Highlighting things in the message index?

A rather simple question:

What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of messages in
the message index, can I do that?

For example, maybe I'd like:
- one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
- another for messages I have marked with '!'
- a third for tagged messages ('*')
- a fourth for messages only to me ('+')

If I recall correctly, I experiemented with "color index ..." some
months back, and found that I couldn't make it trigger on these
message flags.

I'd like to have that feature, because while I like the flags F!*+ and
so on, they are not easy to see when browsing a huge mailbox.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.se> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

On Jul 7, 8:17*pm, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+n...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> A rather simple question:
>
> What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of messages in
> the message index, can I do that?
>
> For example, maybe I'd like:
> - one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
> - another for messages I have marked with '!'
> - a third for tagged messages ('*')
> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')
>
> If I recall correctly, I experiemented with "color index ..." some
> months back, and found that I couldn't make it trigger on these
> message flags.
>
> I'd like to have that feature, because while I like the flags F!*+ and
> so on, they are not easy to see when browsing a huge mailbox.
>
> /Jorgen
>
> --
> * // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ * * * *Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
> \X/ * * snipabacken.se> * * * * *R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

I am newbie. I am not aware of such mutt's feature. but its really
interesting to have these feature.
I will watch this thread

Thanks

On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 23:34:07 -0700 (PDT), Jagadeesh <mnjagadeesh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 7, 8:17*pm, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+n...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>> A rather simple question:
>>
>> What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of messages in
>> the message index, can I do that?
>>
>> For example, maybe I'd like:
>> - one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
>> - another for messages I have marked with '!'
>> - a third for tagged messages ('*')
>> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')
>>
>> If I recall correctly, I experiemented with "color index ..." some
>> months back, and found that I couldn't make it trigger on these
>> message flags.
>>
>> I'd like to have that feature, because while I like the flags F!*+ and
>> so on, they are not easy to see when browsing a huge mailbox.

> I am newbie. I am not aware of such mutt's feature. but its really
> interesting to have these feature.
> I will watch this thread

Yes, I'm toying with the idea of hacking it together if it doesn't
exist. Hardcoding it is probably not difficult -- but making it
configurable in a way which blends in with the rest of the
configuration, and then documenting it, is time consuming. I will not
have the time and energy to do that part.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.se> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

* Jorgen Grahn wrote :
> A rather simple question:
>
> What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of messages in
> the message index, can I do that?
>
> For example, maybe I'd like:
> - one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
> - another for messages I have marked with '!'
> - a third for tagged messages ('*')
> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')
>
> If I recall correctly, I experiemented with "color index ..." some
> months back, and found that I couldn't make it trigger on these
> message flags.
>
> I'd like to have that feature, because while I like the flags F!*+ and
> so on, they are not easy to see when browsing a huge mailbox.

Not sure what you are asking. Do you mean that you'd like to
colour messages in the index window that are from you? Or
flagged? Like this:

color index brightgreen default "~F"

Search for "PATTERNS" in 'man muttrc'

Or do you mean that for messages in your mbox that are flagged,
you'd like a different background in the pager window? Think you
could do that with a hook, although maybe not for all scenarios.

--
Troy Piggins | http://piggo.com/~troy _ /|/
|\__/ Oo,
( \\ D
Mutt 1.5.18 (with rr.compressed & vvv.nntp patches) L\-\L`\/|

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of
> messages in the message index, can I do that?

Yes.

> - one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
> - another for messages I have marked with '!'
> - a third for tagged messages ('*')

Those are simple patterns, rtfm.

> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')

That's trickier, but maybe you can find a combination of the simple
patterns to suit you.

--
© Rado S. -- You must provide YOUR effort for your goal!
EVERY effort counts: at least to show your attitude.
You're responsible for ALL you do: you get what you give.

On 8 Jul 2008 17:04:12 GMT, Rado S <rado-news@spam-is.invalid> wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>> What if I want to, in some way, highlight various kinds of
>> messages in the message index, can I do that?
>
> Yes.
>
>> - one color/background for messages marked as (F)rom me
>> - another for messages I have marked with '!'
>> - a third for tagged messages ('*')
>
> Those are simple patterns, rtfm.

Damn, you're right! Thanks! Also thanks to Troy P.

For the record, I normally RTFM. I can remember sitting some months
back trying to get this feature to work, while consulting muttrc(5).
I must have confused mutt patterns with regexes or something ...

>> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')
>
> That's trickier, but maybe you can find a combination of the simple
> patterns to suit you.

Maybe ... although my $alternates is pretty complex.

Fortunately. ~F (important-flagged) and ~P (from me) are the ones I am
mostly interested in. '+' is more something I scan for when I have a
few new messages and try to decide which ones to read first.

(I want to colorize ~P from-me messages, because I plan to keep my
Fcc:ed messages in the same mailbox(es) as my incoming messages. Maybe
lots of people already to this, but I have traditionally had three
kinds of mailboxes: read mail, sent mail, and mailing lists. That
makes a long discussion hard to follow -- I can only see one half of
it at a time.)

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.se> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> > Those are simple patterns, rtfm.
>
> { I have rtfm'ed }
> I must have confused mutt patterns with regexes or something ...

We're always glad to help out with an "rtfm" (again) for such
cases.

> >> - a fourth for messages only to me ('+')
> >
> > That's trickier, but maybe you can find a combination of the simple
> > patterns to suit you.
>
> Maybe ... although my $alternates is pretty complex.

That wasn't my point, since ~pP works with this, but rather to check
anything _but_ alternates doesn't exist in ~C. I still see no easy
solution.

> Maybe lots of people already to this, but I have traditionally had
> three kinds of mailboxes: read mail, sent mail, and mailing lists.
> That makes a long discussion hard to follow -- I can only see one
> half of it at a time.)

Keep list read+sent in list folder, only personal in global read and
sent.

--
© Rado S. -- You must provide YOUR effort for your goal!
EVERY effort counts: at least to show your attitude.
You're responsible for ALL you do: you get what you give.

On 9 Jul 2008 17:46:23 GMT, Rado S <rado-news@spam-is.invalid> wrote:
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:

This part by me was snipped, but is needed to understand what I am
talking about:

[...] I plan to keep my Fcc:ed messages in the same mailbox(es) as
my incoming messages. Maybe lots of people [...]

>> Maybe lots of people already to this, but I have traditionally had
>> three kinds of mailboxes: read mail, sent mail, and mailing lists.
>> That makes a long discussion hard to follow -- I can only see one
>> half of it at a time.)
>
> Keep list read+sent in list folder, only personal in global read and
> sent.

I want to combine global read and sent, too -- so I can see a whole
conversation with a friend on some topic, not my side *or* his side of
it[0].

If anyone has pointers on how to do this, I'd appreciate a working
example or two[1].

For mailing lists, I am thinking of using folder-hook: "when I am in
the =foo-list folder, save Fcc: copies to =foo-list." I am already
used to moving to ! before sending a new non-list mail, because I use
folder hooks to set the From: header appropriately.

For the non-list stuff, I'll simply combine my =sent and =read into
=read_and_sent (or something), and use that for $mbox and $record.

regards,
/Jorgen

[0] Although now that I try it out, I see my brother's MUA breaks all
threads -- it mangles the Subject: line and keeps no References:
or In-reply-to: headers. Damn.

[1] No, I haven't really RTFM yet, but I am always cautious with Mutt
configuration because if I mess up badly enough I can lose mail,
or annoy people I correspond with. And it's hard to test properly.

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.se> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

On 2008-07-09, Rado S <rado-news@spam-is.invalid> wrote:

>> Maybe lots of people already to this, but I have traditionally
>> had three kinds of mailboxes: read mail, sent mail, and
>> mailing lists. That makes a long discussion hard to follow --
>> I can only see one half of it at a time.)

I too think it's silly to split up threads and keep sent and
received e-mails in separate folders.

I keep all e-mails in a thread together (both sent and received
e-mails) in the same folder. I submitted a patch many years
ago that implemented a couple of path shorcuts that made it
simple to do that.

One was a shortcut that meant "the current folder". IIRC, that
shortcut was ".". When fcc was was set to ".", sent mail would
be saved in the current folder.

The second was a shortcut that meant "the folder containing the
message to which the sent message is replying". If fcc was set
to that shortcut (don't remember what the shortcut was) then
when you replied to message X, the reply would be fcc'ed to the
folder containing message X (even if that wasn't the current
folder). For example if you read a message in your inbox,
saved it to a folder, then replied to it, you could have the
reply automatically saved in the same folder where you had just
saved the received e-mail.

Those patches were repeatedly rejected (no reasons were ever
given -- I presume it was simply because the maintainers choose
to organize their e-mails differently that I do and therefore
didn't find the patches useful).

I eventually gave up maintaining them.

> Keep list read+sent in list folder, only personal in global
> read and sent.

The question is how to accomplish those tasks.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! ... My pants just went
at on a wild rampage through a
visi.com Long Island Bowling Alley!!

Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> If anyone has pointers on how to do this, I'd appreciate a working
> example or two[1].
>
> For mailing lists, I am thinking of using folder-hook: "when I am in
> the =foo-list folder, save Fcc: copies to =foo-list." I am already
> used to moving to ! before sending a new non-list mail, because I use
> folder hooks to set the From: header appropriately.

fcc-hook

If you keep working with folder-hook, "current folder" shortcut
might come in handy.

> [1] No, I haven't really RTFM yet, but I am always cautious with
> Mutt configuration because if I mess up badly enough I can lose
> mail, or annoy people I correspond with. And it's hard to test
> properly.

Why not create a test-env with a separate muttrc (mutt -f file)?

--
© Rado S. -- You must provide YOUR effort for your goal!
EVERY effort counts: at least to show your attitude.
You're responsible for ALL you do: you get what you give.