it slightly back to front. If
memory serves (and it's been a while since I registered a copy of PM so
I might be wrong) you should *drop the application onto the key*, not
the other way around. 

If you drop the key on the app, PM, instead of becoming registered,
thinks that you're trying to send the key as an attachment. It will
launch itself to do this if it was not already active, but of course
since it still is not registered at this point is will give you the
warning about expiration.

The bit about it looking like an excel file was a bit worrying though,
and might point to a problem with your decompression software (whether
you're using OSX's own or Stuffit) not correctly identifying the file
type when it decodes it. But I don't think that's a PM issue, unless CTM
did something weird when they compressed it sent it to you.

HTH 
Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Shell Olson on 3/2/06 at 23:57

>For whatever it's worth, my problem isn't over.  I had hoped it was.
>I got a key, downloaded it (is it really an Excel binary file? early
>versions' 
>keys looked different), and dropped it on the new PowerMail 5.2.2 icon.
>It opened PowerMail automatically, 
>gave me the same message about expiring in 27 days, told me I couldn't 
>send or receive unless I trashed all but fewer than 200 messages, and 
>it opened a new message window with Subject line PMKey 5 olson.
>And that's all.  So I still can't use it.
>
>Actually, I've never figured out how to get MAIL to work, either.  I tried 
>when I got
>this iBook, but with all the written instructions in Japanese--and I had 
>PowerMail--
>and I was trying to deal with my Internet server in Japanese, well, I didn't 
>think it
>worth taking the time to figure out how to get intelligible instructions in 
>English.  
>Guess I need to do that. (not asking, not on the subject of PowerMail, just 
>replying)
>I'm not quite as computer illiterate as I sound...
>PS Special thanks to Tim's PowerMail FAQ which helped to get on this list at 
>all.
>
>On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 08:00:19 -0800
>  "Barbara Needham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>Marlyse Comte on 2/3/06 said
>>
>>>This seems to me a good moment to point out (not for you in particular,
>>>just as a general comment) that there IS a good reason to keep Apples
>>>MAIL around: create all your accounts in MAIL but set them all to LEAVE
>>>MESSAGES ON SERVER and to. MANUAL CHECKING (and you could also set to
>>>automatically send a BCC to yourself). Then, if there are any problems
>>>with PM - i.e. like missing key, database crashed, whatever else - or
>>>for any other reason why you want to check/write email outside of PM - I
>>>for example use it sometimes on my desktop machine to respond to some
>>>email embedded in a website link - it's already all setup and there is
>>>no down time trying to get to your mail or to write and it's also
>>>ensured that what you send out will endup in PM (if set to send BCC to
>>>yourself).
>>>
>>>It's just one of these things which have made my life smoother in the
>>>past and so I thought I'd pass it along.
>>
>>I do this, also. Although rather than use Apple Mail, I use Thunderbird
>>for this purpose.
>>
>>-- 
>>Barbara Needham
>
>

Re: SpamSieve Auto (not) Start

[Rick Lecoat]

No problems here either (SpamSieve 2.4.1, other system elements as noted
in sig). I did do the double click trick when I updated SpamSieve, ie.
launched it manually before letting PM call it. Perhaps that's why I and
some others are not having any trouble whilst other folks are?

Rick

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--
Original message:
Received from Barbara Needham on 27/1/06 at 17:25

>Just a note: I've not had any problem but am still on Panther. It seems
>it might be a Tiger problem.

Recent Mail, flagging and persistence

[Rick Lecoat]

Hi gang;

It's been a month or so since I chucked this feature request up to the
list, which I admit isn't a long gap, but recent events have brought it
very much to the fore for me.

The matter at hand is the Recent Mail Window (RMW). I love it. I use it
for most of my hour-to-hour email usage, leaving mail in there until it
is dealt with. Why? Well, because most of my mail gets filtered into
folders as it arrives, and the RMW lets me see it all in one convenient
location. Once a message is gone from the RMW it is out of sight.. and
hence out of mind.

As a consequence, I often wish to have a message remain in the RMW for
several days, until I am ready to act upon it, just so that I don't
forget about it. The RMW effectively becomes my *working file*. The
problem, as I have mentioned in this list previously, is that the RMW
gets cleared every time PM quits. Which means every time I intentionally
quit PM, every time PM crashes (not often, but it happens), every time I
switch user environments or compact the database, every time I install
some software that requires a re-log-in or full restart... Quite a few
things can clear the RMW.

My current (partial) solution is simply to avoid quitting PM if at all
possible. And this is what has come back to bite me recently. We all
know that performing regular, ideally daily, backups of one's machine is
a good idea. But PM being a database-based app, I need to quit it in
order to perform a backup safely. Which means I run into the problem of
having my 'emails to act upon' file (the RMW) cleared every time I want
to backup. As a consequence, backups get repeatedly postponed until a
more convenient time. Result: when my hard drive went into cardiac
arrest 1 day before Christmas (yeah, great) my nearest backup was a
couple of weeks old. Al because I needed the RMW to stay populated.

Now maybe this is simply a case of my having idiotic working habits, but
I don't think so. As it stands, I can have my pending email work
presented conveniently and helpfully for many days at a time, or I can
back up regularly. Not both. There are workarounds -- eg. give all
'action pending' emails a label and then search by label every day,
remembering to un-label them when they have been actioned -- but these
solutions are not elegant.

The database nature of PM is not going to change, and that's fine, but
any one of the following improvements (IMO) would help the situation:

1. Keep the RMW populated when PM quits. This could be a preference.

2. Introduce 'smart' folders such as those appearing in Apple's own
apps. That way I could just set up  a Smart folder to constantly show
all non-spam mail received in the last 72 hours (say).

3. Permit a 'flagging' system, and build in a 'standard' folder (like
the In and Out trays) that ONLY shows any and all flagged mail. Flagging
has been discussed before, and many people's response has been "Well, I
don't have a use for that". But I think I do, as long as I can quickly
see all flagged mail without having to do a full search, and I think a
dedicated folder would provide that.

Right, this email has been quite long enough. Sorry for the long post.
Rick

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