Subject: Selections that partially miss

From: Stephen Casner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 13:48:37 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

I wonder if others are seeing this problem: when selecting messages
based on subject text and using ^X to take the subject from the
current message, only some of the messages with that subject are
selected.  The obvious answer is that the subject text is different in
some way that is not immediately apparent.  For example, just now this
occurred because there was a space on the end of the subject for some
of the messages (including the one ^X'd) and not on the others.  But I
was aware of that potential problem and in some previous instances
I've verified that there was no space on the end.  Is there some other
"invisible" difference I should look for?

Meanwhile, I would recommend to the Pine implementors that a space on
the end of the subject search string should be ignored.

And while I'm at it, two of my current selection wishes:

  - match on text in either To or Cc fields (rather than having to
    select on To and then broaden with a selection on Cc)

  - when narrowing the selection, to only look at the messages in the
    current selection, rather than searching them all again and taking
    the intersection (which is slow for big files -- please no flames
    about keeping files small)
							-- Steve

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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 02:16:25 -0600 (EST)

>From: Stephen Casner <[email-masked]>
>Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 13:48:37 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

>I wonder if others are seeing this problem: when selecting messages based on
>subject text and using ^X to take the subject from the current message, only
>some of the messages with that subject are selected.  The obvious answer is
>that the subject text is different in some way that is not immediately
>apparent.  For example, just now this occurred because there was a space on
>the end of the subject for some of the messages (including the one ^X'd) and
>not on the others.

Some mail gateways, transport agents, and clients (including pine) delete
trailing spaces.

Hm. I can't think of any reason why trailing spaces shouldn't be ignored during
select.

>But I was aware of that potential problem and in some previous instances I've
>verified that there was no space on the end.  Is there some other "invisible"
>difference I should look for?

Perhaps "Re: " at the beginning or that Microsloth convention at the end
" - Reply"? Not ignoring the first is really lousy searching technique.

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From: Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 10:16:30 -0800 (PST)

We're intentionally leaving the trailing space so that you can match
_word_. We'd like to not introduce any quoting mechanism like " word ",
since that'll just confuse people and it hasn't been like that before. A
possible change that might make sense (to us) is to strip the trailing
space when you type the ^X command to get the subject from the current
message, but we lean towards leaving that the way it is now, too.

-- 
Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Networks and Distributed Computing, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

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From: Stephen Casner <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 10:59:45 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, Steve Hubert wrote:

> A possible change that might make sense (to us) is to strip the trailing

I favor this change -- it would solve this particular problem for me.

As I mentioned in my message, I think there are also some other cases
where the subject match partiallly misses and no trailing space was
involved (I believe).  I guess nobody else has experienced this.  I'll
try to investigate more thoroughly next time it happens.

							-- Steve

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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 17:19:17 -0600 (EST)

>From: Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
>Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 10:16:30 -0800 (PST)

>message, but we lean towards leaving that the way it is now, too.

You have convinced me that matching trailing space is useful. But a more
powerful searching method would be nice that would let us use metacharacters.

Steve, how about introducing a method of ignoring leading "Re: " and variants?

How about putting ^X on the submenu under ";" or at least "text"? It would save
quite a few keystrokes.

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From: Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 14:48:12 -0800 (PST)

On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> <deleted>

We're sort of stuck with the semantics of Search that exists in the IMAP
protocol. In IMAP search for text strings is always a simple search for a
substring match. No metacharacters.

> Steve, how about introducing a method of ignoring leading "Re: " and variants?

There is already a method but I guess it isn't what you want. You edit the
search string and remove the Re: and variants, then the search will ignore
them (since it is a substring match, not an exact match).

> How about putting ^X on the submenu under ";" or at least "text"? It would save

You mean a shortcut to get to the current subject with a subject search
command? Everybody probably has their favorite searching style and they'd
want theirs on the menu. (how about a shortcut for everything arriving
since the current msg, or for everything from the author of the current
msg, ...)

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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 18:19:13 -0600 (EST)

>Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 14:48:12 -0800 (PST)

>substring match. No metacharacters.

Ah, that's interesting. I guess that also explains why searching isn't
available for text strings in other messages in the same folder while paging
through a message, only from the index screen.

>>how about introducing a method of ignoring leading "Re: " and variants?

>them (since it is a substring match, not an exact match).

Heh; that's what I do now. I was hoping for a better way.

>>How about putting ^X on the submenu under ";" or at least "text"? It would
>>save quite a few keystrokes.

>since the current msg, or for everything from the author of the current

Now your talking! But since the keystrokes for Current From, Current To, and
Current Subject don't duplicate other keys, it would be nice to be able to use
them sooner.

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From: Lisa Stumph <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 04:47:45 -0500 (EST)

Hello. I'm new to the list. I've got a question about pine from the user
end that someone might be able to help me with:
Is it possible to edit the flags in the message index of the inbox folder?
That would consist of erasing or adding "A" (answered) flags at this
point, but how come that's the only flag avvailable? I'd like to be able
to mark certain incoming messages with a flag so I remember to answer them
later, or to ensure that they don't get erased, etc. Any ideas?
Thanks.

Lisa Stumph
[email-masked]

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From: Lisa Stumph <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 05:03:34 -0500 (EST)

Ok. I answered my own question. Thanks for listening though.

Lisa.

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From: Lisa Stumph <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 06:17:31 -0500 (EST)

How can I edit messages saved in my sent-mail folder without moving them
and without changing their status?

Lisa Stumph.