Request a new feature in Thunderbird - Message Redirect

mrichmond · Post by **mrichmond** » August 3rd, 2004, 1:30 pm

How do I request a new feature in Thunderbird?

I would like the ability to do a message "redirect"

This is a feature common in a lot of email programs such as Eudora. How it works is :

I receive an email message that should have gone to my colleague.
I choose "Redirect".
A new message is created, but with all original headers intact.
I enter the address it should have been sent to and hit send
My colleague receives the email and it looks to them as if it was sent to them originally.
If my colleague hits "reply" it goes to the original sender - NOT to me

In many email clients the FROM header gets modified to say "originalrecipient@domain.com (By Way Of myemail@domain.com)" so that the "colleague" in the above example knows that it came through me. Also that way they know that it may have been modifed by me before I did the redirect.

How do I go about requesting that this feature gets added to Thunderbird? It is the one major feature of an email program that is missing.

R A F · Post by **R A F** » August 3rd, 2004, 2:32 pm

Does 'Message | Edit as new' from the menu solve your problem?

mrichmond · Post by **mrichmond** » August 3rd, 2004, 2:54 pm

No. I just tested the Message -> Edit As New to be sure I was accurate.

Message -> Edit As New still puts my address as the FROM address.

The whole point of redirecting a message is that the message appears that it came from the original sender directly to the new recipient.

When I tried Message -> Edit As New and sent it to another email account I have I could not even tell who the original message was from. When I hit reply it went back to my account - not to the original sender.

I tried it on a mesage that specifically had a reply to header as well. In that message it copied accross the reply to header, but still showed the message as coming from me and not from the original recipient.

Basically a "Redirect" feature should make the email message look like it was sent to the final recipient from the original recipient.

It is done by using the original email message headers

hansen · Post by **hansen** » August 3rd, 2004, 4:07 pm

most smtp servers does not allow this, since this is what spammers do

i know i'm blocking this on our servers

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 3rd, 2004, 7:32 pm

Hansen,
I'm curious so please enlighten me

If mrichmond's collegue had the same domain as mrichmond, wouldn't the mail get sent successfully ?
I do realize that if the redirect was to a completely unrelated domain, that should be blocked.

BTW, I have created a *working* extension that provides automatic redirect functionality in TB but have serious reservations about releasing it.
it also can automatically reply ( out-of-office )
and play different sounds depending on the message content
all done with filters but , as I said, it is a dangerous extension because of its spamming potential

tam · Post by **tam** » August 4th, 2004, 2:30 am

ausdilecce wrote:BTW, I have created a *working* extension that provides automatic redirect functionality in TB but have serious reservations about releasing it.

I have to redirect several mails per day, because we use a catchup-all (*@domain.com) account. If you extension allows also redirect "by hand", PLEASE give it to me. Thanks in advance.

hansen · Post by **hansen** » August 4th, 2004, 2:33 am

ausdilecce: depends on how hard you set the limit - i'm not tolerating sending as other domains

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 4th, 2004, 4:49 am

tam, you can do redirect 'by hand' now.. Forward works for 'several' .. it starts to get annoying at about 30 messages per day..

Aww screw it, the code is there for all to see anyway.. If I managed to do it, anyone could, right.

Ok then, I will clean up all of the debugging code, optimise a bit and release 0.0.1 within the week.

Lookout world :wink:

tam · Post by **tam** » August 4th, 2004, 5:01 am

ausdilecce wrote:Ok then, I will clean up all of the debugging code, optimise a bit and release 0.0.1 within the week.

Cool, thanks ausdilecce

jpgareri · Post by **jpgareri** » August 4th, 2004, 6:42 am

tam wrote:
ausdilecce wrote:Ok then, I will clean up all of the debugging code, optimise a bit and release 0.0.1 within the week.

Cool, thanks ausdilecce

Yes, thanks. That will be a great help. I receive mail into a "general office" account, and like to automatically re-direct to specific users.

R A F · Post by **R A F** » August 4th, 2004, 12:59 pm

ausdilecce wrote:Aww screw it, the code is there for all to see anyway..

Lookout world

That's the spirit!

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 4th, 2004, 5:38 pm

OK, I will release this extension in 0.0.1 form.

Some things you guys should know
1) the 'new filters' are global across all accounts ( except for news )
2) there is NO UI for setting up filters.. filters are specified in a file whose location is specified in the prefs panel
3) I hve tried to mimic the format of TBs real filters file so the filters is somewhat easy to understand
4) once the extension is installed, you MUST immediately go into the extension's prefs and set the extension up ( with filters file and default id )
5) I will include (in the XPI ) a filters file that you guys can use as a template, just deposit that on your HD somewhere and have the extension's prefs point to it
6) the user can modify the filters file AT ANY TIME because the extension re-reads the file upon receiving incoming mail.
7) the filters themselves ARE VERY BASIC as it is difficult to filter on things like BODY and random headers
. filters that ARE functional follow..
..headerItems (case sensitive)
...subject
...recipients
...ccList
...sender
...priority
..operands (case sensitive)
...is
...isn't
...contains
...doesn't contain
...begins with
...ends with
..Actions (case sensitive)
...Play Sound
...Copy to Folder
...AutoReply
...AutoForward

actionValues are obviously action specific
for Play sound.. the action value must be the path to and filename of the sound to play (in quotes)
...ex "file:///C:/Docs/random3.wav"
for Copy to Folder: the action value must be a valid path to a TB folder (in quotes)
...ex: "mailbox://nobody@Local%20Folders/Inbox/old2"
for AutoReply: the action value must be the text that you want in the body (in quotes)
...ex: <code> "I am sorry, I cannot respond to your message as I am away from my desk for 3 weeks< BR >< BR >Regards,< BR >Your Name"</code>
( I have not tried more advanced html but if you are feeling lucky, go right ahead. )
for AutoForward: the action value is a bit advanced.. its the address to send to, then the text you want, separated by %%
...ex "freak@somedomain.com%%Forwarded on to you by Fred Flintstone"

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 4th, 2004, 6:00 pm

get the xpi here --> www.supportware.net/mozilla/NewFilters.xpi

BTW, to edit the filters file rather easily,
use the extension's prefs panel to browse to the filter's file, while you are in the browse dialog, you can right click on the file in question to open it for editing..

This *is* version 0.0.1 so any blasting, flaming comments will be ignored.

Sane, helpful suggestions/bug reports should be posted here or sent to nf_comments, at, supportware, dot, net

Old Ausdilecce · Post by **Old Ausdilecce** » August 4th, 2004, 6:08 pm

OOps,

I *just* realized that the autoForward feature of my extension is NOT true redirect.. am I mistaken in assuming that in order to come really close to it (since many domains prohibit sending *as* someone else ) is to set the reply-to of the forward to the original sender's address (or ,obviously if the message has one, the original sender's replyto address) ?

Rizban · Post by **Rizban** » August 4th, 2004, 9:25 pm

Thanks for the release. However, as of 9:15 PM PST the above link gets a "The page cannot be found" error. Has anyone been able to download this extension?

TIA

[edit] It now seems to work :-)