New filter toggle "filtered" or "special" to filter for "only cc'd", support Inbox Zero, and more
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EDITED Sept. 08 2024 to summarize the request:
Summary:
Let users give any mail panel view filter (be it a flag, label, custom folder, account,...) the property "special" or "filtered" in the right-click menu. Above the message list, add a toggle that allows showing/hiding all emails that show in any filter that carries that property.
To avoid creating more and more toggles, I suggest to remove the 'custom folder' toggle: custom folders are only a subset of whatever users deem special, we might want to use labels, search filters, email accounts, ... instead. If custom folders carry the 'special'/'filtered' property by default, changing the toggle would be backwards compatible.Original request (with usecases) below:
I get a LOT of emails where I'm only cc'd (such a bad habit, it's clearly overdone). So I would like to filter emails out of my Unread where I am only cc'd.
So I set up a filter
cc:[email protected] NOT to:[email protected]So far so good. But I work in Unread to get my stuff done, and Unread still shows these emails. I could add a label or mark them as read, but I don't want either of that - I just want to hide them from (or show them in) Unread just like any other filter toggle.
The toggle system is actually much better than the rather quirky implementation of M2. But it's still similar:
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Please add a new filter toggle "filtered" (which obviously needs to act as 'filtered by another filter').
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In order to give some control over this, I suggest that you could add an entry "mark as filtered" to the right-click menu (similar to M2) which is on by default for custom filters, such that I can choose to "override" the filter toggle by unchecking this option
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in order to make this setting obvious, I suggest that the icon left of the filter name indicates whether or not the messages filtered this way are going to be marked as filtered (e.g. with the same accent color as the filter toggle button)
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for quick access to switch the "mark as filtered" setting, make that filter icon clickable
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while you are at it, please change the current filter icon (three horizontal bars of different width) to a proper funnel icon
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I got and upvote today (thanks @lesk (c:= ) and so I reread the request after a long time. Given the very nice recent work on the Mail Filter UI, I figure that we could just repurpose the custom folder toggle:
Vivaldi Mail is not a folder based email client like many others, specifically Thunderbird. Yet while we don't have a toggle for filtered, labeled, flagged or starred emails, we do have one for custom folders. But folders are account specific and, as is commonly known, evil (link in my signature)
Request:
Instead of adding more and more toggles, I suggest to reclass the 'custom folders' toggle into a 'special filter' toggle, with the default being custom IMAP folders == no change for anyone who has used the custom folder toggle so far.
Now, I'd like to add specific labels, filters, flags,... to be handled by that very same toggle. This is possible by introducing a new property "special" that can be assigned to any label, filter, flag, and custom folder in the right-click menu, with it being default selected for custom IMAP folders and default unselected for everything else.
There needs to be a visual indicator to show what has been designated as special.
Other example usecase:
Apart from making the original usecase to filter out cc only emails possible, it would also give natural support of the Inbox Zero method where folks categorize their email (which they can't just deal with right away) into buckets and at the same time remove them from view:
a) "Follow up / To Do / Do later";
b) "Waiting" (for someone's reply or some other thing that prevents me from getting this done);
c) "read later" (emails that contain info that I'm interested in but that isn't time critical. Similar to mailing lists, but from individual correspondence).-> The workflow is to label all coming Unread/Received into these buckets without marking them as read, but hiding them from Unread/Received.
Currently the only way to do this is to use custom IMAP folders, but that doesn't work for multiple accounts. It'd be much nicer to do the same thing with labels - possible with this request. Well... at least if it was more convenient to label emails with some keyboard command / custom button
Took the liberty to file this as VB-104197
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@WildEnte said:
Instead of adding more and more toggles, I suggest to reclass the 'custom folders' toggle into a 'special filter' toggle
Yes, quick'n'easy keyboard labelling would be welcome and I, too, find that my view of 'live' emails is sometimes filled with too many Deferred/Awaiting/Deprioritised/Bucket4/Bucket5/etc items so a 'message type' (or pseudo-type) which toggles hiding of this whole super-set of labels could be helpful - though possibly tricky to design and implement. Does an additional "special" attribute really need to exist independently or is it enough for there to be a grouping of specific labels (including labels added by action-filters such as for cc-only) and, perhaps, specific flags?
However, I'm not convinced that representing your user-defined grouping as a sub-type of 'Custom Folders' is a sound choice as that term is so closely associated with how IMAP servers present email categorisation. Presenting this grouping as if closely linked to 'Custom Folders' strikes me as uncomfortable or even wrong. Isn't perpetuation of thinking in terms of 'folders' conceptually flawed anyway?
Inasmuch as group membership doesn't correspond with any IMAP folder (whether actual or faked by server), wouldn't this "special" message-type be closer in nature to the 'Mailing Lists' toggle found in appropriate views? I imagine it might have to appear wherever the 'Mailing List' option appears but haven't yet considered this aspect.
Either way, doesn't this whole proposal imply (or invite) the creation of a dedicated heading (with counters option) within 'Mail Panel Order and Visibility'? Although I don't feel that such a heading should be an item within the IMAP-informed 'All Messages' heading, I reckon it would be required somewhere in the Mail Panel. Given that one can't filter directly on labels (and that maintaining supposedly identical selection criteria in more than one place will lead to tears) users would - in the absence of a dedicated heading - need to separately review each individual label/whatever which they have associated with the proposed "special" message-type to decide if/when each message is no longer "special" (but perhaps things forever remain "special" even when 'Read' so they can be resurrected as 'Unread') .
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@Society said in New filter toggle "filtered" to filter for "only cc'd" and more:
However, I'm not convinced that representing your user-defined grouping as a sub-type of 'Custom Folders' is a sound choice as that term is so closely associated with how IMAP servers present email categorisation. Presenting this grouping as if closely linked to 'Custom Folders' strikes me as uncomfortable or even wrong. Isn't perpetuation of thinking in terms of 'folders' conceptually flawed anyway?
I'm thinking the other way around, the 'special' toggle shouldn't be a sub-type of the custom folder. I don't want to add more toggles, so the suggestion is to replace the custom folder toggle with something more general:
Custom folders are used by folder-liking-people to put things there that have some special characteristics to them. You could just as well apply a label, a flag, or use a search filter. So the existing custom folder toggle is only one of many ways to have a bucket for, well, custom stuff. Generalize that.
@Society said in New filter toggle "filtered" to filter for "only cc'd" and more:
doesn't this whole proposal imply (or invite) the creation of a dedicated heading (with counters option) within 'Mail Panel Order and Visibility'
Yes, but it's a different request that just fits well. It's logged as VB-103349 and described here -> https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/92066/mail-panel-favorites-category-ability-to-reorder-and-hide-items-within-a-category
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@WildEnte said :
the suggestion is to replace the custom folder toggle with something more general
Just as an aside, I was originally thinking that, except for 'Mailing Lists', the 'All Messages' filters are related to (actual or faked) server folders but I've since realised that 'Feeds' (which I exclude from Mail Panel and handle separately) is another exception though I don't know what requirements some users may have regarding Feeds which could be related to this topic.
Anyway, although I don't now use any of my own creation, I recognise that custom folder hierarchies are used very widely but reckon that a UI with that server-informed (pseudo-)structure mixed right in with conceptually different M3 mechanisms could well create significant confusion for those expecting a 1:1 match between the appearance in M3 client and in a webmail interface. That's mainly why I tended to favour leaving the Custom Folders message-type as it is for the folder-fond but add a single message-type for non-structural, user-defined buckets. I agree that excessive toggle-count is undesirable but avoiding the visual presentation of server-side custom folders right alongside another 'bucket' mechanism and selector might be worth the one extra 'Buckets' toggle.
If a user-defined bucket need be no more complex than a grouping of labels then I quite see that being able to mark as a bucket/special any label/etc is attractively simple provided one can manage and (collectively) toggle the display of those buckets. I think the only difference between us is how much separation users should perceive in the UI between the selectors for server-side custom folders and for buckets - and I'm not qualified to judge that.
a different request that just fits well. It's logged as VB-103349
I'm not clear on the relevance of that request here. Just as Custom Folders can, optionally, be a displayed Mail Panel item I was anticipating the need for a new, optionally displayed panel item for the proposed "special" filter for Buckets which aggregates and lists the labels, etc carrying the bucket/special marker.
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@Society thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated!
Since Vivaldi doesn't know local folders, all custom folders are exactly a representation of whatever is going on server side (and is replicated in the 'All Accounts' section). So the folder people shouldn't be too confused.
I figure the custom folder can be replaced - I believe people will mostly either work with labels, or with folders, or with filters (=saved searches), instead of with a wild mix of these ways of self organization. A "special" toggle would be what it needs to be for them regardless of the specific preference. As long as the UI clearly shows what falls into the "special" category, the toggle sibe relatively straightforward.
@Society said in New filter toggle "filtered" or "special" to filter for "only cc'd", support Inbox Zero, and more:
I'm not clear on the relevance of that request here
I referenced the other feature request, which is about a) sorting items within a panel category and b) to create a 'favorites' category as me agreeing to you wondering "doesn't this whole proposal imply (or invite) the creation of a dedicated heading (with counters option)", thinking that was what you were referring to. I may have misunderstood.
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@WildEnte said:
the folder people shouldn't be too confused.
I've seen the light regarding folders but wouldn't want to confound the expectations of those with a different mental model and thereby make on-boarding more challenging. I don't have the time or inclination to create a mock-up and work through every consideration and consequence so won't dispute your viewpoint.
I may have misunderstood.
Regarding the feature request, you hadn't misunderstood. It's just that I'd recognised the brief mention of 'favorites' (a minor aspect arising) as having some similarities but sorting (the major theme of that request) did not strike me as being relevant.
Thanks for the discussion.
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@Society said in New filter toggle "filtered" or "special" to filter for "only cc'd", support Inbox Zero, and more:
and thereby make on-boarding more challenging.
Agreed. People that prefer folders should still feel right at home with Vivaldi, which isn't the case yet. There are (I think) other feature requests about that though, and the fact that Vivaldi just started to support hierarchical folders shows that they are working in that direction, too.
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I have since logged this very under appreciated feature request as VB-104197. Apart from the use cases mentioned in the original post, it would also resolve problems like the one mentioned in this other recent thread https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/106151/mail-filter-not-work where the user is confused that filtering emails doesn't remove them from the inbox. With this feature request implemented, this would be just one toggle away.
