Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
Christian Jaeger wrote: > I'm looking for a way to manually break threads apart when independent > threads are mixed up, mostly by users which aren't aware that they should > not be replying to existing threads when starting a new one. Sounds like a great idea! I'm curious though, how do convince your Thunderbird and Dovecot to work like Gmail and keep everything threaded in the same folder in the first place? (Assuming that you do this and apply labels to tell things apart..)
[Dovecot] thunderbird sane config (OT)
Does anyone have any experience putting together a sane config for Thunderbird in an automated fashion? Automated meaning "simple to distribute to users". -- (Background: I'm currently experiencing that Thunderbird does not work against Postfix/Dovecot because the wizard interface for setting up an account does not accept TLS-only servers. Users just sit there with a broken Thunderbird, not knowing what to do :-/.) (PS: Also, giving everybody a GMail-like threaded interface per default would be cool.) (PPS: If anything good comes up, I plan to put this in fx the Dovecot wiki.)
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
Bill Cole: > Dovecot isn't really a player in that question, which is really about how > to make TBird do what you want it to do with messages and present > them in a particular organizational style. Well, Dovecot "deliver" puts the messages in place, and you want incoming messages to land in the same folder as the conversation it is already is in, and also have other virtual labels applied depending on filter rules (eg dovecot-ml emails should have the "dovecot" label applied). Christian Jaeger: > Or are you asking about the Gmail feature of not using subfolders but keep > everything in the same place and only use search to find your stuff? That's rather simplified - it's "using search", plus it's labels, an "archive" button, a new threading interface, combining multiple messages into one, etc. But yeah. I had assumed that you made your TBird behave like that.. Timo Sirainen: > Virtual mailboxes would do that trick. Dovecot v1.2 will have support > for that, although many clients also support it already. Awesome :-).. Any more information somewhere? Which clients?
Re: [Dovecot] thunderbird sane config (OT)
Charles Marcus wrote: > So, you'll have to write up simple instructions for new users on how to set > up their new accounts... > > I have something for this if you'd like a copy (request privately)... Thanks, but that was kind of the step I was trying to avoid ;).. What I had in mind was more like: 1. I install Thunderbird. 2. I create an account named . 3. I modify TLS and other settings to work better. 4. I click magic button. 5. Thunderbird creates a new thunderbird_mycfg.exe. 6. User downloads and runs thunderbird_mycfg.exe, which installs Thunderbird, asks the user his/her account name and applies the configuration from step (3), and everything magically works. Hmm.
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> Mail.app and Evolution at least. > And doesn't Outlook also support them nowadays? Ah, you mean "saved search" containers in the tree view? Thunderbird has these too. Doesn't quite make it Gmail though. I mean, it's a cute feature, but it does not modify the work flow drastically enough to be even remotely useful as anything else than a curiosity. Gmail modifies, or rather, fixes the entire work flow ;-).
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> I haven't used it myself, but ..
If you're interested in the client part of mailing, perhaps create a
dummy account, join the dovecot and postfix mailing lists, create two
new filter rules that apply either "postfix" or "dovecot" labels and
archives (= unapplies "Inbox" label) messages depending on the to/cc
line, and try it out :-).
> Hmm. Wasn't it about showing entire
> threads of messages in INBOX?
Yes, or under any other label than "Inbox".
Also, the messages does not need to have the "Inbox" label to show up
under Inbox - they can have only the "Sent" label, and they will still
show up in the thread as long as they're part of it as per
In-Reply-To: or whatever.
Obviously useful since if you send an item ("Sent" label applied) and
receive an answer ("Inbox" label applied), the exact same conversation
will show up under both labels, and with the full list of messages
relevant to it.
> With Dovecot it would be done by:
>
> mailboxes = INBOX "Sent Messages"
> search = INTHREAD REFERENCES MAILBOX INBOX
>
> So it matches entire threads of messages in INBOX.
So if I understand correctly, this will basically tell the IMAP client
*all* the messages relating to a given conversation, regardless of
whether they were sent or incoming?
(With the flip-side that software which expects to use different
folders, eg say a Horde webmail alternative for the account, will stop
working against this mailbox... Or is this all or none regarding which
mailbox are affected?)
> INTHREAD would need
> adding support for INTHREAD extension.
Ok, what does that do?
(Apologies for being in learning mode.)
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> delivered anywhere other than INBOX, you need to either call deliver with a > -m argument or use a plugin (e.g. sieve) and as far as I can tell, only the Fair enough. (Could never get sieve (cmusieve) to work with Dovecot - what does other people use that's simple to set up and works efficiently?) > labels,' I assume you are referring to TBird's 'Tags' which map loosely to > IMAP custom message flags, (a.k.a. keywords.) Sure, whatever. The principal difference between the two, I guess, is that a gmail label, when created, are automatically given an item in the tree view, which when clicked shows a list of all threads where at least one non-spam, non-trash mail item has the relevant label applied. (How to configure TBird to do something like this with Tags is either impossible or beyond me, I'm afraid.) > There has to be user-specific and MUA-specific configuration for the usage > model you seem to want. That's a fair enough response, I'm willing to accept that ;-).
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> I've a test account which I've used a couple of times, but haven't > bothered too much with it. Guess it's not for everyone. (Personally, I dislike that my email is stored at Googleplex, and that I cannot fiddle with the server setup. Otherwise, it's pretty darn great.) > > > With Dovecot it would be done by: > > > > > > mailboxes = INBOX "Sent Messages" > > > search = INTHREAD REFERENCES MAILBOX INBOX ... > Yes, as long as at least one message in the thread exists in INBOX > (the "MAILBOX INBOX" search term). So the above "mailboxes=, search=" is not a Dovecot configuration option but a search performed by an IMAP client, right.. (learning mode!) > I'm not sure what you mean. I just misunderstood something basic (see above). > There are still different mailboxes. This > just creates virtual mailboxes on top of > the existing ones. "Creates" as in "the client has to keep track of them client-side, the server knows nothing about them", right? > [INTHREAD] just makes the search match all messages in a thread if at least > one message in the thread matches the search terms. Niice.. Can an unmodified MUA be expected to correctly fetch the individual messages found with INTHREAD? Or does it need to "switch folders" or perform other IMAP magic.
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> The configured virtual mailbox would look exactly > like a normal mailbox to the client. The advantage being that Dovecot would index messages in all physical folders for super-fast access when asking via IMAP for messages relating to a specific thread-id. (Hope I got this right.) In case I wanted to modify the MUA to support better threading and tags/labels, is that enough? Can I simply tell Dovecot via IMAP to create a new virtual folder that aggregates virtual messages from all the other folders and it will start indexing them for thread-locality? (Would be great, because it's always easier when you only have to change either the MUA or the "post office" side of things.) Is it possible to ask Dovecot via IMAP to look for other things in the virtual folder, for example all items with the flag "huey lewis" applied? Is this sort of query fast / indexed?
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> That could be one use case, but since no clients do that I doubt it's a > very useful one for a while. :) I'm mostly thinking about using virtual > mailboxes for custom webmails, at least initially. ;-).. I find it to be a problem that you're the one who decides what it's useful for and what it's not :-P. > > Is it possible to ask Dovecot via IMAP to look for other things in the > > virtual folder, for example all items with the flag "huey lewis" > > applied? > > Yes (other than spaces not being allowed in flags). It's built using a > fully functional IMAP SEARCH query. > > > Is this sort of query fast / indexed? > > Current implementation is a bit slow, but in future it will be fast. So at what point will it be possible to have Dovecot index whatever the client asks it to index? :-)
Re: [Dovecot] Manual thread breaking from Thunderbird
> No idea. Would be at least useful to have a standard to base it on. Of > course no-one prevents you from coding it sooner. :) Gonna be tough to squeeze in between all the updates that needs to be done to the MUA. Hopefully it doesn't take more than 5 minutes to set up a Thunderbird build environment. . Mu-ha-ha...
Re: [Dovecot] thunderbird sane config (OT)
Thanks for all the responses. The simplest approach in my situation seems to be the XPI one, where users can install an XPI into Thunderbird and get a template that requires only entering username and password. Haven't figured how to put the CA certificate that Dovecot uses for SSL IMAP into the XPI for installation into Thunderbird's certificate store, but things are definitely improving :-).
Re: [Dovecot] thunderbird sane config (OT)
Moser wrote: > Isn't this one click at accessing the server the first time!? > "Accept this certificate permanently"? I think the certificate needs to be constructed in a certain way (include some CA parts? be signed with itself? not sure) before you can do this. I haven't made it work yet :-/. > But if you figured out, how to add it, let me know! :) Not yet. Will do.
