GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 335326
Can't point the spam folder when creating filters
Last modified: 2012-02-27 11:11:16 UTC
Using Evolution 2.6.0 in Dapper Flight 5. I try to create a filter in order to move to the spam folder emails with SpamAssassin's tag ***SPAM*** in the subject. When selecting the folder to which to send the filtered emails I can't select the spam folder, though. I wonder why this exception, should be selectable as well. I don't want to select the Trash bin becayse I like to have a look to supposed spam before deleting it. The spam detector is not learning fast enough and I'm still getting ***SPAM*** email in my mailbox. Which seems like an Evolution's poor performance considering that SpamAssassin already has donde the dirty job of detecting the spam. Thank you.
hi quim, you cannot move it to the spam or the trash folder, because both folders are virtual folders (which means, that the messages are *marked* for spam/marked deleted, but are still in their original physical folders). in the filter dialog, instead of "move to folder: junk" use "set status: junk". thanks. :-) closing as notabug.
Hi Andre, thank you for the quickl answer. Right, I now I understand the mechanics behind this problem and your answer makes technically sense. However from a user experience point of view there is a usability problem: - When choosing the "Move to a folder" option and clicking to the "Choose a folder" button a list of folder appear, and the Span "folder" is there as well. This means Evolution is saying Spam is a folder. - As a user you need to read some documentation or receive an answer like yours in order to deduce that the right action to perform is to select "Define status" because you'll find a "Spam" option there. The metaphor you are offering in the GUI is a Spam folder and what user want to do is to "move" the spam landing to their Inbox to that "folder". There are two possible solutiiosn to this usability problem: - Probably the best is to allow the "move" to the "Spam folder" without more comments. In fact this is not what is happening but who cares? This is what the user's eyes are going to see once activated: spam messages moving to the spam folder. - If this is not possible for some reason, at least it would be good to show an error message explaining the problem and pointing to the right action. What is not a good solution is to show a Spam folder you simply can't select.
quim, you're right. cc'ing srini to get an ui opinion.
srini, can you please comment on this what would be the best for the UI from a user point of view? tia
The ideal thing that the use should do is 'Click 'Junk' tool button to move the message to Junk' folder and Same to trash. But not allowing to move to Junk/Trash could be bad. If u move to junk, it should treat as junk, same for Delete. I guess the desktop too behaves the same way. low priority for me at this moment.
Hmm, interesting... * It is not possible at all to move a mail to either Trash or Junk. When using drag-n-drop, the target folder is sensitive only, if it is not Trash [1] or Junk. When using the Move Message dialog, Trash and Junk can not be selected either. The very same (in fact, the very same dialog) stands for the "select target folder" in the Filter Editor. * Rather than trying to move the mail to Junk, one should use the correct way of "Set Status" "Junk" anyway. * Quim, you said, you don't want to directly move to Trash, because you want to have a look at the mails first. While this sure is a totally valid approach... I doubt you even tried to do this. The UI doesn't allow this either. I'm not that sure if this really should be implemented anyway. However, once the bug regarding "physical Trash and Junk" folders is fixed (err, implemented), this becomes a valid point... Setting probabledup keyword. This bascially is the same as drag-n-drop or move to Trash. Though I couldn't find that bug right now... [1] I believe "drag-n-drop to Trash" is filed somewhere...
> Quim, you said, you don't want to directly move to Trash, because you want to > have a look at the mails first. While this sure is a totally valid approach... > I doubt you even tried to do this. The UI doesn't allow this either. This is what I did in my years of Thunderbird user, since you can set filters to move emails to the Spam folder/can/<put your metaphor here>. This is what I tried to do with Evolution, and because I couldn't I filed this bug. :) Now I've got a filter that selects emails with subject "***SPAM***" and sets the status Junk. It does precisely what I wanted, but I wouldn't have found this b y myself easily, as explained above. My point about physical or non-physical folders is still "who cares?" (apart from the developers). You are using a folder metaphor and this is what users see and understand. Letting them select the Junk "icon" in the Filter dialog doesn't imply you need to refactor the status Junk thing. Keep it as it is, and activate it when a user selects the Junk icon. Everybody happy.
*** Bug 350905 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Why the Junk and Trash folders have just their text grayed out? At least that would make clear it's not a bug in the application you can't select them, but it's intended behaviour.
you can only use real folders, that's why they are greyed out. you also cannot drag and drop on those folders. patches accepted. :-)
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 622156 ***