S
somedumbguy
Hi all,
I am in the process of migrating from Eudora to Entourage, and have
hit a snag. In Eudora, your can set up rules (called 'filters' in
Eudora) to run on incoming messages, outgoing messages or manually (or
any combination thereof). You can disable them, of course. The
'manual' setting is a killer feature for me -- it allows you to set up
a batch of filters that don't run on incoming or outgoing mail, and
which can be invoked (en masse) by a keystroke. The main reason I have
become accustomed to using these is that I like to file my mail
*after* I've read it, not before. I let all of my mail hit my inbox
and then, as I deal with it, I invoke the manual filters (mapped to
cmd-j) and let them file the mail for me (based on things like the
address of the sender). Because all of the manual filters trigger at
once, I don't have to pick and choose which
My problem is that Entourage allows you to either enable or disable
messages, with no manual setting. Thus, it less than straightforward
to do the filtering the way I want to. From the looks of it, you can't
diable a rule and ivoked it manually (from Message->Apply Rule) unless
you are willing to run them one at a time. I'm not willing to
painstakingly aselect the proper rule, as that's more work than filing
the message myself. An alternative would be to enable these rules, but
set them up such that they don't work on incoming mail. This would, I
think, be the most likely method to succeed.
It seems like the strategy that is most likely to succeed would be to
key on the message status (e.g., apply only to messages that are not
unread). The main drawback here is that there are certain instances in
which I would like to filter a message without having opened it, but I
still want to be forced to look at it in my inbox before deciding what
to do... If I filter it as it comes in, it gets filed straight away,
and if I key on the 'unread' status, I have to make it unread before
it will get filtered.
Here are the two scenarios that I've come up with thus far:
1. Set each individual rule to key on message status. This seems like
it would work. But it also means that I can't bundle together a bunch
of 'From:' addresses with the same ultimate destination because it
would have to match 'unread' [*and* address1 *or* address2 *or*...].
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you can set the crioteria up in
this fashion. This means I would have to set up a separate rule for
each address. As of now, I have a single filter that files all of the
mail from people on our office support staff in 'Office People.' If I
can't put them in a single rule, I end up with an unbelievable number
of rules.
2. I've thought of preceding my filing rules with a rule that looks at
each and every message and, if they are unread, stops the filtering.
This seems like it would do the trick (sort of), but I haven't been
able to get it work (yet).
Please also note that I'm using SpamSieve, so I have that rule contend
with (it runs on all incoming mail).
Anyway, I know that I've set up a very specific scenario above, but I
was hoping that people here could share their suggestions for how to
make this work. Alternatively, do you have alternative methods of
keeping track of all of your e-mail? If so, I'd be happy to hear them.
I'm not married to the above approach, but it's the most efficient
egneral strategy that I've come up with, and efficiency is everything
for me. Thanks!!!
John
I am in the process of migrating from Eudora to Entourage, and have
hit a snag. In Eudora, your can set up rules (called 'filters' in
Eudora) to run on incoming messages, outgoing messages or manually (or
any combination thereof). You can disable them, of course. The
'manual' setting is a killer feature for me -- it allows you to set up
a batch of filters that don't run on incoming or outgoing mail, and
which can be invoked (en masse) by a keystroke. The main reason I have
become accustomed to using these is that I like to file my mail
*after* I've read it, not before. I let all of my mail hit my inbox
and then, as I deal with it, I invoke the manual filters (mapped to
cmd-j) and let them file the mail for me (based on things like the
address of the sender). Because all of the manual filters trigger at
once, I don't have to pick and choose which
My problem is that Entourage allows you to either enable or disable
messages, with no manual setting. Thus, it less than straightforward
to do the filtering the way I want to. From the looks of it, you can't
diable a rule and ivoked it manually (from Message->Apply Rule) unless
you are willing to run them one at a time. I'm not willing to
painstakingly aselect the proper rule, as that's more work than filing
the message myself. An alternative would be to enable these rules, but
set them up such that they don't work on incoming mail. This would, I
think, be the most likely method to succeed.
It seems like the strategy that is most likely to succeed would be to
key on the message status (e.g., apply only to messages that are not
unread). The main drawback here is that there are certain instances in
which I would like to filter a message without having opened it, but I
still want to be forced to look at it in my inbox before deciding what
to do... If I filter it as it comes in, it gets filed straight away,
and if I key on the 'unread' status, I have to make it unread before
it will get filtered.
Here are the two scenarios that I've come up with thus far:
1. Set each individual rule to key on message status. This seems like
it would work. But it also means that I can't bundle together a bunch
of 'From:' addresses with the same ultimate destination because it
would have to match 'unread' [*and* address1 *or* address2 *or*...].
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you can set the crioteria up in
this fashion. This means I would have to set up a separate rule for
each address. As of now, I have a single filter that files all of the
mail from people on our office support staff in 'Office People.' If I
can't put them in a single rule, I end up with an unbelievable number
of rules.
2. I've thought of preceding my filing rules with a rule that looks at
each and every message and, if they are unread, stops the filtering.
This seems like it would do the trick (sort of), but I haven't been
able to get it work (yet).
Please also note that I'm using SpamSieve, so I have that rule contend
with (it runs on all incoming mail).
Anyway, I know that I've set up a very specific scenario above, but I
was hoping that people here could share their suggestions for how to
make this work. Alternatively, do you have alternative methods of
keeping track of all of your e-mail? If so, I'd be happy to hear them.
I'm not married to the above approach, but it's the most efficient
egneral strategy that I've come up with, and efficiency is everything
for me. Thanks!!!
John
