[MlMt] Getting started with MailMate

[Benny Kjær Nielsen]

On 6 Dec 2016, at 14:19, Matt wrote:

Thanks for considering MailMate (and for the extensive use of Markdown). 
I'll do my best to answer your questions.

> # Sending email
>
> 1. **Automatic switching of SMTP server when sender changes.** I have 
> one email account that receives emails for 3 different domains. You 
> discussed this 
> [here](https://lists.freron.com/mailmate/2016-January/005366.html) on 
> the mailing list, but I wasn't subscribed then so I can't reply.
> I have a separate SMTP login (via [Mailgun](http://www.mailgun.com)) 
> for each of my domains in order to get DKIM and SPF correct. In 
> MailMate, SMTP servers don't automatically update when I switch 
> sending identities if they are part of the same IMAP account. This is 
> a huge problem given how often I context switch between 
> domains/identities/SMTP servers. Is there a way to do this, or a 
> workaround (even if hacky)? This is my #1 blocker to switching to 
> MailMate from Postbox or Google Inbox in a browser.

You found the correct mailing list message with respect to what is 
currently possible. There's also [this 
ticket](https://freron.lighthouseapp.com/projects/58672/tickets/220) 
which is still open, because there is no way to do what you ask for. I 
indicate that it's possible to specify more SMTP accounts and I think 
that works, but they would not be automatically selected for various 
email addresses.

Since you don't mind a low-level (hacky) solution then I might look into 
getting at least that part to work.

> # Sub-mailbox behavior
>
> 2. **Multi-level sub mailboxes.** I'd like to be able to have a tree 
> of sub-mailboxes. Ideally, this would be as easy as putting a "/" in 
> the "Mailbox name format". For example, INBOX/tag/recipient/sender 
> could be:
> `${##tags.tag.#name}/${#recipient.#identity}/${from.#correspondent.address}`

That's not possible and I'm afraid it's not something I can quickly 
implement.

> 3. **Selective display of tags.** I'd like to be able to create a 
> smart mailbox that only shows tags that contain (or don't contain) a 
> given string. I can already figure out how to filter by emails that 
> have tags containing a string, but the sub-mailboxes show all tags for 
> those emails, not just the tags that were filtered on.
>     * I want to use this to artificially and creatively mimic features 
> that MailMate doesn't have. For example: follow-up dates, priority 
> levels, who a task has been assigned to, etc.

Also a tricky one. I guess it might be possible using a custom 
specifier. The default one for tags is like this:

	tags = {
		headers = ( "##tags" );
		specifierRegex = '(\S+)';
		specifierCaptures = {
			1 = { specifier = "tag"; parsers = ( "tag"); /*alwaysImplicit = 
:true;*/ };
		};
		multiValue = :true;
	};

The regex controls how the IMAP keywords string is split into separate 
IMAP keywords. This could be altered to skip those of them which are not 
of interest. And then name the specifier, e.g., `project`. I haven't 
tried it though. As a starting point take the above and replace `tag` 
with `project` everywhere except for `##tags`. Some inspiration can be 
found 
[here](https://www.mail-archive.com/mailmate%40lists.freron.com/msg02220.html).

> 4. **Sub-mailbox de-duping.** It seems that sub-mailboxes don't 
> de-dupe/merge when they have the same name. This is unexpected 
> behavior.

The partitioning is based on the primary setting for submailboxes: 
“Submailbox for each unique value of ...”. The name format is just 
for prettifying.

> For example, I have multiple ExampleService accounts (registered to 
> "`xyz.exampleservicet at example.com`", 
> "`abc.exampleservice at example.com`", etc.) and I use a filter like 
> (below) which I was hoping would merge them. Instead, I end up with 
> many sub-mailboxes named "exampleservice".
> Filter I'm using:  
> `${#recipient.#identity.user/.+\.(example1|exampleservice|example2)$/$1/}`

You might be able to do it using a custom specifier instead such that 
the partitioning itself is as expected.

> # Feature requests (not blockers, but would be beneficial):
>
> 5. **Some way to snooze an email, a sub-mailbox, or a tag.** In other 
> words, to temporarily hide display but automatically bring it back 
> later. I realize doing this system-wide (All Messages) would be kludgy 
> and violate some of the spirit of MailMate. However, if I could 
> somehow make it happen for a sub-mailbox **that would be 
> game-changing. I would pay 2-4x the usual MailMate software license 
> cost if it had this functionality.** I am imagining the sort of "view 
> every morning at 7am" or "snooze until tomorrow" functionality that 
> Google Inbox provides for a "bundle." (Which I actually use to 
> auto-assign Gmail labels which connect to tags in MailMate)

I'm not getting what this would do: "view every morning at 7am"

The usual request is some way to snooze an email in a way such that it 
is moved away from, e.g., the Inbox and then later automatically 
returned. If I understand you correctly then you also want some kind of 
“do not disturb” feature in order to, e.g., silence/hide a mailbox. 
I would consider these things to be two different features, but neither 
is implemented yet.

> 6. **Follow-up dates.** I want to be able to flag an email with a 
> follow-up date. This could be a tag or something else entirely.

Isn't this equivalent to snoozing an email?

(Using dates as tags would not work well with many IMAP servers, but 
that's a technicality.)

> This way, I can have a smart mailbox that shows me emails by month or 
> year. If you implemented the selective display of tags feature above, 
> this could be hacked together by with a smart mailbox.

I think you lost me now :)

> 7. **Count of submailboxes.** "Displayed Count" currently has options 
> for "All", "Unread", "Flagged", "Unreplied", and "Recent". It would be 
> nice to have one additional option: "# of Submailboxes". For example, 
> I have a "Tasks" smart mailbox that shows anything with tags that 
> contain "Task_". It then shows submailboxes for each task by using 
> mailbox name format `${##tags.tag.#name/Task_/_/}`. I'd like to have a 
> count on that smart mailbox that shows how many tasks remain, rather 
> than how many emails are assigned to a task bucket.

This is (also) not currently possible, but it's related to a part of the 
internal query system which I've already done some work on. This might 
not be very far from being able to provide a “binary” display count. 
No promises though.

> The combination of sub-mailbox counts, multi-level sub-mailboxes, 
> selective display of tags, sub-mailbox deduping, and snoozes would 
> create an incredibly customizable, flexible, and powerful mail 
> management system. I can think of dozens of use cases that would be 
> served.

:) That does sound like an incredibly advanced email client.

> # Ideas:
> 8. **Mailbox structure exposé on your website, along with UI export 
> and import.** This isn't really necessary for us, per se, but it would 
> be awesome. The idea would be to have a user-contributed directory on 
> your website of mailbox structures along with some Reddit-esque 
> up-voting and commenting functionality. For example, it would be 
> awesome to see your structure ;).

My own use of MailMate is quite ironic. It's a mess of temporary 
experimental stuff, a huge number of (mostly offline) IMAP accounts used 
for testing, and an INBOX with 1600 emails from the past 5 years 
reminding that I'm not always capable of handling all incoming email as 
well as I would like.

> As I see it, the main strength of MailMate is mail management. You 
> could leverage something like this to show off the power of the 
> system. It could also be a great way to get the word out about 
> MailMate.

My long term “vision” is to make it easier to put customizations 
into the bundles already supported by MailMate. This would allow a 
company to use a bundle to share customizations (commands to integrate 
with other software, themes for styling outgoing messages, custom 
mailboxes, signature templates, and whatever else makes sense). But 
right now I'm primarily focused on fixing bugs and complete feature 
requests I've been postponing for too long.

> Hopefully this doesn't come across as a laundry list. I really want to 
> switch away from Google Inbox and Postbox, and would welcome your 
> input.

Sorry for taking some time to answer. If you want to postpone a switch 
until a particular feature has been implemented then I can note to 
contact you.

Thanks for the feedback.

-- 
Benny
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