Feature-request: Vote for "Changing subject line"!

jimmy73 · Post by **jimmy73** » June 22nd, 2004, 3:08 am

Hi!

Ausdilecce, who wrote some very useful extensions for thunderbird, thinks about writing an extensions which would allow us to change the subject-line auf en e-mail (as Outlook can).

For me this feature would be very useful. But ausdilecce doesn't want to do all the work for just one person. So: Is there anybody out there who would think that the possibility of changing the subject line of an email would be a great feature and who would use it?

If YES, then just DROP a FEW LINES HERE here and maybe we can get ausdilecce writing an XPI for us all!

Jimmy73
(Founder of the "We-want-to-change-the-subject-line" Club)

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 22nd, 2004, 2:18 pm

bumping so I get alerted on replies to the thread
Cheers

rP2 · Post by **rP2** » June 22nd, 2004, 3:01 pm

edit

this gots my vote

jhirshon · Post by **jhirshon** » June 22nd, 2004, 5:47 pm

ditto

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 22nd, 2004, 9:32 pm

Yep fine, 3 people that have the courage to say what they want means :
at least 50 more want it but don't want to get blasted by another 150 people that say

'why would you need THAT ? '
( you 150 people know who you are :wink:

)

anyway
www.supportware.net/mozilla/HeaderTools.xpi ( pretty optimistic name but anyway )

It is TB 0.7 compatible
You will have a menu option under tools called 'Change Header Details' ..
it just changes the subject line for now but leaves room for enhancements
( like a dialog box with many header details you might want to change )

IMAP support is flaky.. I know that

this is version 0.1.0 ( first cut )
Enjoy

EDIT: I have not updated the text of the website to support this extension yet so don't go lookin

rP2 · Post by **rP2** » June 23rd, 2004, 4:20 am

works great so far...

what about an option to insert predefined textblocks or markings?

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 23rd, 2004, 4:34 am

rP2,
Can you elaborate please ?

jimmy73 · Post by **jimmy73** » June 23rd, 2004, 7:42 am

Hi ausdilecce!

The extension works great!
A suggestion: Would it be possible to have the menu-option 'Change Header Details' when I do a right-click on a mail in the preview-pane instead of having it under "Tools".

But so far this extension does exactly what I was searching for since I am using thunderbird: It changes the subject-line! Thanx a lot from me and I am sure 50 other people!!!

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 23rd, 2004, 2:13 pm

No probs Jimmy,

It is possible to have a right click option.. This is the first cut. I wanted to make sure the extension worked correctly before adding other features that might obscure issues. Next version will have the preview pane right click option.

Cheers

rP2 · Post by **rP2** » June 23rd, 2004, 3:32 pm

I would love to have the option to insert a date or deadline for having this mail handled. I can type this manually but it would be convenient to do this by clicking. Maybe it's possible to get a reminder each time starting tbird...

An other nice feature would be an option to insert statuses of process/progress. I'm thinking about a similar way of marking the mail for example as important, work and so on...

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 23rd, 2004, 3:40 pm

rP2,
Let me please try to understand you.

You want to insert a deadline date where .. in the body ? in the header ? There is nothing currently in TB that checks something of this sort and alerts the user on a date 'expiring' so it would have to be a brand new feature . Or am I completely off base ?

Regarding the 'other nice feature' , please flesh it out completely. I cannot read your mind as to what you want.
( I cannot even write a program that does :wink:

)
'And so on' doesn't really give me a clue. Please elaborate <i>further</i>

rP2 · Post by **rP2** » June 23rd, 2004, 3:54 pm

I want to insert a deadline date in the header of course. An option in the 'header-change'-dialog would be nice. I don't know if it is possible to check the deadline when tbird is starting, perhaps your extension will make it possible?! Changing the header is also a completly new feature, isn't it?

the other option isn't really elaborated by myself, so let me think about it..

big thanks for your work so far!

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 23rd, 2004, 4:33 pm

rP2,
I have thought about your first suggestion/desire..

You want to put a 'deadline date' in the header. This is not a problem.
You want TB to 'check' that deadline date and compare it to the surrent system date *somehow* and if deadline date is before current date (deadline has passed ) you want TB to do *something* ( highlight it, move it to another folder, mark it 'important', whatever ) This is the problem.

In order for TB to do anything with a message, it has to be done within the parameters of what TB does ( IE it would have to be done with a filter )
now.. filters *only* work automatically if
1) the message is in a pop account *and*
2) the message is unread

the second requirement is NOT required IF you run the filters manually ( tools.. run filters on folder ) BUT
you only have a couple of options for filters..
Age in days is probably the closest you are going to get to what you want to do.. BUT .. age in days computes the 'age' of a message
1) in DAYS ( probably not the resolution you want , hours would be better )
2) against the 'date' header line, NOT a 'new' DeadlineDate header line
...( If I put in a filter for DeadlineDate, I get [contains, doesn't contain, is, isn't, begins with, ends with] ) NOT [is greater than, or is less] then ... bummer

so it sounds like to get what you want, you have to
1) modify the 'date' header line ( with Header tools.. not that difficult)
2) add some other header detail line like IsDeadline: true ( with Header tools.. not that difficult)
3) make sure the message is in the root of an account ( not local folders )
4) make sure the message is unread ( for the filter to act on the message 'automatically' )
5) make a filter to filter on
...a) age in days.. is greater than... X
...b) IsDeadline .. is .. true

Now.. this *might* work BUT there are lots of points of failure.. ( message not marked unread, message in the rong folder etc.. )

Anyone elses thoughts/ideas ?

jimmy73 · Post by **jimmy73** » June 24th, 2004, 10:47 pm

@rP2: Well, I think your suggestions are a completely different story... For me the XPI does exactly that what it should: Changing the nema of the header!

But I thought deeply and really found an idea maybe worth integrating: Some folks have a wrong system time on their computers. If someone of these specialists writes you an e-mail, it gets somewhere in the inbox (if you ordered it after time & date), but not where it should be listed.

A friend of mine (his mainboard-battery is empty and he is too greedy buying a new one...) sends e-mails dated 01-01-1980. His e-mails are always at the top of my inbox (where I do not see them sometimes because I would have to scroll).

So it would be fine if one could change the date and time of an e-mail!

Just my 2 cents.

Jimmy73

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » June 25th, 2004, 6:31 am

Ohh yea Jimmy, THAT is a fine idea.. I am going to integrate it absolutely