Re: Rmail tips

[Fernando de Morais]

Hello Ben,

Sorry for my late response (again).

Ben Hancock <ben@benghancock.com> writes:

> Thanks for your kind reply and these helpful snippets, Fernando. I just
> recently started using Mairix, which has been great.

You're welcome!

> I've tried using the rmail-automatic-folder-directives variable to
> handle this, but it has the downside that mails are marked as seen when
> they are filed away; they also still land in the main RMAIL file first.
>
> My MTA (maildrop) of course can put incoming mails into specific files
> based on conditions. But if I just visit those files with RMAIL, i.e. by
> using the 'i' command, there is also no distinction between what is old
> and what is unseen. It seems that I would have to configure those files
> as separate _inboxes_, and fetch mail from them into another RMAIL file.
>
> That's doable, but I'm wondering if there's another way ... or if I
> should abandon filtering altogether and just search?

Perhaps you can customize the `rmail-auto-file' function (which is
called when Rmail is obeying the `rmail-automatic-folder-directives') to
use `rmail-set-attribute' and, therefore, force the insertion of the
`unseen' attribute in messages. Maybe like this:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (defun rmail-auto-file ()
    ...
          (if (null directive-loop)
              (if (null folder)
                  (rmail-delete-forward)
                (if (string= "/dev/null" folder)
                    (rmail-delete-message)
                  (rmail-set-attribute rmail-unseen-attr-index t) ; ==> Here?
                  (rmail-output folder 1)
                  (setq d nil))))
          (setq d (cdr d))))))
#+end_src

Unfortunately, at the moment, I can't test whether just this insertion
is enough, but if you can (and if it works), do you think it would cover
your use case?

Hope it helps!

-- 
Regards,
Fernando de Morais.