I read about Mark Shuttleworth’s Open Source bounties on Mozillazine a couple weeks ago. What was the most interesting to me was the fact that he focuses on three areas I’m really interested in: Python, Mozilla and Education Technology (SchoolTool is what he’s sponsoring; Stoa is what I hack on).
So during some of the time I should have been studying for finals this weekend I put together a prototype inspired by one of his requests. 
Mark makes an excellent point: it’s ridiculously hard to file mail in Thunderbird (and probably Mozilla Mail; I just don’t have much experience with it). So I’ve put together QuickFile.
QuickFile is an extension for Mozilla Thunderbird which is aimed at making it easier to file messages. Right now the operation is pretty simple: select the message you want to file and press meta-Q (currently hard-coded; sorry). This opens the QuickFile dialog, which shows a list of your mail folders. You can start typing, and it will match as you type. Pressing Tab will expand the currently selected item (if possible), and pressing Enter will move the messages to the selected folder.
You can install it by first saving quickfile.xpi to your computer. Then in Thunderbird, go to Preferences/Options, select Extensions and click “Install New Extension.” Select the XPI file, and it will prompt you to confirm installation. Note that this has only been tested with Thunderbird 0.4 on Mac OS X and Linux, so if it eats your profile/mail/puppy, that’ll really suck.
While this is just a “first draft” I think I can build onto it in some interesting ways. I want to add a customizable hot key, the ability to assign hot keys to specific folders, and “predictive” (Bayesian) folder selection, as Mark describes.
Anyway, try it out, let me know what you think. I really enjoy getting feedback, whether it’s critical or positive. Enjoy.
5 Comments
hi,
cool plugin but i could not install it on my win2000.
during intsall there were error’s. i’m not sure it realy did not install because i don’t know how to operate it…. ‘what is de meta key on win2000?’
i realy will love this extension and would like to help (at least test it on win2000/xp/98 and suse 9.0)
i you need more help let me know.
install error code is -239
i can enable and disable it…
Thanks for the encouragment; I should have a new release ready in the next few days. One of the improvments is a better installation script, which I think will work better. Thanks again for trying it out and check back!
Nathan
I don’t know if you saw that there is a bounty for this particular project. Looks like you could might be able to pick up an easy $200 since the work is already largely done.
Looking forward to using it.
One feature I would love to have added is to be able to use this quickfile feature while composing a message so that a copy of it gets filed appropriately. Ideally, there would be a checkbox that allows me to also file the original message to which I’m responding to the same folder. This option exists in Mulberry and while I hate most things about Mulberry, this option keeps me coming back.
Anyway, thanks again.
Cool plugin, tnx! But would be even more convenient if I could configure a default destination folder based on the ‘From:’ (like in mutt).
Anyway, thnx!