[MlMt] syntax in smart folders editor

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

On 22 Apr 2016, at 19:17, John Cooper wrote:

> Howard Wettstein wrote (at 22:53 on 21 Apr 2016):
>
>> I’m trying to set up smart folders but find some of the syntax )(a 
>> lot of it) hard to follow, I mean  in the drop-down lists. Is there 
>> someplace I can find more or less detailed explanations?
>
> This bothers me a lot, too. So much power, and so little information!

The documentation could certainly be improved. As you might expect, many 
of the undocumented details have been added to MailMate after I wrote 
the documentation.

As Gary wrote in a separate reply:

> The Smart Mailboxes feature is so powerful and Byzantine that you 
> often just have to ask Bennie here or by e-mail if some specific task 
> can be done, and he'll say yes or no.

It might be a comfort to some that my Inbox is “punished” for the 
lack of detailed documentation :-)

> I'm a pretty good reference sleuth, but I don't know how to even begin 
> to decipher these, among many others:
>
> Source > Path > Noinbox

This is a hack to get around IMAP weirdness. Some IMAP servers place all 
mailboxes under INBOX in the mailbox hierarchy, e.g., it's 
`INBOX/Archive` instead of just `Archive`. The “Noinbox” specifier 
gets rid of the `INBOX` prefix which can be useful for various format 
strings used elsewhere (message list column, smart mailbox submailboxes, 
counter notifications). Usually, you would not need it.

> Date > » Local > Formatted [why the chevrons? Formatted how?]

Local is a special selector which converts a date to the local time 
zone. “Formatted” is also for use in format strings and is kind of 
an implementation leak -- at least in the smart mailbox editor and/or in 
searches. Most of the time you should only need to simply use “Date” 
and its comparison methods (the popup after the date).

> Subject > Blob

This is a word I got from an old RFC (standards document). It's the 
string often used for mailing lists to state the list name in the 
subject. For example, it would be “MlMt” in “[MlMt] syntax in 
smart folders editor”.

> Any Address > » Identity [or » Correspondent] > User > Notag

Identity/Correspondent are relatively new additions. They allow you to 
reduce the set of matched addresses to your own identities (email 
addresses found in your IMAP account settings to belong to you). So, 
“Identity” is your address and “Correspondent” is *not* your 
address. This could, e.g., be used to only match messages which have one 
of your addresses in a recipient header: “Recipient ▸ Identity 
exists”.

I hope that helps a bit. I'll note that this information should be added 
to the documentation when I have time extend it.

-- 
Benny
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