Hello Steve,
Written in response to your letter of Friday, January 07, 2000, 6:25:47 PM:
<SNIP>
SL> Hey, lemme ask this, honestly. How many people saw me say that having the
SL> option to apply filters to all accounts would be a good thing? I bet not
SL> many.
I sure didn't, it was hard to read that through all the: "You suck,
leave my client alone" speeches! :)
SL> It only takes silence or a few words to agree. It takes a few paragraphs
SL> to disagree. Because of that a person who is vocal, especially on forums like
SL> this, is going to tend to be regarded as negative because most of what they
SL> say will be negative.
Well, it's more than just your disagreement...it's the manner in which
you disagree. I'm glad you think you're my priest...but yer not! :)
SL> Personally, I do think global filters would be a good thing. There are
SL> several ways I've thought of implementing them. The main problem to them is
SL> ordering. The easiest way to get around that which might work for all would
SL> be to have a global filter dialog that lets you make those filters and then
SL> specify where the local filters will apply in them. They would need macros,
SL> of course, but once you get down to it TB! would really be nice if it shipped
SL> with 4 global filters from the start, 1 of which would be disabled.
SL> 4 global filters would match the 4 most common ways that mailing lists
SL> identify themselves. They use regex, place the mailing list name into the
SL> first regex register and would filter into "[account]/Mailing Lists/\1". This
SL> means that any time people joined a new list they would automatically be
SL> filtered for them.
That would be okay...but what if everyone didn't want this. I would
prefer a FAQ for setting up a mailing list filter. For my low-traffic
mailing lists, that I want them in the inbox. For massive traffic,
like TB, I'll have my own folder. Mailing lists, I find, are generally
kept in a very personal manner. Everyone's different! But it's a good
suggestion... I might keep this filter off unless requested also.
SL> The other two filters would be spam filters that they would have to turn
SL> on after reading an explanation of how it works and is based on the
SL> spam-filtering I've recommended here before that Allie just recently
SL> recounted. The first filter would use a macro to see if the local account
SL> address is in the to or cc and stops filtering. The last filter just moves
SL> everything into a Potential Spam folder.
That seems like a pretty good idea...I could see this causing problems
though, in people that just read to quickly and click "Filter Spam".
Then everyone starts complaining about not getting messages becuase
they didn't understand the filter or tailor it correctly.
Back to the idea of plug-ins, wouldn't it be good to have downloadable
filters? Maybe they already are...(I'm a TB newbie, remember! :)
But if advanced users could download and trade, etc *.flt files, or
something like that, it would be pretty cool.
SL> Finally, they would be ordered in the global dialog like this:
SL> 4 mailing list filters
SL> <local filters>
SL> 2 spam filters.
Makes sense to me.
SL> So the 4 mailing list filters would run, then local filters, then spam
SL> filters after the local filters. This setup would most likely cover ~95% of
SL> the filters that the majority of the people would ever set up.
SL> Now, to contrast this back to some of the ideas that I bash. A reminder
SL> for subject being blank. Yay, limited use and something the person can
SL> confirm for themselves.
Agreed, but if it can be done very succinctly, with virtually no added
code (Pmail does it, and as I said is the fastes email program I've
ever used) then it's worth looking into. If it made the program take
an extra 60 seconds...that's one thing. But it wouldn't be any
different then the "Confirm Send immediately" option. Now that one, I
think is *really* silly. I wouldn't click send if I didn't want to.
SL> Switching TB! around to use personalities. Use
SL> another product. Etc, etc, etc...
SL> Usually the items that I bash I do so because they are of limited use to
SL> the vast majority of people and are also of limited power. Regex most people
SL> won't use, but those that do, trust me, appreciate it greatly. IMAP may not
SL> be in use by as many people as POP, but if it were done right those who use it
SL> would push it to the limits. Those are power features that attract and keep
SL> power users. Most of the features I bash are fluff, pure and simple.
Unfortunately, the way you present your argument has very little to do
with other people though, and more to do with your *own* personal use.
--
Best regards,
Derek mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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