Saved Search Folder (aka Virtual Folders) Testing Thread

[Ommarok]

This is a question for the developpers:

I'd like to understand how these "virtual folders" work. Does thunderbird perform the search each time that you click on the folder? if that is the case then this feature would lose some of its appeal, as it would be pretty slow to use with large email accounts. Ideally, once the virtual folder is created, thunderbird should "silently" update the search folder everytime that a new email arrives or that mail is moved between folders, deleted, etc. Is this the way it works?

[Ommarok]

Another question!

Are these called "virtual folders" or "saved searches"? Saved searches might be more clear, but "virtual folders" definitelly sounds much fancier and cooler. Also other programs seem to use that same naming convention.

[ScannerDesk]

I have noticed a couple of things with the virtual folders and I am wondering if I am the only person that is experiencing it:

1- The messages will not sort by date from newest to oldest. You have to re-select the order each time you view the virtual folder.

2- You can not select the folder and mark the folder as read. It doesn't change the read status.

Dave..

[cityfan]

Starting with today's 10/18 builds, you can now help test one of our new 0.9 features, saved search folders (aka virtual folders). A saved search folder looks like a regular mail folder but when you click on it, it runs a pre-determined search on arbitrary search criteria and arbitrary mail folders and shows you the results, creating the effect of a 'virtua' folder.

-Scott

Scott - what are the scenarios that you envisage this new feature being used for?

Currently, I have 20-30 folders which I use filters on my incoming mail to route the message to the appropriate folder.
The big difference I see is that with virtual folders (aka saved searches), those messages would remain in the inbox and simply 'pointed to' in the virtual folder.

Can you help clarify this?

1 minor bug I notice, is that the status line at the bottom indicates the "number of matches found". When you click away to another folder e.g. the inbox, that status bar message is not cleared.

[mscott]

Another question!

Are these called "virtual folders" or "saved searches"? Saved searches might be more clear, but "virtual folders" definitelly sounds much fancier and cooler. Also other programs seem to use that same naming convention.

in the code they are called virtual folders since that is what they are. But that's too geeky

To the end user, the text UI uses "Saved Search Folders" everywhere.

[mscott]

Scott - what are the scenarios that you envisage this new feature being used for?

Currently, I have 20-30 folders which I use filters on my incoming mail to route the message to the appropriate folder.
The big difference I see is that with virtual folders (aka saved searches), those messages would remain in the inbox and simply 'pointed to' in the virtual folder.

Can you help clarify this?

1 minor bug I notice, is that the status line at the bottom indicates the "number of matches found". When you click away to another folder e.g. the inbox, that status bar message is not cleared.

I like to use it to make it easier to find messages I look for frequently. For instance, if I were a manager and every week everyone sent me a weekly status report, I'd create a virtual folder called Status Reports. Clicking on it would show me the status report e-mails from everyone who sent it to me over the last week. Saving this dynamic search as a folder would save me time every week when I wanted to find those status reports and put them together.

Personally, I don't know if I'll trash all of my other folders (like my bugs folder!) and replace them with saved search folders. I kind of like keeping bug mail out of my inbox so I may not get rid of that one. But some of the others I'll definetly convert to just searches on my inbox (or other folders).

I just checked in some changes for IMAP users so you can make your virtual folder do local searches instead of searching on the server. This makes the time to open a saved search folder much faster! That will lead me to use them more.

Hope that helps.

[mscott]

This is a very cool feature that I've been really looking forward to have in Thunderbird. Thanks for the good work!

Now on my testing results I've found out that if you try to use the "Grouped by sort" view (by clicking G) the contents of the search folder disappear.

you can't group virtual folders. That's a bug that we tried. Should be fixed within the next day or two.

[wintogreen]

I have noticed a couple of things with the virtual folders and I am wondering if I am the only person that is experiencing it:

1- The messages will not sort by date from newest to oldest. You have to re-select the order each time you view the virtual folder.

I think this is the same thing as #6 in my post above.

[storspett]

Great feature!
Themes need to be upgraded, it only works with the default.

[Borut]

Starting with today's 10/18 builds, you can now help test one of our new 0.9 features, saved search folders (aka virtual folders). A saved search folder looks like a regular mail folder but when you click on it, it runs a pre-determined search on arbitrary search criteria and arbitrary mail folders and shows you the results, creating the effect of a 'virtua' folder.

-Scott

Scott - what are the scenarios that you envisage this new feature being used for?

Currently, I have 20-30 folders which I use filters on my incoming mail to route the message to the appropriate folder.
The big difference I see is that with virtual folders (aka saved searches), those messages would remain in the inbox and simply 'pointed to' in the virtual folder.

Can you help clarify this?

I understand them as possibility to have "crossed" folders. You can sent mail to different folders accordint to filters, but also make "virtual folder" of all (or some) posts by another critera, i.e. sender, othervise you have to make a copies of some posts.
I think (not sure) this is similar to M2 in Opera.

Questions
If I doubleclik a message in virtual folder, TB opens empty window (same action in regular folder opens message in new window). But print preview shows message as normal.
TB 0.8 (20041019) on WinXP Pro -no extensions, standard theme.
Also noticed (twice) that creating (working with) VF opens new instances of TB, but I can't reproduce this.
Borut

[eddanx]

Scott - what are the scenarios that you envisage this new feature being used for?

Currently, I have 20-30 folders which I use filters on my incoming mail to route the message to the appropriate folder.
The big difference I see is that with virtual folders (aka saved searches), those messages would remain in the inbox and simply 'pointed to' in the virtual folder.

Can you help clarify this?

I have, like you, a lot of folders where filters decide where stuff goes. Approx. 5-10% of my mail end up in my inbox.

Now, I label my messages with the Todo, Important, Later labels and I'm hoping that with virtual folders I can have a saved search for each of these labels, searching all my folders. This way, I'm hoping to keep better track of the emails I mark e.g. TODO.

[johnstoj]

I have noticed a couple of things with the virtual folders and I am wondering if I am the only person that is experiencing it:

1- The messages will not sort by date from newest to oldest. You have to re-select the order each time you view the virtual folder.

I think this is the same thing as #6 in my post above.

I agree. To reiterate what was said before.

When trying to imitate what google does with its conversations (sort of), I created a search that consisted of two folders. The first folder is where email is stored for a specific company and the other one is the sent folder. The criteria on the first folder is where the sender contains the company's email domain and the criteria on the sent folder is where the recipient contains the company's email domain.

The search works well except that I have to sort by date to see all messages in a chronological order. I'm sure this is on already on Scott's list of things to do, but this is really a great feature.

[johnstoj]

I created a folder on my IMAP server to store all of my searches. I then created a search and saved it under my newly created subfolder. When I pressed OK, the dialog box did not disappear. I then pressed OK again and I was told that a search of this name already existed. So I pressed cancel and went to the IMAP folder to see if the search existed. It didn't. So then I deleted the IMAP folder and when it was in the trash I could see the newly created search as a subfolder. So then I clicked on the search while it was in the trash and I received a select error saying no such mailbox.

I'm not sure that a search is meant to be stored as a subfolder on an IMAP server. I'm guessing it shouldn't be allowed, only should you save the search under a local folder.

Actually, I just tried to save a search under a local folder and it failed too. Are searches allowed, or supposed to be saved, under folders?

[johnstoj]

UI bug:

During the creation process, when selecting folders, if I click the drop down for the account listing, only the last account is seen properly. I can still select one of my other accounts, I just can't see what I am selecting.

Build 10/20

<img src=http://www.jsoft.net/selfolder.jpg>

[FlashBanG]

Any chance issues with labels will be addressed along with this?

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=147534