add labels to articles for nnimap groups

add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Uwe Brauer]

Hello 

is there a way to add labels to articles in (nnimap) groups. Mozilla
for example allows to add labels to messages on a imap server.

thanks

Uwe Brauer

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[tbennett]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

> is there a way to add labels to articles in (nnimap) groups. Mozilla
> for example allows to add labels to messages on a imap server.

Are labels stored on the server?  If I set a label using
thunderbird it is not visible when viewed from thunderbird
running on another system.

-- 
--tony

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Uwe Brauer]

>>>>> "tbennett" == tbennett  <tbennett@nvidia.com> writes:

    tbennett> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
    >> is there a way to add labels to articles in (nnimap) groups. Mozilla
    >> for example allows to add labels to messages on a imap server.

    tbennett> Are labels stored on the server?  If I set a label using
    tbennett> thunderbird it is not visible when viewed from thunderbird
    tbennett> running on another system.

Right, I think it is not. I have similar experience with mozilla. So
the question remains, could gnus have also this kind of feature.


Uwe 

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Simon Josefsson]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

>>>>>> "tbennett" == tbennett  <tbennett@nvidia.com> writes:
>
>     tbennett> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>     >> is there a way to add labels to articles in (nnimap) groups. Mozilla
>     >> for example allows to add labels to messages on a imap server.
>
>     tbennett> Are labels stored on the server?  If I set a label using
>     tbennett> thunderbird it is not visible when viewed from thunderbird
>     tbennett> running on another system.
>
> Right, I think it is not. I have similar experience with mozilla. So
> the question remains, could gnus have also this kind of feature.

What kind of labels are we talking about?  Do you mean user-defined
message flags?  Or message/mailbox annotations?  A tcpdump log from
when you use this feature in Mozilla/Thunderbird might be useful.

User-defined message flags are possible today, if you know how Gnus
works internally, i.e., there is no user interface for it.  Perhaps it
would help if people could brainstorm on what the user experience
should be.

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Uwe Brauer]

>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

    Simon> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
    >>>>>>> "tbennett" == tbennett  <tbennett@nvidia.com> writes:
    >> 
    >> Right, I think it is not. I have similar experience with mozilla. So
    >> the question remains, could gnus have also this kind of feature.

    Simon> What kind of labels are we talking about?  Do you mean user-defined
    Simon> message flags?  Or message/mailbox annotations?  A tcpdump log from
    Simon> when you use this feature in Mozilla/Thunderbird might be useful.

What is the difference? For example in VM, I can add customized labels
like, need reply, wait for answer and stuff. I thought about the same
thing for gnus. I don't care whether this is done locally on my
machine or on the imap server. I presume the former is easier.

    Simon> User-defined message flags are possible today, if you know how Gnus
    Simon> works internally, i.e., there is no user interface for it.  Perhaps it
    Simon> would help if people could brainstorm on what the user experience
    Simon> should be.

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[tbennett]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

> What is the difference? For example in VM, I can add customized
> labels like, need reply, wait for answer and stuff. I thought
> about the same thing for gnus. I don't care whether this is
> done locally on my machine or on the imap server. I presume the
> former is easier.

I regularly read my IMAP email on at least 4 different systems
(thunderbird and GNUS), so labels that are not maintained on the
server don't seem very useful to me.

-- 
--tony

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Simon Josefsson]

Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

>>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>
>     Simon> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>     >>>>>>> "tbennett" == tbennett  <tbennett@nvidia.com> writes:
>     >> 
>     >> Right, I think it is not. I have similar experience with mozilla. So
>     >> the question remains, could gnus have also this kind of feature.
>
>     Simon> What kind of labels are we talking about?  Do you mean user-defined
>     Simon> message flags?  Or message/mailbox annotations?  A tcpdump log from
>     Simon> when you use this feature in Mozilla/Thunderbird might be useful.
>
> What is the difference?

How it is implemented on the IMAP server.

User-defined flags work with most servers, and it shouldn't be too
difficult to implement a useful user interface in Gnus for it.  But
they are rather limited, only a short string (atom) per message.

Annotations can be longer, but I'm not sure they are widely
implemented.

A tcpdump on an IMAP stream would be useful, to understand what
technique you are referring to.

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Reiner Steib]

On Fri, Mar 18 2005, Simon Josefsson wrote:

> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
>>>>>> "Simon" == Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
[...]
>>     Simon> What kind of labels are we talking about?  Do you mean
>>     Simon> user-defined message flags?  Or message/mailbox
>>     Simon> annotations?  A tcpdump log from when you use this
>>     Simon> feature in Mozilla/Thunderbird might be useful.
>>
>> What is the difference?
>
> How it is implemented on the IMAP server.
>
> User-defined flags work with most servers, and it shouldn't be too
> difficult to implement a useful user interface in Gnus for it.  But
> they are rather limited, only a short string (atom) per message.
>
> Annotations can be longer, but I'm not sure they are widely
> implemented.
>
> A tcpdump on an IMAP stream would be useful, to understand what
> technique you are referring to.

I think what Mozilla/Thunderbird has would correspond to user defined
flags in Gnus.  They provide a limited number (6) of labels, see
<URL:http://www.mozilla.org/mailnews/specs/labels/> and
<URL:https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114656>.

I think it would be very nice to have this in Gnus (no matter whether
the "labels" can be stored on the IMAP server or not; if so, even
better!).  It would also be nice for other (mail) back ends.  Such a
feature has been requested several times in the past.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, tbennett@nvidia.com wrote:

> Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:
> 
>> What is the difference? For example in VM, I can add customized
>> labels like, need reply, wait for answer and stuff. I thought
>> about the same thing for gnus. I don't care whether this is
>> done locally on my machine or on the imap server. I presume the
>> former is easier.
> 
> I regularly read my IMAP email on at least 4 different systems
> (thunderbird and GNUS), so labels that are not maintained on the
> server don't seem very useful to me.

Labels that only work in IMAP don't seem very useful to me - I use
Gnus with many backends and wouldn't want to lose labels because the
message was moved to archival storage.

Ted

Re: add labels to articles for nnimap groups

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005, jas@extundo.com wrote:

> User-defined flags work with most servers, and it shouldn't be too
> difficult to implement a useful user interface in Gnus for it.  But
> they are rather limited, only a short string (atom) per message.

I think these flags are what most Gnus users would want.  Annotations
are nice but in my experience very few users care for them.

I think that each backend should either provide its own flag storage
system or defer to use the gnus-registry, which can track flags as
extra data associated with the message-ID.  That way we can implement
the user flags gradually, starting in IMAP, while presenting a
consistent flag storage system to the users.

Ted