[Mail List] Subject Line Identifier

[GregChapman]

Hi Nabble,

I run the support forum for a plain text email client nPOPuk at:
http://npopuk-forum.986084.n3.nabble.com/

Obviously, we have users that subscribe to a number of the various sub-forums, such as those wanting New Release information (an announcement area) and User Support (a discussion area). In particular, the developers team have just moved from using a YahooGroup to the hidden "Developers" sub-forum and are complaining that it is very difficult to use as it is impossible to distinguish from the message headers to which sub-forum a message has been posted. (Even in the body of the message the only indication of the sub-forum used is found in the footer - and is frequently invisible without scrolling several screens down a message.)

As a result there are topics that ought to be restricted to the developers group that are appearing in the open "User Support" archive.

Please, can you add a feature that will allow either a [subject line tag] to appear in subscribed mail or some other mechanism, such as an appropriate header line, that a mail client can use to identify an individual sub-forum and use to filter messages into an appropriate folder in their mail client.

One of  our number has posted the link:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-koch-subject-tags-considered-00
that may be relevant to this issue.

I am sure this will be of great benefit to all those using Nabble as a mail list archive, particularly where there are multiple related mail lists.

[Pedro]

Greg,
please, see if it's enough:
replace your send_subscription_email macro with this:

<override_macro name="send_subscription_email" parameters="node_attr,text_part,html_part" requires="subscription">
    <n.set_local_subscription.this_subscription/>
    <n.set_local_node.node_attr/>
    <n.block.>
        <n.new_email.>
            <n.send>
                <to.local_subscription.user.user_email/>
                <to_name.local_subscription.user.name/>
                <from.local_subscription.user.reply_address_for.local_node/>
                <from_name><n.local_node.owner.name/> [via <n.root_node.subject/>]</from_name>
                <subject.>
                    [<n.local_node.topic_node.parent_node.subject/>] <n.local_node.subject/>
                </subject.>
                <text_part.text_part/>
                <html_part.html_part/>
                <set_headers_for.local_node/>
                <bounce_to.local_subscription.user.bounces_address/>
            </n.send>
        </n.new_email.>
    </n.block.>
</override_macro>

Note that in line 12, I'm adding a prefix to the message, that is the name of its sub app.

[GregChapman]

Hi Pedro,

Thanks for that.

In my first test it has successfully added the forum name to the email subject line when a message is posted on the forum.

However, we also need to strip the [forumname] from the subject line of incoming mail, so that it does not get it repeated on each mailed posting on the Nabble archive . Here's just one reply:

[Developers] Re: [Developers] Subject Line Identifier

Imagine what is going to happen once we have a significant thread going!

 Is that possible?

[GregChapman]

Hi Pedro,

In case you try testing an additional macro amendment I should warn you that, for the time, being I've removed your patch as it was just making the subject lines too long!

[Pedro]

I hadn't realized it because only happened when I replied by email. I'll try to fix it.

edit: In gmail is ok, but in aol I am with this problem.

[GregChapman]

As developers of a POP3 standards compliant plain text email client we find that Gmail simply doesn't follow Internet standards in its handling of POP3 boxes.

The trouble is they expect everyone to use their web interface and as you realise that doesn't function as a standard mail client. (But I've been through that rant before with Hugo and promised not to do it again! :-) )

I'm none too impressed with many aspects of AOL, but this time I am cheered to know that they may be doing it right! :-)

Anyway, thanks for the further investigations. I await the results with interest.

[Hugo <Nabble>]

Hi Greg, here is the complete solution. You have to override two macros:

<override_macro name="send_subscription_email" parameters="node_attr,text_part,html_part" requires="subscription">
    <n.set_local_subscription.this_subscription/>
    <n.set_local_node.node_attr/>
    <n.block.>
        <n.new_email.>
            <n.send>
                <to.local_subscription.user.user_email/>
                <to_name.local_subscription.user.name/>
                <from.local_subscription.user.reply_address_for.local_node/>
                <from_name><n.local_node.owner.name/> [via <n.root_node.subject/>]</from_name>
                <subject.>
                    [<n.local_node.get_app_node.subject/>] <n.local_node.subject/>
                </subject.>
                <text_part.text_part/>
                <html_part.html_part/>
                <set_headers_for.local_node/>
                <bounce_to.local_subscription.user.bounces_address/>
            </n.send>
        </n.new_email.>
    </n.block.>
</override_macro>

and this one

<override_macro name="save_post_by_email" requires="post_by_email" unindent="true">
    <n.set_var. name='prefix'>[<n.replied_to_node.get_app_node.subject/>]</n.set_var.>
    <n.set_new_post_subject.>
        <n.regex_replace_all. pattern="(Re:\s*)+" replacement="Re: ">
            <n.regex_replace_all. pattern="[n.regex_quote.var name='prefix'/]" replacement="">
                <n.new_post_subject/>
            </n.regex_replace_all.>                
        </n.regex_replace_all.>                
    </n.set_new_post_subject.>

    <n.overridden/>
</override_macro>

This code appends the app name to the subject of outgoing emails and removes that text from incoming emails. So the forum will always look clean, but emails should have the desired [app-name] prefix. Please test this and let us know if you have questions, comments or concerns.