[MlMt] Rules

[Bill Cole]

On 18 Jan 2018, at 20:20 (-0500), Randall Gellens wrote:

> Is there a more detailed manual somewhere?  I can't figure out 
> seemingly basic stuff.

The bundled help file (Help->MailMate Help) is reasonably good, and is 
pretty much identical to https://manual.mailmate-app.com/

> Right now I'm trying to configure rules and I see Conditions, 
> Submailboxes, and Rules.

Yes, and it is important to understand that the window you're looking at 
is either defining a "smart mailbox" (i.e. a dynamic collection of 
messages grouped together logically by MM) or is adding client-side 
behaviors to an IMAP ("source") mailbox. A smart mailbox editor window 
diffes in that it has a "Mailboxes" pane that tells MM which other 
mailboxes (both smart and source) define the universe of messages it 
examines.

Frankly, I don't get why adding "Conditions" to a source mailbox is a 
thing one can do, as the only effect it seems to have is to hide 
messages from view in MM's display of the mailbox which are in the 
actual IMAP mailbox on the server.

> I'm guessing Submailboxes lets you create default rules for either 
> moving mail or virtual mailboxes, but I haven't tried it.

No. Submailboxes lets you split a smart or source mailbox into virtual 
smart mailboxes  based on a single simple criteria. For example, I use a 
system for creating ad hoc limited-purpose email addresses based on 
patterns that my mail server recognizes as aliases for my "real" email 
address (which I don't actually use...) Some mail for these get sorted 
during local delivery on the server into specific IMAP folders (e.g. for 
specific mailing lists) but those that make it through the sieve on the 
server are just dumped into a slushpile 'Tagged' mailbox because they 
match one of the ad hoc patterns. That mailbox is configured to have 
submailboxes for each unique value of the address part of the To header.

> However, what is the difference between the Conditions section and the 
> conditions created in the Rules section?

The Conditions pane controls which messages MM deems to be in the 
mailbox. For Source (i.e. IMAP) mailboxes this selects the subset you 
see of the messages which are actually in the mailbox. For Smart 
mailboxes, this is a subset of the messages in the mailbox set defined 
in the Mailboxes pane.

The Conditions section of a Rule determines which new (to the mailbox) 
messages the Rule acts upon.


-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Currently Seeking Steady Work: https://linkedin.com/in/billcole