[MlMt] How to edit recipients

[Randall Gellens]

On 4 Mar 2018, at 12:33, Benny Kjær Nielsen wrote:

> On 27 Feb 2018, at 19:05, Randall Gellens wrote:
>
>> On 20 Feb 2018, at 1:58, Benny Kjær Nielsen wrote:
>>
>>>> On a more esoteric note, it would be nice if MM could normalize 
>>>> recipients names that are in annoying Outlook format, e.g., change
>>>> 	“Bozo, Fred” <fred.bozo at example.com>
>>>> To
>>>> 	Fred Bozo <fred.bozo at example.com>
>>>
>>> MailMate cannot do this automatically. It's extremely hard 
>>> (impossible?) to correctly identify the various parts of a 
>>> “name”. Also, you have to assume that if your correspondent uses 
>>> this format then it's probably what they prefer to see when they get 
>>> a reply.
>>
>> I disagree with this; I think in almost all cases, the recipient’s 
>> client dictates how names are formatted.  E.g., I think Outlook 
>> imposes the quote-last-comma-first-quote format.
>
> That might be true, but they can only do that if they know what the 
> last name and the first name is -- which they would usually only know 
> if the user has specifically added the name to an address book.
>
> I'm a bit surprised if Outlook takes an incoming message, analyzes 
> it's “From” header, and then reorder its parts to a different 
> format. It still think this is very hard to get right.

I meant mostly that Outlook formats addresses in messages it sends in 
the annoying way with embedded commas and surrounding quotes (often 
nested single and double quotes).  Undoing this would be terrific.  I am 
only asking for an option that, when enabled, converts

quote non-quote/non-comma comma non-quote/non-comma quote

into

token2 token1

>
>>> MailMate could display the names differently (without altering them 
>>> when replying/forwarding), but I really mean it when I write that 
>>> it's extremely hard to do this reliably :) As as simple example, 
>>> someone might use this: "PhD Nielsen, Benny" and it would become 
>>> "Benny PhD Nielsen".
>>
>> I agree it’s likely impossible to have an algorithm that always 
>> does the correct thing.  However, one that usually does the correct 
>> thing is good enough.
>
> The problem is that it would be very annoying when it fails. Then the 
> user has to manually edit the header to get it right.

No, the user can ignore it, because it likely won’t be any worse than 
doing nothing.  Keep in mind that it is only the form that has an 
embedded comma and hence also quotes that is altered.

>
>> As an aside, this “Outlook name conversion” was one of my 
>> favorite features of Mac Eudora, because it made it much easier to 
>> read the recipient lists.
>
> Ah, displaying recipients is a different story. I was mainly thinking 
> of composing messages. In this case, it would be ok if it fails some 
> times.

Yes, exactly, although Eudora also used the modified form when sending 
replies, which was nice.

>
> I don't have time right now, but I could probably make a custom file 
> for you which would replace the default “To” column with a 
> “Last, First” variant.

I wonder if an option to have a regex for name alteration might be a 
workable approach?  Leave it to the user to devise a good regex.

—Randall