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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    A different approach to kmails's filter-dialogue
From:       Sven Burmeister <sven.burmeister () gmx ! net>
Date:       2006-11-14 9:50:10
Message-ID: 200611141050.11067.sven.burmeister () gmx ! net
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Hello everyone!

The current filters-dialogue can do everything one might want to do. Yet most 
people do not need that much and might appreciate a simpler GUI.

Apart from that, one might think about taking a different approach to 
filtering and divide them into categories such 
as "folder-filters", "contact-filters", "action-filters" and of 
course "spam-filters". This would mean that instead of assigning a folder to 
a filter, one assigns a filter to a folder, or to a contact or action.

I created a mockup of the "folder-filters": 
http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/sven.burmeister/folder-filters.jpg

This dialogue could either be started from the folder's settings-dialogue, or 
from the general preferences menu in kmail. Although its arrangement might 
not be the best, I hope it mediates the idea.

The user sees all available folders, including search-folders 
(virtual-folders). The button below the list can be used to create new 
(virtual-)folders.

If the user selects a folder, the filter-settings for that folder are shown. 

First, the user can assign contacts to the folder by either using the 
addressbook, i.e. the same kind of list kmail's composer offers for picking 
several recipients. If the contacts are not in the addressbook, the user can  
open a pop-up in order to enter some addresses manually. One might think 
about giving the user the choice of moving/copying per contact, as this is 
done in the composer by giving the choice of assigning To/CC/BCC to contacts 
in the list.

Further the user can choose whether to copy emails from those contacts to the 
folder or move them. If it is a virtual folder these options would trigger 
the conversion of a virtual folder into a real one, i.e. create a folder, 
convert the search-criteria to filter-criteria and move/copy all mail into 
it.

If there are already emails in that folder, those contacts and mailinglists 
are added automatically, or maybe just offered to be added.

Second, the user can filter for the emails' content that should trigger it 
being copied/moved to that folder. For most people emails consist of from/to, 
subject and text, maybe attachment, but certainly not headers. So there is no 
need to make this more complicated than necessary. Thus the GUI just offers 
the choice of searching just in the subject/text, or in both, subject and 
text. Further, the user can enter semicolon-separated strings to filter for. 
The advanced editor gives the possibility to have a vertical list of those 
strings and add/remove some.

I thought about adding statuses, i.e. spam, size and age, but I guess they do 
not belong here. Usually only one filter is set as the spam-folder, I do not 
know any people that filter all emails >x kb into a folder and the age is 
handled in the expiration-dialogue.

Next tab would be "contact-filter". Instead of showing a list of the folders, 
it would show a list of all contacts in the addressbook. The user can select 
each one of them (or multiple) and assign filters/actions for them. On the 
right-hand side one could choose to label all emails from that contact as for 
example important, or move them to a folder/the bin, copy them, forward them, 
play a sound, send an SMS, pipe them etc. Although the latter ones might be 
too advanced.

If a user selects a contact and assigns a folder to it (e.g. move all email to 
xyz), this contact is automatically added to the "folder-filters" settings 
for that xyz folder and vice versa.

The SPAM-filter simply picks the folder to copy/move the spam to, which app to 
use, whether to play a sound when new spam arrives, whether to mark it as 
read etc. This tab might also include the anti-virus settings.

Finally, the action-filter tab, if at all necessary for this GUI, would list 
items such as size and pipe. The user could assign actions to all emails 
bigger then x kb or whether to pipe all emails through app xyz.

The current filter-dialogue would still be available, yet just as advanced 
GUI. The drawback of this new approach is that it cannot handle complex 
filter-rules that include several criteria, e.g. if email from xyz or zzz but 
not from bbb yet with ddd as CC and bigger than 5kb but not older than 5 days 
copy to folder abc.

Sven
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