How do I clear the flag from newsgroups that have been flagged inthe folder list pane?

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

Hello

While experimenting with a rule in Entourage 2004 to single out older (more
than 31 days) news articles in the messages pane, so these messages could be
made to no longer appear locally, I hit upon the idea, that it would be nice
to be able to see when there were old messages in a news group by also
setting the Flag.

I started by defining a category, "Old news articles" and giving it a
colour.

The Rule was:

All news groups. Execute If All criteria are met

Date Sent: Is greater than - 31 - days

Then

Set category: "Old news articles"
Set status: Flagged

I unchecked the box: Do not apply other rules, and checked the box: Enabled.

I made another rule (inspired by reading entourage.mvp.org)

All newsgroups. Execute If All criteria are met

All messages

Then

Do not show articles

And unchecked the box: Enabled.

This worked well, the one time I applied the the rule. A flag even appeared
out in the news group folder list. Nice!

The old news articles could be singled out by the first rule and the second
rule subsequently applied by selecting all messages in this category and
then running the second rule, and the articles were all gone.

But the Flag out in the folder list did not go away.

How do I get rid of those (damned!) flags?

BTW. I think a better solution would be to apply the second rule with the
criteria

If Category is "Old news articles"

Then

Do not show articles

And checking the box: Enabled.

And maybe reverse the order? So that Do not show articles when the category
is "Old news articles" is first applied the next time the rules are
executed. Would that be the next time Entourage is started? Or the next time
articles are downloaded from the news server?

But those flags...

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

Hello

While experimenting with a rule in Entourage 2004 to single out older (more
than 31 days) news articles in the messages pane, so these messages could be
made to no longer appear locally, I hit upon the idea, that it would be nice
to be able to see when there were old messages in a news group by also
setting the Flag.

I started by defining a category, "Old news articles" and giving it a
colour.

The Rule was:

All news groups. Execute If All criteria are met

Date Sent: Is greater than - 31 - days

Then

Set category: "Old news articles"
Set status: Flagged

I unchecked the box: Do not apply other rules, and checked the box: Enabled.

I made another rule (inspired by reading entourage.mvp.org)

All newsgroups. Execute If All criteria are met

All messages

Then

Do not show articles

And unchecked the box: Enabled.

This worked well, the one time I applied the the rule. A flag even appeared
out in the news group folder list. Nice!

The old news articles could be singled out by the first rule and the second
rule subsequently applied by selecting all messages in this category and
then running the second rule, and the articles were all gone.

But the Flag out in the folder list did not go away.

How do I get rid of those (damned!) flags?

BTW. I think a better solution would be to apply the second rule with the
criteria

If Category is "Old news articles"

Then

Do not show articles

And checking the box: Enabled.

And maybe reverse the order? So that Do not show articles when the category
is "Old news articles" is first applied the next time the rules are
executed. Would that be the next time Entourage is started? Or the next time
articles are downloaded from the news server?

But those flags...

The flags on the folder are 'inherited' from the flagged items inside the
folder. As long as any item in the folder is flagged then the folder itself
will also be flagged (usually in outline) to show it contains flagged items
- otherwise, you would have to open every folder and examine every item in
the database to see if there were any flagged items.

 

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

Thank you for your help. My answer is below.

The flags on the folder are 'inherited' from the flagged items inside the
folder. As long as any item in the folder is flagged then the folder itself
will also be flagged (usually in outline) to show it contains flagged items
- otherwise, you would have to open every folder and examine every item in
the database to see if there were any flagged items.

But these flagged messages are also the ones that have been marked as "Do
not show articles" and therefore they do not show up in the message pane.

How do I get to them so I can remove the flag?

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

But these flagged messages are also the ones that have been marked as "Do
not show articles" and therefore they do not show up in the message pane.

How do I get to them so I can remove the flag?

I think you're going to start over: first disable those rules, or just the
ones you don't want to apply automatically. Then Empty Cache on the entire
news server (!) by control-clicking the news server icon in the Folder List
and choose Empty Cache. Then for each news group to which you subscribe,
click on it to re-download headers, and keep clicking the More button until
it goes back as far as you need. Select messages and chose Mark as read (or
even Lark All as Read) if you don't want to download most actual messages
again, or select messages individually - or in batches and click
Message/Receive Entire Message - to re-download the messages again. Now
you've started over without those rules or flags.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

On 4/13/06 7:36 AM, in article C0642EA2.7A48%[email protected], "Axel


I think you're going to start over: first disable those rules, or just the
ones you don't want to apply automatically. Then Empty Cache on the entire
news server (!) by control-clicking the news server icon in the Folder List
and choose Empty Cache.

Thanks! That did it; emptying the cache removed the flags in the Folder
panel.

There seemed to be a lot more emptying of caches going on than the current
number of subscribed news groups - 5 groups in my case. I have been
subscribed to more news groups earlier. Would messages from all these no
longer subscribed to news groups still have been in the cache?

Then for each news group to which you subscribe, click on it to re-download
headers, and keep clicking the More button until it goes back as far as you
need.

Clever! So that's what "More" does. I've clicked it before but somehow
didn't see or understand what it did.

Select messages and chose Mark as read (or even Lark All as Read) if you don't
want to download most actual messages again, or select messages individually
- or in batches and click Message/Receive Entire Message - to re-download the
messages again. Now you've started over without those rules or flags.

Are Rules, that are marked as enabled only applied to new messages
automatically by Entourage when these headers are being downloaded from the
server?

I've changed my two News rules. The first one marks messages as belonging to
a category (Older than 31 days) if the sent date is greater than 31 days.
The second rule checks to see if a message belongs to the "Older than 31
days" category and they are then acted upon/set to "Do not show article"
accordingly. Both rules are set to enabled and in the first rule (it's above
the second rule in the Rules pane) the "Do not apply other rules..." is
cleared.

Both these rules would never be applied to news messages visible in the
message pane unless run manually? The first rule may during the download,
but lead to no action? Thereby wasting resources?

If I want to "remove" old messages, older than 31 days and already
downloaded, from the message pane, I can apply All Rules in the Message menu
from the massage pane manually.

These messages will still be in the cache. For how long? Until the cache is
cleared?

If I (still have both rules enabled and) click the "More" button while in a
large news group, like m.p.m.o.e, at some stage the sent dates of the "new"
message headers being downloaded will exceed 31 days. These messages will
then not appear in the message pane, but their headers will still have been
downloaded and end up in the cache?

This would not be the case if both rules are disabled?

If both rules are disabled, do I have to apply them both? Or will All Rules
in the Message menu applied from the Message pane, still activate both
rules?

Whew!

 

[Diane Ross]

I've changed my two News rules. The first one marks messages as belonging to
a category (Older than 31 days) if the sent date is greater than 31 days.
The second rule checks to see if a message belongs to the "Older than 31
days" category and they are then acted upon/set to "Do not show article"
accordingly. Both rules are set to enabled and in the first rule (it's above
the second rule in the Rules pane) the "Do not apply other rules..." is
cleared.

Instead of a Rule you might want to consider using a Custom Arrangement to
view your mail. More on Custom Arrangements here:

If I want to "remove" old messages, older than 31 days and already
downloaded, from the message pane, I can apply All Rules in the Message menu
from the massage pane manually.

You can't delete individual newsgroup posts like you can mail messages. This
is because the server will keep these messages, even if they are no longer
visible on your computer.

 

[Axel Hammerschmidt]

Instead of a Rule you might want to consider using a Custom Arrangement to
view your mail. More on Custom Arrangements here:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq_topic/custom_arrangements.html>

Thank you for your suggestion. Arrangements apparently work on News as well
as Mail.

But. Arrangements sorts by Thread-Index (only the one previous message-id,
and this Header field should have been called something else!) and not by
References (with all the message-ids). So you end up with, sometimes, a lot
of arrangements within the same thread (which is the correct name for a
number of news group posts, sorted by the Reference header).

The ones you want can then be further singled out by using the filter
options in the "area above the list" on the Subject- To- or From field.

But it still involves a lot of clicking around.

And I'm amazed by how counter-intuitive the way the Rules in Entourage 2004
work!

Take as an example, my rule for sorting out old messages and assigning these
to a category:

: All news groups. Execute If All criteria are met
:
: Date Sent: Is greater than - 31 - days
:
: Then
:
: Set category: "Old news articles"

If a news group message older than 31 days in any message pane is marked by
the highlight bar, only this message is assigned the category in that news
group. And if any message not older than 31 days is marked in any news
group, nothing happens in that news group at all.

The rule only works if no message is marked by the highlight bar in all the
news group message panes.

And to do that in a message pane, where messages have been read, and the
highlight bar therefore will be active, you have to change the View to
something else, like Unread- or Flagged only and then change it back, in
each and every newsgroup!

Click, click, click...

You can't delete individual newsgroup posts like you can mail messages. This
is because the server will keep these messages, even if they are no longer
visible on your computer.

I just want to delete the old messages from off my HDD, by just purging
these older ones. Apparently it's all or nothing.

How long do these messages stay locally?

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Thank you for your suggestion. Arrangements apparently work on News as well
as Mail.

But. Arrangements sorts by Thread-Index (only the one previous message-id,
and this Header field should have been called something else!) and not by
References (with all the message-ids). So you end up with, sometimes, a lot
of arrangements within the same thread (which is the correct name for a
number of news group posts, sorted by the Reference header).

The ones you want can then be further singled out by using the filter
options in the "area above the list" on the Subject- To- or From field.

But it still involves a lot of clicking around.

Indeed, threading by reference is not a feature included in Entourage. I
use threading by subject, but that doesn't show multiple levels of
indentation in the message list or preserve threads with subject changes.

However, you can send this as a feature request to Microsoft. In Entourage
X or 2004, go to Help > Send Feedback on Entourage. Otherwise, click on
this direct link to enter Mac Product Feedback:

And I'm amazed by how counter-intuitive the way the Rules in Entourage 2004
work!

Take as an example, my rule for sorting out old messages and assigning these
to a category:

: All news groups. Execute If All criteria are met
:
: Date Sent: Is greater than - 31 - days
:
: Then
:
: Set category: "Old news articles"

If a news group message older than 31 days in any message pane is marked by
the highlight bar, only this message is assigned the category in that news
group. And if any message not older than 31 days is marked in any news
group, nothing happens in that news group at all.

The rule only works if no message is marked by the highlight bar in all the
news group message panes.

And to do that in a message pane, where messages have been read, and the
highlight bar therefore will be active, you have to change the View to
something else, like Unread- or Flagged only and then change it back, in
each and every newsgroup!

What about selecting all messages, and then going to Message > Apply Rule >
All Rules? The problem is that rules only run when messages are downloaded,
so if messages reach an age of over a month after they've been downloaded,
the rule will not run.

Click, click, click...


I just want to delete the old messages from off my HDD, by just purging
these older ones. Apparently it's all or nothing.

How long do these messages stay locally?

Until either you empty the cache, rebuild the database (which empties the
cache), or they are removed from the server after you connect to get new
messages.