Re: [Evolution] Filtering for one folder?

[Oliver Sturm <o sturm manfred-dahlhoff de>]

On Don, 2002-08-22 at 09:34, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:

> > Well, I don't understand that. I'd implement such a feature so that a
> > filter is only looked at if it's active for a specific folder. I mean,
> > under the assumption that all mail arrives in INBOX, you currently run
> > each filter for each message that gets in, don't you? Now, if mail could
> > arrive in other folders, you'd still run each filter for each mail that
> > comes in. The mail volume doesn't increase only because stuff is stored
> > in different folders.
>
> sure, but if the mail didn't arrive in INBOX then presumably it has
> already been filtered ;-)

That's right. But in an IMAP context, where mail doesn't ever leave the
server except for display purposes, filtering server-side and filtering
client-side are really two very different things. From my point of view,
many of the available filtering actions are not needed, because
everything that has to do with delivery has already been handled on the
server side. That still leaves some tasks for the client, like maybe
scoring or notifying the user when something really exciting happens.

> > One practical function I need is the ability to notify the user (for
> > example by playing a sound) when new mail arrives _in a specific
> > folder_. I don't want the system beeping at the user on all 400 mails
> > that go through various mailing lists (and into different folders)
> > throughout the day. I don't see that such a function needs to be a
> > serious resource hog.
>
> easy.
>
> let evolution do the filtering and when it delivers mail to that folder,
> add another action to play a sound.
>
> this is really not that difficult.

But it defeats the purpose of server-side mail delivery. Why would I
wait for my client to filter through, analyze and sort several hundred
mails for the lkml folder if the server could have done that before my
client even knew there was mail for me? Of course, using POP, which has
no useful notion of folders, this makes a lot of sense, but IMAP is not
the same (and I'm not talking about the IMAP standard here, but just
about a common server-oriented delivery setup centralizing around IMAP).
I'd think Exchange users would say the same, wouldn't they? I don't know
much about Exchange, but I'm sure it has server-side filtering, doesn't
it?


               Oliver Sturm
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