Re: [Evolution] Applying filters (was Re: Spam Filter -- I need volunteers)

[Mika Liljeberg <mika liljeberg welho com>]

On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 02:13, Andrew Cowie wrote:
> I tried quite hard to make something along these lines work, but kept
> getting tripped up. 
>
> Some questions for you Mika:
>
> 1.
> I must be missing something really fundamental, but how does one make
> filters run WHEN MESSAGES ARRIVE?

You need to tick the setting "Apply fiters to new messages in INBOX on
this server" in Preferences -> Mail Accounts -> Receiving Options. Note
that this does not appear to work for all server types (I had problems
with the "standard unix mbox spool or directory"). Works ok with IMAP,
at least.

> It seems to me that I have to *open* a folder, *select* all the
> messages, and *then* press Ctrl-Y.

It only works with the designated inbox folders. New mail in other
(regular) folders or mail dirs is not detected automatically.

> That's an awful lot of work - I'd kinda like to have my filters run
> automatically on message arrival.
>
>
> 2.
> How did you "redefine" the labels? Hack a conf file? Or is there UI for
> it somewhere?

This was hidden behind Preferences -> Mail Preferences -> Colors. I was
pleased and surprised to find that I could redefine the label texts and
colors. You have to exit evolution after making changes, in order to
make the changes visible in filter settings, though.

> 3.
> How did you use the labels for filtering? I know you can filter on the
> Label field, but as of 1.2.1 you can't make a filter action assign a
> Label value. What are you using to do all this?

I only use labels for training bogofilter, so I have two special rules
along the lines:

- IF label == Spam AND pipe through "bogofilter -S" returns 0 THEN
  - mark the message as spam (I use color codings and score values)
    and move the message to Spam folder, then stop processing

- IF label == Not Spam AND pipe through "bogofilter -N" returns 0 THEN
   - mark the message as not spam and let subsequent filters put it
     into the right folder

Note: you have to pipe the message through bogofilter as the last
condition in the criterions section rather than as part of the actions,
since there is no "pipe through" action ("shell command" action does not
get the message as input).

It's a bit more complicated than that, though. For instance, I use score
values to keep track of which messages have already been filtered and
how they were classified, so that certain rules can be skipped if I
later run the filters manually using ctrl-Y. I use the score values as
follows:
    0    - previously unfiltered mail
 <100    - previous classified as spam
> =100    - mail classified as not spam

The exact score is not relevant. I use different scores to provide some
additional selection criterias to my vfolder rules.

> 4.
> Training:
> Do you run the false {positives, negatives} through bogofilter from
> within Evolution, or do you do something to the folders operating from
> the command line?

I retrain bogofilter from within evolution, as explained above.

> Sorry for all the questions. I pull mail from various different sources
> using multiple Evolution mail accounts. I've got a server side setup on
> the mail server I control, but most of the spam I get comes through
> client's corporate Exchange server not [yet :)] through my own mail
> server - so I'd much prefer to have an client side setup and have
> Evolution run the various spam filters itself.

Same for me. I'm stuck with a dynamic IP address, so I'm dependent on my
ISP's mail server.

> Regards
>
> Andrew

Cheers,

        MikaL