Re: feature requests: edit message, pipe to ext. program

[Peter Bloomfield <peterbloomfield bellsouth net>]

On 05/03/2005 09:15:50 AM, Ray Morris wrote:
> > Editing content makes me uncomfortable--it destroys a  
> > signature, for instance, so you lose any authentication.  How  
> > about the ability to add a note to a message?  It could be  
> > shown in the header box, much the way signature info is shown  
> > currently.  A note might be editable, or they could just  
> > accumulate, if you wanted to document progress in handling.
> >
> > Annotation appears to be fairly easy to add to local  
> > mailboxes; some IMAP servers support the ANNOTATE extension,  
> > which is designed for this use, but some don't--they'd be more  
> > of a problem.
>
>
>
>   I put some thought into that, too.  That could work.
> I was thinking it would be best to keep it very simple
> and not invent some new system for storing notes and
> linking them to messages.  Instead, it seemed best to
> me to keep eveything in the standard format it's already
> in - mbox, mh, or maildir.  That would mean, probably,
> adding the note as part of the message file.  If Balsa
> were to mark it up with some sort of tag like <note></note>
> and treat it specially that would be fine, but part of Balsa's
> appeal, I think, is that it uses the simple and standard
> mailbox formats instead of some one off database and I
> wouldn't want to change that and make things more complicated
> in order to add a fairly simple feature.  Balsa could
> leave out anything marked up with <note></note> (or perhaps
> a X-Annotation header) when computing a signature.

Imho, for mbox, mh, or maildir, a top-level X-Annotation header  
is the simplest:
- an integral part of the message;
- no extension to the basic mailstore;
- a modest amount of code to manage;
- doesn't affect signatures.

> > As Pawel noted, the latest Balsa has the option to pipe the  
> > current message through an arbitrary command (though as yet  
> > only on the Message menu, not the right-click popup).  If you  
> > had multiple messages selected, would you expect all of them  
> > to be processed?
>
> That would seem like the right thing to me. If the user selects  
> multiple messages and then chooses the pipe option I can't  
> think of what else they would be likely to intend by doing that.

OK--consider it done!

Best,

Peter