Hello MAU, On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 17:05:07 +0100 GMT (02/01/2008, 23:05 +0700 GMT), MAU wrote:
M> At first sight your suggestion looks as a nice and reasonable one. I M> don't know how "your system" could affect the 'filter engine', that's M> for developers to say. I'm talking here only of the GUI side, what the user sees. I don't even know what filter engine they use, a third-party one or their own creation. If usability can be increased, the engine might (or might not) have to be changed. The software must follow the user's needs and not the other way around. The discussion here is whether the need exist, not how to implement it. That would be a discussion for TBTECH. M> But I do see (based on my own filter set up and experience) some M> possible drawbacks that I will try to describe briefly. Thanks for your feedback. M> While it is probably true that most of us use and have a number of M> Incoming and Outgoing filters that 'seem equal' and therefore M> 'duplicated', it may not be true in many other cases. True. The improvement will work only for those fitlers that are indeed (and not only seem) equal. Which is 100% in my case, but will certainly be different for other people. For those filters that are not equal, there would be no change for the user. He will just tick only either "Incoming" or "Outgoing". M> I'm sure many of us have a number of filters checking on From: in M> Incoming filters and on To: in Outgoing, and having a single filter M> for Incoming and Outgoing and filtering on "From: .OR. To:" may not M> be exactly the same. A simple example: M> I receive email from, and write to, A and B. So I could have two M> 'consolidated' filters like: M> - If From: A .OR. To: A, move to folder A. M> - If From: B .OR. To: B, move to folder B. M> And now assume A writes to B and just CCes me. Where would this message M> end up? And where if it is B who writes to A and CCes me? You can have the same question with the existing filter system. The message will end up where the last filter moves it to. A message is either Incoming or Outgoing, it cannot be both at the same time. So, I do not see what the difference to the existing system is in your example. A filter has a condition. Now, an Incoming filter will catch incoming mails that fulfill the conditions. It will not even try to look at outgoing mails. An Outgoing filter looks only at outgoing mails and catches those who match the conditions. If an incoming mail fulfills the same condition, Mr. Outgoing remains blind. In my suggestion, if we have filters with exactly the same conditions that are relevant for both Incoming and Outgoing messages, the same filter would look both ways: Any incoming mail will be scanned for Header [EMAIL PROTECTED], and so will any outgoing mail. There is no added confusion for the filters! There is only decreased duplication, and only if you have filters that do the same for incoming and outgoing messages. But the beauty is: You can still have seperate Incoming and Outgoing filters if you want, you just keep the duplicating that you are forced to do now. M> And now assume you change the order of your filters. M> - If From: B .OR. To: B, move to folder B. M> - If From: A .OR. To: A, move to folder A. M> Where would the two messages mentioned above end up? Tricky, isn't it? That would be no change at all from the current situation. M> Aside of that, although many Incoming and Outgoing filters are (or M> seem) the same, maybe the desired order of processing is not. How M> would you solve that? The same way it is solved now. M> Anyway, your suggestion may still be good for Incoming and M> Outgoing, but I don't see it at all for Read and Replied filters M> which, in my case, I use a lot. I don't use those at all, but didn't see why they cannot be included in the wish. I'm listening: M> Aside of the fact that both Read and Replied have a folder(s) M> selection to which they apply, while Incoming and Outgoing don't M> have, at least in my case I can't find more than just a few Read or M> Replied filters that may look like as 'duplicate' of an Incoming or M> Outgoing one. The important part for me is that I currently have to duplicate all filters, one for Incoming and one for Outgoing. This is inefficient and confusing. M> What would be the advantage of "your system" in this case? I think M> that it would just make the (only) list of filters much longer and, M> for me, prone to confusion. I'm sure that at least those of us who M> use a large number of filters of each type would end up desperately M> asking the developers to implement Sorting Office _tabs_ so we M> could select to view only Incoming, or Read, etc. Don't you think? M> :-) I have nothing against tabs. However, the important thing is to shorten the list of filters, so that I have one filter rather than two, which I have to update both, for example in the filter named "Germany", with about 80 conditions (matching on email address or domains). Having some 100 filters in total, this is a big issue. -- Cheers, Thomas. THE RED LION pub at Lacock in Wiltshire offers whisky-flavoured condoms for sale. The small print at the bottom of the machine advises: "Warning-Do not drive while using this product." http://thomas.fernandez.hat-gar-keine-homepage.de/ Message reply created with The Bat! 4.0.0.5 (ALPHA) under Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 2 ________________________________________________________ Current beta is 3.99.29 | 'Using TBBETA' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
