rwithers12 at attbi.com wrote:
> "Lex Spoon" <lex at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> > 
> > Cool.  Serious users might want to try Filtering Celeste.  It extends 
> > 
> > 	http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/2091
> > 
> 
> hmm, I'll have to take a peek, when time permits.   I really like the
> filters, but the lack of categories bothers me.


Categories are still there.  A common mode of interaction is to have a
category filter as your first filter, and then to use "modify" (which is
intentionally the first menu item, so that you can almost just click the
mouse to select it) to switch to a different category.  Alternatively,
you can open up multiple Celeste's now and have one for each of various
categories, if you are willing to live with update problems.  This
combines nicely with the ability to save open Celeste's in your image.

Anyway, a difference is that you can now select multiple categories at
the same time.  For example, I can select both "debian" and "squeak" to
see issues about Squeak's license and Debian.




>  Adding a named filters
> pane to the standard Celeste would be neat.  So, I said that I really
> like filters and I do.  I also think it would be useful to use a filter
> to define a rule, like moving filter matches to a given category.  It
> seems like it should be possible to integrate the two ways of operating,
>  The whole unread/msg rules/category hierarchy is a very common and
> useful idiom.  Add to that threading, and it could also grab nntp.  Oh
> yes, multiple selection would be nice, too.


Yes, having read and unread categories that are automatically maintained
would be a nice addition.  It doesn't have to be a separate mechanism.

Threading would be nice, but is a bit of work.

Multiple selection; you mean, to file 7 messages into the same
categories?  Well, you can usually use filters to select the relevant
messages, but I guess it would be nice to have some sort of marking
ability for the times you can't.



> > > 2) AutoFilters.  Is there a way to create a rule, such that squeak mail
> > > goes to the squeak folder.
> > 
> > The way I do this, is to have a named filter for Squeak-list messages. 
> > Then I can activate that filter and  do "file all" to put 100 messages
> > at a time into the folder.  That's pretty fast, even if it's not
> > automatic.  Too much automation is a bad thing; the next thing you'll
> > want is an indication to tell you what the automatic device just did....
> 
> :)   By golly, that must be 3.  Not wanting to start an argument, _but_
> I am not convinced that too much automation is a bad thing.  I see
> filters as a great, in-place, search feature.  Having that kind of
> control over msgs is very nice.  Unfortunately, I don't feel I should
> have to activate 5 filters and do moves on the results.  If a msg rule
> is a name, a filter and an action, then having an indicator of read,
> unread, flagged-for-followup would wrap it up nicely.    Well anyway,
> I'll really live well until I decide to give it a whorl.  Celeste is
> *very* nice.  I am looking for that last 5%.

Maybe I wasn't clear on the suggestion.  You can save message rules
underneath names -- that's what a named filter is.  There's simply no
mechanism in there for moving those messages anywhere.

There are several issues with the auto-moving:

	1. "move all" and "file all" are already pretty easy.

	2. You will also need some feedback on what messages were moved, which
complicates the UI.

	3. You may want to be more selective in what you move; e.g., you may
want to move only those messages which you have read, or which have a
certain keyword in the subject.

	4. Why move them anyway?  I read my mailing lists straight from the
"new" category, and it works great.


Incidentally, a common Celeste trick is to have an "important stuff"
filter that matches your personal email addresses as well as any email
lists you want to respond quickly to.  This lets you have a humongous
"new" category without losing the important stuff.


You're right that Filtering Celeste is built around search.  That seems
like a good thing, to me; one basic feature serves for a lot of
functionality.


> > It does autosave after download.  Try looking in category unclassified".
> >   Overall, Celeste is extremely protective of the messages file.  I've
> > never lost a single message in over three years.  I *have* lost the
> > categories that messages were store in a time or two.
> 
> Mmm, I guess part of my problem was that some of my losses were mail
> msgs I was writing.  I did find some msgs in .unclassified. but there
> are others I had received that were lost.  I see that the mailDB gets
> saved after each fetch, so it already is doing this.  I don't know how I
> lost them, but there were at least 3 msgs lost.
> 
> Could this have done it?

Hmm, if your image crashes while you are writing a message, it would get
lost.  Also, if you restart an old image under Squeak3.2gamma, I don't
know if the on-disk files will be reread.


> 1) save image, with Celeste open
> 2) d/l msgs
> 3) try to copy and my machine was freezing.  kill -9 the image
> 4) restart the previously saved image
> 5) save mailDB....loose msgs that are in the DB from 2, but not in
> Celeste in my restarted image
> 

Exactly.  In the latest Filtering Celeste, on step 4 you will notice a
10 second pause or so when you restart the image, as Celeste re-reads
the index file and categories file.  This used to happen with the
Celeste in the main image, but I don't know if it still works nowadays.

By the way, a more drastic measure is to run "compact and salvage".  
This gets painful as your mail database grows large, but it should be
pretty fast if you haven't been using it very long.  This should recover
all messages that have actually made it onto the disk; it might put some
into .unclassified., however.



-Lex