msirota@ee.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (11/28/90)
I have a couple of suggestions regarding the priority-setting mechanism introduced in 7.2.0. I am using this to sort my mailbox according to the To: header; I'm on several mailing lists and want to sort accordingly. I wish to assign the following priorities: (1) Mail addressed To: me (2) Mail addressed Cc: me (3) Mail addressed to one mailing list (autox), To: or Cc: (4) Mail addressed to another mailing list (porschephiles), To: or Cc: (5) Mail addressed to a third mailing list (info-vw), To: or Cc: My initial thought was to do this with the following script: > pick -t msirota | mark -A > pick -h cc msirota | mark -B > pick -t autox | mark -C > pick -h cc autox | mark -C > pick -t porschephiles | mark -D > pick -h cc porschephiles | mark -D > pick -t info-vw | mark -E > pick -h cc info-vw | mark -E > sort -rS -p -d > headers However, there are two problems with this. First, messages without a priority wind up last, rather than first, as they probably should. So I solved that by reversing the priorities E-A, and sorting -rp. The other problem with this is that something that's addressed To: msirota and Cc: info-vw winds up with the info-vw priority instead of the personal priority, so I had to switch the order in which priorities are applied, info-vw first. These two things are both counter-intuitive, in my opinion. Do others agree? What I wound up with is: > pick -t info-vw | mark -A > pick -h cc info-vw | mark -A > pick -t porschephiles | mark -B > pick -h cc porschephiles | mark -B > pick -t autox | mark -C > pick -h cc autox | mark -C > pick -h cc msirota | mark -D > pick -t msirota | mark -E > sort -rS -rp -d > headers My other problem is that the sort -S appears to just sort alphabetically by the Status: header or something. This is not right; whether or not the article has been replied to should not matter. I may be wrong about this, but the 'r' in some of my messages does seem to be relevant according to the order they get sorted. Also, the default sort order does seem to be -rS, not -S, as the manual page suggests. One last suggestion - is running all these separate pick commands slow? It seems it. It would be nice if I could combine a search on both the To: and Cc: headers in one pick command. Enough for now. I look forward to seeing your comments. -- Mark Sirota - Department of Electrical Engineering University of Rochester, Rochester NY Internet: msirota@ee.rochester.edu UUCP: {decvax,harvard,ames,rutgers}!rochester!ur-valhalla!msir
argv@turnpike.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Heller) (11/29/90)
In article Mark Sirota <msirota@galaxy.ee.rochester.edu> writes: > I have a couple of suggestions regarding the priority-setting mechanism > introduced in 7.2.0. It's too bad we didn't get a large sample of beta testers for this. Your input would have been valuable :-). On the other hand, I still can't find a "different" way to do things despite your suggestions... see below. > However, there are two problems with this. First, messages without a > priority wind up last, rather than first, as they probably should. So I This is basically where I disagree.. I think higher priority messages should be listed first. Given that you want it the other way around, I see your problem and your idea about reversing the priorities and the sort seems to be the only way around it (and is also a reasonable idea). > My other problem is that the sort -S appears to just sort alphabetically by > the Status: header or something. This is not right; whether or not the > article has been replied to should not matter. The sorting order for status is, unread, preserved, replied, saved, printed, forwarded, old (and read) and lastly, deleted messages. It's debateable whether or not this is the best thing, but it's too arbitrary to say what's best.. It's also been that way forever ...sigh I sometimes sort mesages by status so I can find those that I haven't replied to yet :-). Of course, the option to do subsorting is really where this comes in most handy. That is, sort by author and then by status so I can group all the messages from someone together and group those that I haven't replied to separately. > One last suggestion - is running all these separate pick commands slow? It > seems it. It would be nice if I could combine a search on both the To: and > Cc: headers in one pick command. I have always thought that "pick -t" should combine To and Cc info together, but I just never thought to do it at the right time. The pick commands generally aren't slow because the routines that get the information from the headers are pretty fast. -- dan ---------------------------------------------------- O'Reilly && Associates argv@sun.com / argv@ora.com Opinions expressed reflect those of the author only.
msirota@ee.rochester.edu (Mark Sirota) (12/06/90)
In article <3672@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> argv@turnpike.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan Heller) writes: >> However, there are two problems with this. First, messages without a >> priority wind up last, rather than first, as they probably should. So I > > This is basically where I disagree.. I think higher priority messages > should be listed first. Given that you want it the other way around, > I see your problem and your idea about reversing the priorities and the > sort seems to be the only way around it (and is also a reasonable idea). Ahh, I think here we have the core of the problem. In thinking about it, I agree, higher priority messages should be listed first. But the inconsistency here is that with the default sorting order, new messages are first - but then if one comes in while you're working, it gets stuck last. Now, this is how it has always worked since the dawn of time; the mailbox is a flat file and new things are appended to the end of it, and that's why my first thought was that the sorting order was backwards. I think your way makes more sense, actually, and I'd like to do it that way - except that new messages, which I receive frequently, should be added in at the bottom of the new message section (which should be sorted by priority, and within that, chronologically by date). In other words, I guess what I'm asking for is a way to filter a message through a command when it first comes in, or a command to run whenever a new message comes in (which in this case would be my script to set priority and resort). I think that would solve all my problems. > Of course, the option to do subsorting is really where this comes in most > handy. That is, sort by author and then by status so I can group all the > messages from someone together and group those that I haven't replied to > separately. Subsorting is indeed a truly wonderful thing. I wonder how I ever lived without it. Mark -- Mark Sirota - Department of Electrical Engineering University of Rochester, Rochester NY Internet: msirota@ee.rochester.edu UUCP: {decvax,garp,harvard,hombre,rutgers}!rochester!ur-valhalla!msirota