Roundcube Community Forum
Release Support => Requests => Topic started by: SniperClops on July 07, 2007, 02:04:27 AM
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This has probably been suggested before, but roundcube could use filters and threading. I am impressed with the program so far but these two things are what is keeping me form using it... back to squirrelmail I guess. Oh yeah, and it should tell you how many messages in a folder have been read and the total number of messages, such as (685 read/847 total messages) of course without the "read" and "total messages" parts.
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Here a plug-in for the "how many messages in a folder" http://trac.roundcube.net/trac.cgi/ticket/1483873. The threading is going to be added at some point, As a lot of people what to have it. As for filtering that is not something for roundcube is made for, because roundcube is a frond end mail client and that is a mail sever function.
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Too bad, I am on several mailing lists and I need to filter each email into a separate folder. I don't see why it can't be added. Squirrelmail does it.
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filtering that is not something for roundcube is made for, because roundcube is a frond end mail client and that is a mail sever function.
But many need user specific filters. The admin of the server can't manually setup every user filter rules in a maildrop filter e.g
I use roundcube every day, so sick off butt-ugly squerril. But I really miss the filters.
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You mean perhaps filtering like messages from *@gmail.com go to a gmail folder, and those with [RCD] or [RCU] as the first 5 characters in the subject go to a RoundCube Lists folder right?
Sounds to me like the user needs to set up some filters on the server and not with RoundCube.
Here's the thing: RoundCube is only a front-end to an IMAP server. IMAP by nature is meant to be accessed from multiple points but have the same information (i.e. you log in from work and home and see the same message list for the same email address). But if you filter with RC, and not with the server, when you load up RC it will filter, then when you close your browser, filtering stops. So next time you load up RC the filter may or may not work. Doing it server-side means that your filters work all the time (or as long as the server is up).
Filters for Roundcube just aren't going to make it. Maybe we'll get tagging as part of it; although, I doubt any time soon.
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Hold on a minute. Filtering (or rules) are certainly possible and quite usual client-side. I can't think of an installed mail client that doesn't implement them in some way. Adding that functionality can't be too difficult really. There are two parts to it:
1. The filter/rule set up saved to the db. For example: if subject contains 'roundcube' move message to '/rc' etc.
2. A script that intercepts mail before it hits the Inbox list which applies the filters to the message and deals with them appropriately.
That way 'mark as spam' could easily work as requested elsewhere too. Marking a message would automatically add the rule, if from is 'bogus@spammer.com' move message to '/Junk'.
Sure filtering can be done on the server too, but end users are far more likely to want them client side. Plus, the webmail client becomes more app like and will be more of a reason to switch to RC.
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You're still better off letting the server itself filter the mail. For speed and ease of use. If you want to create a plugin for this that's fine (as I understand it, a patch is already being submitted on the Dev list today).
I just can't see the devs devoting time to this specific feature in the near future (unless someone fixes the problem on their own and submits a patch / plugin). Now, filtering shouldn't be client-side.
The entire downside of implementing filters in a webmail is that the
user has to log into the webmail. So for example an autoresponder is
pretty useless - unless you set up a script and crontab it to login
for you but that defeats the entire purpose of "easy to use".
IMO - I'd welcome an interface for server-side filters. It has to be
very abstract, because some IMAPDs have filters build in, others use
maildrop or/and procmail to achieve the same. So an interface would
need to be configurable (through a config file) and then people can
build filters.
That's from the dev mailing list today (well, like 2 minutes ago). Think about it. If you set up filters in your webmail, then leave for vacation for 2 weeks (typical honeymoon ;) ) and come back and 500 messages are now in your inbox. The webmail will have to sift through those 500 messages and filter them. However, what should be done is that the IMAP server filters it for you so that when you leave, the server still filters the mail, and you don't need to run RoundCube just to filter your mail. It's the one thing I hate about client is that if you get loads of messages per day, and you filter them on subject, sender, or other headers, then it can take forever to go through if you don't leave the client running 100% of the time.
I'm not trying to say that it's not going to happen, just that you're better of doing it server-side and setting it up that way so that if you don't use RC later, you still have your filters going on and your inbox and folders are not insane with unfiltered mail.
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Ok, I fully see the point about an auto-responder or vacation message: That has to be server-side as you want to responder to fire as soon as a message comes into the server.
As for other basic filtering, the state of current technology suggests that any serious email client includes that functionality, installed application or webmail. (Squirrelmail and Gmail do it in webmail for instance and I can't think of an installed client that doesn't.) I'm actually quite surprised that there's so much reluctance from the developers. I'd have thought this would be a natural extension to functionality after the core application has been built. In fact it's so ubiquitous amongst rival clients it could be seen as part of the core itself.
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It's not really a reluctance to develop it. I'm sure they do. But there are other features that don't work currently, and this really can be difficult. You'd really rather want to have this done server-side for speed. It's a lot faster to let the IMAP server handle the movement and filtering of the messages than to have the headers downloaded by a client, let the client then sort them one-by-one, and move them on the server. It's just a lot more overhead.
Now, as far as I know, each IMAP server implements filtering slightly differently, so that can make implementing a filtering solution difficult (not impossible). Right now, with the speed of development, perhaps if you know PHP and how to interact with certain servers you could create a class for implementing filtering, and extend it with specifics for different servers.
So it's not that they're against it, just that it's something that really would be better server-side implemented. Maybe an "administrative" filter module can be created to make the filters server-side, or a not-so-intricate web-filter. I'd personally rather see it server-side. That way my webmail can speed up.
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Hi all!
I agreed with Brett on the fact that filtering must be server-side insteed of client-side.
Until this week-end, my IMAP server was Courier-IMAP without any support for server-side filtering rules configured and a badly working SpamAssassin... Only my Outlook client does filtering ... With spam traffic growing days after days, I've to filter each days over 500 email on 5 mail accounts and usually Outlook stops responding after few seconds! :o
If RoundCube implement such a system, users who log in need to wait that all the messages have been filtered... If you recieve a lot of spam or mailing-list messages, you'll have to wait before you can read your mails ! :-\
SquirrelMail, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and others implements server-sides filtering rules!! nothing more, nothing less ;)
If you look at the SquirrelMail website, under the "Plugins" section, you'll find that the so-called 'filtering' feature is in fact a simple plugin who help users managing their rules on the server using SpamAssassin, Cieve or others mechanisms (i.e. running commands on the server) :P
I've choosed DoveCot for his plugin for DSPAM (learning of false-positive or false-negative with only a move between Inbox and Spam folder!) and the Sieve-plugin (automatic action for mails with "X-DSPAM-Result: SPAM" in headers)
Sieve is a simple language for manipulating mail messages and take actions regarding of the headers contents...
For example, this is the sieve-rule to move DSPAM tagged mail to the Spam folder:
require "fileinto";
if header :contains "X-DSPAM-Result" "Spam" {
fileinto "Spam";
}
A simple PHP script can help editing rules like the above inside the RC interface and voila! (of course, this script must be writed before :p)... The most difficult is to keep in mind all server-side filtering possibilities, plugins are good for this ;)
SquirrelMail already have several (12) plugins for editing user-rules, RC can have his own set of plugins 8) (I hope!!)
Everything can arrive to whom is waiting ;)
This is my little point of view on the subject !
Best Regards
P.S.: sorry for my poor english :p
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Hi there,
you have written much about filtering, but threading have been falled by the wayside...
Pease tell me: is the possibility for threading already included in RC2?
I have successfully installed this nice piece of software, but I haven't figured out - if even possible - how I can manage that issue.
I surely can sort my messages by date or subject or something like that, but it would be the icing on my cake if I could view all my messages hierarchically ;-)
Thanks in advance,
Andreas
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As for filtering that is not something for roundcube is made for, because roundcube is a frond end mail client and that is a mail sever function.
What?!
Indeed. Roundcube is a mail client. But what makes you think that filtering is
only a task for the server? That is absurd. (e)mail can be filtered at/on many
levels. From filtering by: subject/sender/spam/virii. All at the client level. Not
to mention priority filtering. All mature mail clients in use today implement these in
their default install. What's more, almost all mail server filters also accommodate
user filtering/interaction. Bayesian,Greylist,Spamassasin,and nearly every other Milter.
Given that you indicate roundcube has no intention of introducing these indispensable
features. I'm going to fork off a version of the current codebase into a UserCentric
version, that provides what users expect demand from a mail client. I believe I'll call
the project SquareCircle Mail. Look for it on FreshMeat.net.
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Once again, as stated above... It's not that the developers don't want to develop it (or that the developers won't develop it), but rather that this is on the list and there are more important things to get done. Also, developer time is really limited and things don't develop as in a commercial industry.
If you're interested in developing this, don't branch off, but just create a patch for the features and submit them to the developers. They'll add it in if it works properly. Nothing is against you implementing features for your own and then submitting them. That's the great thing about open source software and community driven projects. YOU can add to them. So take the code-base, add the filtering ability, then submit it.
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So Squirrelmail does the filtering client side or server side?
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It says in the roadmap that filters are to come :) (at the bottom)
http://trac.roundcube.net/roadmap
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Sweet, once filtering and threading is introduced I'll switch from squirrelmail.
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Why have people got so upset over the whole client/server side filtering issue, for me it's important to have server side filtering that way when I go between webmail and a desktop client I have consistency, I only have to setup filtering rules once, rather then for each client, etc etc etc, and since you need the webmail client running on the server it seems pointless to have redundant code on both the MTA and the MUA, especially considering that a lot of MTAs already support sieve filtering, why re-invent the wheel?
As I posted in another thread I recently switched from Cyrus to Dovecot, Cyrus comes with Sieve code built in as does Dovecot, but Cyrus has a management interface that listens on port 2000, unfortunately Dovecot doesn't yet include the management daemon yet, but luckily there is a python daemon someone wrote that does.
All up took me 5 mins or so to get sieve filtering working on the server, the bigger issue was no interface like avelsieve in roundcube, time permitting I hope to rectify this.
What I did find and what works ok for now is SmartSieve (http://smartsieve.sourceforge.net) but it lacks the integration with the webmail client and the pointy clicky goodness of avelsieve, the downside for SmartSieve is it requires the imap extensions for php, but 5 mins with a hacksaw and that requirement went bye-bye. The reason it needed the imap extension was so it could get a list of folder names for when you point mail directly to some other folder then Inbox.
In any case this is only one of many php sieve clients, most if not all are GPL, so all that needs to be done is for someone to hack existing code into the RC interface in a similar way that avelsieve works for squirrelmail.
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Hi, Im really surprise about this discussion ;)
There are 2 groups of users, 1 have acces to server and 2nd not. Yes, I agree on server side its much better but also keep in mind Im not going to put all dozens of filtering for each user, my wife also not going to log into server ;) and I really dont have time to talk to her what folder she need ;)
RC look nice , ajax is sweet , but lack of features. Please let me decide If I can live with few seconds of "not responding" when log in and rc start filtering or not. If I dont like it, I can disable it. Or if it hang , last option is do it with maildrop.
Unfortuinatelly, squirellmail is quick and ugly, but lot of featuers. There is Horde, they build also ajax version which is nice too and keeping all features even calendar/task ....
till then I must leave RC , is sweet but some work must be done ;) you are doing nice app however, respect to it.
Ill try keep use of it . Its like baby, so it has good chance to be robust grow up in future.
take care
miki
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Hi,
Sorry to resurrect this topic but I'd like to use a patch I've found here:
Attachment ? RoundCube Webmail ? Trac (http://trac.roundcube.net/attachment/ticket/1484694/patch.txt)
Is someone currently using it ? Is it working good ?
Could also someone explain me how to install and use it ? I know how to use the patch command but by looking in the patch I could see it configures a filter table in the DB. Is there anything more to do (like creating this table) to make it running ?
And to add my personal point of view about filtering: yes, I think filtering/classifying messages in folders is a server job to be done with some powerful tools like procmail. On top of that, if RC could simply provide a nice web interface to edit our .procmailrc file that would be great. I hope this patch does it.
And what would be even better is to have 2 levels of procmail rules editing: one basic like the thunderbird mail client and one advanced where one could directly edit its .procmailrc file.
Cheers,
Malbrouck.