On 6 Dec 2016, at 14:19, Matt wrote:
Thanks for considering MailMate (and for the extensive use of Markdown).
I'll do my best to answer your questions.
# Sending email
1. **Automatic switching of SMTP server when sender changes.** I have
one email account that receives emails for 3 different domains. You
discussed this
[here](https://lists.freron.com/mailmate/2016-January/005366.html) on
the mailing list, but I wasn't subscribed then so I can't reply.
I have a separate SMTP login (via [Mailgun](http://www.mailgun.com))
for each of my domains in order to get DKIM and SPF correct. In
MailMate, SMTP servers don't automatically update when I switch
sending identities if they are part of the same IMAP account. This is
a huge problem given how often I context switch between
domains/identities/SMTP servers. Is there a way to do this, or a
workaround (even if hacky)? This is my #1 blocker to switching to
MailMate from Postbox or Google Inbox in a browser.
You found the correct mailing list message with respect to what is
currently possible. There's also [this
ticket](https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/220)
which is still open, because there is no way to do what you ask for. I
indicate that it's possible to specify more SMTP accounts and I think
that works, but they would not be automatically selected for various
email addresses.
Since you don't mind a low-level (hacky) solution then I might look into
getting at least that part to work.
# Sub-mailbox behavior
2. **Multi-level sub mailboxes.** I'd like to be able to have a tree
of sub-mailboxes. Ideally, this would be as easy as putting a "/" in
the "Mailbox name format". For example, INBOX/tag/recipient/sender
could be:
`${##tags.tag.#name}/${#recipient.#identity}/${from.#correspondent.address}`
That's not possible and I'm afraid it's not something I can quickly
implement.
3. **Selective display of tags.** I'd like to be able to create a
smart mailbox that only shows tags that contain (or don't contain) a
given string. I can already figure out how to filter by emails that
have tags containing a string, but the sub-mailboxes show all tags for
those emails, not just the tags that were filtered on.
* I want to use this to artificially and creatively mimic features
that MailMate doesn't have. For example: follow-up dates, priority
levels, who a task has been assigned to, etc.
Also a tricky one. I guess it might be possible using a custom
specifier. The default one for tags is like this:
tags = {
headers = ( "##tags" );
specifierRegex = '(\S+)';
specifierCaptures = {
1 = { specifier = "tag"; parsers = ( "tag"); /*alwaysImplicit =
:true;*/ };
};
multiValue = :true;
};
The regex controls how the IMAP keywords string is split into separate
IMAP keywords. This could be altered to skip those of them which are not
of interest. And then name the specifier, e.g., `project`. I haven't
tried it though. As a starting point take the above and replace `tag`
with `project` everywhere except for `##tags`. Some inspiration can be
found
[here](https://www.mail-archive.com/mailmate%40lists.freron.com/msg02220.html).
4. **Sub-mailbox de-duping.** It seems that sub-mailboxes don't
de-dupe/merge when they have the same name. This is unexpected
behavior.
The partitioning is based on the primary setting for submailboxes:
“Submailbox for each unique value of ...”. The name format is just
for prettifying.
For example, I have multiple ExampleService accounts (registered to
"`xyz.exampleservi...@example.com`",
"`abc.exampleserv...@example.com`", etc.) and I use a filter like
(below) which I was hoping would merge them. Instead, I end up with
many sub-mailboxes named "exampleservice".
Filter I'm using:
`${#recipient.#identity.user/.+\.(example1|exampleservice|example2)$/$1/}`
You might be able to do it using a custom specifier instead such that
the partitioning itself is as expected.
# Feature requests (not blockers, but would be beneficial):
5. **Some way to snooze an email, a sub-mailbox, or a tag.** In other
words, to temporarily hide display but automatically bring it back
later. I realize doing this system-wide (All Messages) would be kludgy
and violate some of the spirit of MailMate. However, if I could
somehow make it happen for a sub-mailbox **that would be
game-changing. I would pay 2-4x the usual MailMate software license
cost if it had this functionality.** I am imagining the sort of "view
every morning at 7am" or "snooze until tomorrow" functionality that
Google Inbox provides for a "bundle." (Which I actually use to
auto-assign Gmail labels which connect to tags in MailMate)
I'm not getting what this would do: "view every morning at 7am"
The usual request is some way to snooze an email in a way such that it
is moved away from, e.g., the Inbox and then later automatically
returned. If I understand you correctly then you also want some kind of
“do not disturb” feature in order to, e.g., silence/hide a mailbox.
I would consider these things to be two different features, but neither
is implemented yet.
6. **Follow-up dates.** I want to be able to flag an email with a
follow-up date. This could be a tag or something else entirely.
Isn't this equivalent to snoozing an email?
(Using dates as tags would not work well with many IMAP servers, but
that's a technicality.)
This way, I can have a smart mailbox that shows me emails by month or
year. If you implemented the selective display of tags feature above,
this could be hacked together by with a smart mailbox.
I think you lost me now :)
7. **Count of submailboxes.** "Displayed Count" currently has options
for "All", "Unread", "Flagged", "Unreplied", and "Recent". It would be
nice to have one additional option: "# of Submailboxes". For example,
I have a "Tasks" smart mailbox that shows anything with tags that
contain "Task_". It then shows submailboxes for each task by using
mailbox name format `${##tags.tag.#name/Task_/_/}`. I'd like to have a
count on that smart mailbox that shows how many tasks remain, rather
than how many emails are assigned to a task bucket.
This is (also) not currently possible, but it's related to a part of the
internal query system which I've already done some work on. This might
not be very far from being able to provide a “binary” display count.
No promises though.
The combination of sub-mailbox counts, multi-level sub-mailboxes,
selective display of tags, sub-mailbox deduping, and snoozes would
create an incredibly customizable, flexible, and powerful mail
management system. I can think of dozens of use cases that would be
served.
:) That does sound like an incredibly advanced email client.
# Ideas:
8. **Mailbox structure exposé on your website, along with UI export
and import.** This isn't really necessary for us, per se, but it would
be awesome. The idea would be to have a user-contributed directory on
your website of mailbox structures along with some Reddit-esque
up-voting and commenting functionality. For example, it would be
awesome to see your structure ;).
My own use of MailMate is quite ironic. It's a mess of temporary
experimental stuff, a huge number of (mostly offline) IMAP accounts used
for testing, and an INBOX with 1600 emails from the past 5 years
reminding that I'm not always capable of handling all incoming email as
well as I would like.
As I see it, the main strength of MailMate is mail management. You
could leverage something like this to show off the power of the
system. It could also be a great way to get the word out about
MailMate.
My long term “vision” is to make it easier to put customizations
into the bundles already supported by MailMate. This would allow a
company to use a bundle to share customizations (commands to integrate
with other software, themes for styling outgoing messages, custom
mailboxes, signature templates, and whatever else makes sense). But
right now I'm primarily focused on fixing bugs and complete feature
requests I've been postponing for too long.
Hopefully this doesn't come across as a laundry list. I really want to
switch away from Google Inbox and Postbox, and would welcome your
input.
Sorry for taking some time to answer. If you want to postpone a switch
until a particular feature has been implemented then I can note to
contact you.
Thanks for the feedback.
--
Benny
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