This bug is to track the backend implementation of news filters. Once this is implemented in basic terms, please provide info on any intended exceptions to the 4.5 news fitlering implementation.

accepting.

marking m15.

No you didn't. (sspitzer)

moving to m16.

Sol, make M16 if beta2.

[FEATURE] bugs past M16 are OUT for this release. Marking M20. If you disagree with this action, please help me explain it to the PDT.

Moving target milestone to "future" to be reviewed at a later time

not sure what changes are required to the front end or back end to get this working, but it sure would be nice. 4.x windows (maybe mac, too) supported it. note to self, check the migration code.

this bug covers the FE and BE work necessary. the first thing to do is to get newsgroups to show up in the filter picker.

See bug 84036. News accounts were visible in the filter picker at one point, even though that was never implemented.

It would be great if the same UI could be used for mail and news so that I can e.g. apply filters to both (flag message if my nick name appears, etc...). But then some filters make no sense and had to be disabled. It might be easier to create a separate UI in the end, wouldn't it?

Adding my vote of "please please please do this" to this. Also, OE has this.

I'd also like to add a please-please-pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top vote. There are a couple of posters on some of the newsgroups that I read who are really getting on my nerves, and I'd like to be able to block them.

*** Bug 108709 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Almighty Mozilla team, I besiege thee! We needeth news filters to block all those evil cratures on usenet! So have mercy!

cybermage: I beseech thou to use the correct words if you insist on making light of such a heavy matter. For the request for which you have pleaded, we require a chronology potion, such that time be stopped whilst we affect ourselves upon this feature.

about correct words: I'd need a spellchecker with a proper AI for that...; in any case, it should be animated, in the form of a doggy, or a cute cat. Hmmm, sounds awfully familiar somehow. :-)

*** Bug 138760 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** Bug 153627 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

It is unbelieveable to me that this bug has not been fixed. Newsgroup filtering is essential to any useful newsgroup tool, plus version 4.x had this capability. Get it done already! I went out of my way to create a bugzilla login just to submit this. This question comes up so many times on the netscape newsgroups it's not even funny.

No evangelism comments, please. If you want this fixed, write the code, or vote for it.

*** Bug 162106 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Just added my vote. Would love to help with this, but my C programming skills are as rusty as the gun turret they just pulled up from the USS Monitor.

*** Bug 168527 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

With 96 votes and no detectable activity, how about marking this helpwanted? (I'm not sure who is supposed to do that. The owner, I'd think.) As the bug is also assigned, chances are that a contributor looking for a bug to fix won't catch this one in her net :-/

helpwanted. Especially in observance of bug 163993 and bug 92997.

Bug #19442 is a general filtering feature, and should not be considered blocked by this bug.

As a 'non-coder', is there anything else I can do to help implement this feature, besides voting for it?

solon: you can certainly help in writing test cases / test outline for this feature if it ever gets implemented. Take a look at http://www.mozilla.org/quality/mailnews/tests/index.html for examples of the test outlines already present for existing features.

This lack of functionality renders the news reader nigh on unuseable. Particularly when groups that I use are being flooded by script kiddies. Even if it were implemented using the 'custom header' filter as used in the mail filtering, it would be a god send. Why is there not a common message filter class that can parse and filter messages on their headers? IMHO - this is the single biggest functional deficiency in the news component. Does it appear anywhere on the road map?

I take issue with the severity change from "normal" to "enhancement". This is not an "enhancement", this is basic newsreader functionality.

Garth, the plain fact is that the newsreader does work. The lack of filtering is a huge problem, but at least you can read Usenet. The fact that filtering is a very, very badly needed feature doesn't mean it isn't a feature, and thus for Bugzilla purposes considered an enhancement. What is needed is a higher prioritization of this bug. Currently, it is set only at P3, which is somewhere in the middle. Now that Mozilla 1.2 is nearly out the door, it's time this badly needed feature got more attention. I'm not aware of anything in the newsreader that is needed more. I recommend P1 priority. The keyword "helpwanted" is outstanding on this bug. If somebody could contribute a patch, I'm sure the assignee would be appreciative.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - contribute something or stop complaining. Nobody owes you this feature.

implementing this will mean we can turn on the spam feature (when it lands) for news. (see #169638) for spam, we need to hook into the bayesian filters after the normal filters are run. here's the steps I'll take to implement this: step 1 1) show newsgroups (not servers) in the filter list dialog 2) make it so the right criteria and actions show up for online news filters (no offline yet.) subject / sender (contains/is/begins with/ends with) then mark thread, watch thread, ignore thread. (4.x had delete?) 3) fix the news code to get the filter service, and do the right thing to the incoming news message step 2: 4) look into 4.x delete action 5) filter logging 6) offline news filters (different table for UI)

working on this js error: JavaScript error: line 0: uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x8 0004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED) [nsIMsgFolder.getFilterList]" nsresult: "0x8 0004001 (NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://messenger/c ontent/FilterListDialog.js :: setServer :: line 162" data: no]

I think I see what "delete" did in 4.x on delete, we wouldn't even both to add it to the db. (different than ignore)

more items: 1) instead of n.m.p.xul/rules.dat, we should be doing n.p.m.xul (summary file is n.p.m.xul.msf). this is how 4.x did it, so if we do it the same way, migration will work. 2) show ignore thread / watch thread in action menu list (as well as delete and mark as read, which are already there 3) hide other actions for news 4) allow filter create to set the filter type (InboxRule / NewsRule)

I think a pretty separator between the mail accounts and the news accounts/groups in the drop-down would make the distinction between them clearer.

"I think a pretty separator between the mail accounts and the news accounts/groups in the drop-down would make the distinction between them clearer." do you find the screen shot (see http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi? id=105002&action=view) unclear? We don't have a separator between accounts in other pickers.

> do you find the screen shot (see http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi? id=105002&action=view) unclear? Not really but I'm not an average user. > We don't have a separator between accounts in other pickers. Here it's a little different though. Mail accounts are selected directly while newsgroups are selected by first selecting the news server (well, expanding its menu) and then the particular group. That said, I don't think separators between mail servers and news servers in other pickers would be a bad thing.

cool, I was able to create filters to watch and ignore threads. still need to: 1) hide other actions for news 2) test that delete and mark as read filters 3) fix "manually run selected filter(s) on folder" picker in filter list dialog for news 4) test out filter logging there's some optimizations that could be made, too. but I'd land what I've got now for 1.3 alpha, as it's usable.

mark as read worked. (so cool, when I post to newsgroups, I mark my own posts as read.) some more todo items: 1) pre-flight account picker (if newsgroup selected in folder pane) 2) spin off bugs about offline news filters 3) test logging

completed items: 1) create filter from messages UI should be enabled for news 2) run filters folder picker and button hidden for news 3) pre-flight account picker (if newsgroup selected) todo list: 1) pre-flight account picker (if host selected) and account central filter UI (pick the first newsgroup?) select first newsgroup, but what if no newsgroups? 2) test logging 3) test delete 4) optimize, code cleanup, self review 5) log bug, about offline news filters 6) log bug, about filter after the fact for news 7) log bug, plug in spam stuff 8) log bug, disable "Run filters on Selected folders" UI when server selected

delete works as does logging. updated todo list: 1) pre-flight account picker (if host selected) and account central filter UI (pick the first newsgroup?) select first newsgroup, but what if no newsgroups? 2) optimize, code cleanup, self review 3) log bug, about offline news filters 4) log bug, about filter after the fact for news 5) log bug, plug in spam stuff 6) log bug, disable "Run filters on Selected folders" UI when servers are selected

I think we should be able to do "isn't" rules with with news filters. We can't do it with online news searches / filters, but we can with filters. (we can do anything with offline news searches, since we have the bodies locally, but offline news filters aren't implemented yet). So instead of: [Subject / Sender] [contains / is / begins with / ends with] [...] [delete | watch | ignore | mark as read] Looking at how the code works, we could also do: message-id, date, size, references, lines (though not sure how useful some of these would be to most users) We should be able to do "isn't" and "doesn't contain". When mscott's view code fully lands, we'll be able to do [Sender] is in [Personal Addressbook] I think we can also add more actions, like labels, priority, and flagging.

a few ? nits, other than that, looks fine. + if (getScopeFromFilterList(gFilterList) == Components.interfaces.nsMsgSearchScope.news) + defaultAction = nsMsgFilterAction.Delete + else + defaultAction = nsMsgFilterAction.MoveToFolder; + can use the ? operator here and below. + var hide = false; + + if (element.getAttribute("hideforscope") == aScope) + hide = true; + else if (element.getAttribute("showforscope") && (element.getAttribute("showforscope") != aScope)) + hide = true; this can just be: var hide = (element.getAttribute("hideforscope") == aScope) || (element.getAttribute("showforscope") && (element.getAttribute("showforscope") != aScope)); firstItem = (server.type == "nntp") ? msgFolder.URI : rootFolder.URI + if (server.type == "nntp") + firstItem = msgFolder.URI; + else firstItem = rootFolder.URI; and this comment can either be removed, or should be reworded - it was basically a note to myself in the code this was taken from: + // for ignore and watch, we will need the db + // to check for the flags in msgHdr's that + // get added, because only then will we know + // the thread they're getting added to.

Comment on attachment 105053 [details] [diff] [review] updated patch, skip the filter stuff when downloading headers if the filter count is zero sr=bienvenu, modulo the nits.

1) add more functionality. Beyond, 4.x, 1.3 alpha will be able to do: [Subject | Sender] [contains| doesn't contain | is | isn't | begins with | ends with] [...] and also: [Date] [is | isn't | < | > | == ] [...] and the availabe actions are [delete | watch | ignore | mark as read | label | set priority | flag] and once it's supported (from mscott's view code), we'll be able to do: [Sender] [is in] [addressbook] 2) in 4.x, news filter name was netscape.test.dat, not netscape.test, so I fixed that.

see two spin off bugs: bug 178397 (about using HEAD command for more headers) bug 178398 (about other XOVER fields) I'll seek a re-review from bienvenu, and land in early 1.3 alpha

Is there a bug for mscott's view code? (because I REALLY want to be able to do "sender is not in address book" - obviously not part of this bug, but I'd like to find the right one

Comment on attachment 105173 [details] [diff] [review] themes part checked in (bug #178061). but patch includes fix for #123767 sr=bienvenu (but you can change all the PR_FREEIF's to PR_Free, if the code returns immediately after the Free (PR_Free checks for null - PR_FREEIF checks for null, AND nulls out the pointer)

> Is there a bug for mscott's view code? Bug 176850.

fixed. I'll spin up other issues that I know about in new bugs, and list them back here in this bug.

Now that this bug is being dealt with, I've run out of excuses to give ben@netscape.com as to why I haven't reinstalled Mozilla yet..

spin off bug: implement filter after the fact for news. [bug 178870]

Marking this bug verified, feature implemented, generally working. Any specific issues found with news filters will be logged separately. OK using nov19 commercial trunk.

*** Bug 182987 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I'm afraid, I cannot see where the specific bug I reported is duplicated here. Please clarify.

Stewart, you've reported Bug 182987 as newsgroup filters (usenet killfiles) not opening a dialogue box in 1.2. That's because newsgroup filters have not been implemented at all until the 1.3 stream, and that's what this bug (the one you've been duped to) refers to. Newsgroup filters have been implemented, and are available if you want to download one of the nightly builds that will be the basis for the 1.3 release. Hope this helps

*** Bug 184648 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Might be we have a backend for News Filters, but we only had it for a very short time, actually it does not work, pls. see the many bugs concerning this feature. Actual build confirming this problem: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030910 I am afraid we have a regression here Rainer

News filters don't work in 1.6final or 1.7alpha either Someone should reopen it

News filters don't work in 1.6final or 1.7alpha either Someone should reopen it

this bug was fixed. if things don't work today, find or file a new bug.

See unconfirmed bug 225454, http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=225454 It seems to have started not working again with 1.6.0

News filtering works for me running Thunderbird version 1.5.0.9 (20061207) but only for postings I receive AFTER I set the filter. Consequently, the menu item "Tools -> Run Filters on Selected Folder" is NOT available for news folders. Please see enhancement request bug 178870.