Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Daniel]

Have somebody tried to implement replacement of the user author with "me" in
author lists (using defined email address(es))?

From what I understand, at least the Python bindings deliver primarily author
names (not addresses), so it would seem more appropriate that this be done in
the backend. But I don't know much about the backend, and have so far only
played with the client Alot.

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Patrick Totzke]

Quoting Daniel (2012-02-25 16:34:15)
From what I understand, at least the Python bindings deliver primarily author
>names (not addresses),

To clarify, `notmuch.Thread.get_authors` returns a comma separated list of the 
realname parts of all From-headers that occur in messages of this thread.

> so it would seem more appropriate that this be done in the backend.
I agree. I personally think this is a nice feature to have in all
user interfaces to notmuch and therefore it makes sense to implement it once
in the lib. Also because ~/.notmuch-config already contains a list of my addresses
and therefore should have all information needed.

Implementing this feature for alot in python is easily doable, by constructing
the authors list from the messages From headers directly, comparing
the address part with all known own addresses.
We will do so if the response here is all too negative or nobody is brave enough to
step forward and touch the lib in this respect.

If I'm not mistaken, the lib extracts the authors name from the From-header
of a message, which is indexed. Somewhere around line 248 in thread.cc,
this string is added to a list of names.

Cheers,
/p

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Daniel Schoepe]

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On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:22:10 +0000, Patrick Totzke <patricktotzke@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > so it would seem more appropriate that this be done in the backend.
> I agree. I personally think this is a nice feature to have in all
> user interfaces to notmuch and therefore it makes sense to implement it once
> in the lib. Also because ~/.notmuch-config already contains a list of my addresses
> and therefore should have all information needed.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea: A frontend might want to make this
configurable, for example to give the user the opportunity to disable it
(possibly to see to which of his mail adresses he used in that thread,
if they have different real name components). It might also get tricky
to distinguish between someone called "me" participating in the thread
and the user, which might be relevant for highlighting the latter case
differently, while it's rather easy for a frontend to do the
transformation itself.

At least it should not be done in the library, because it'd need to read
the user's addresses from configuration file which the library is not
supposed to access, as far as I understand.

Cheers,
Daniel

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Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[David Bremner]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:41:04 +0100, Daniel Schoepe <daniel@schoepe.org> wrote:
> 
> At least it should not be done in the library, because it'd need to read
> the user's addresses from configuration file which the library is not
> supposed to access, as far as I understand.
> 

One can work around this by passing in the relevant configuration data,
but then it isn't clear how much of a win it is in code complexity.

I have sometimes wondered about having another library layer making some
of the current CLI functionality accessible to bindings. I'm not really
sure of the pro's and con's of such approach. It would certainly be
overkill for this one feature.

d

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Tom Prince]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:51:49 -0400, David Bremner <david@tethera.net> wrote:
> I have sometimes wondered about having another library layer making some
> of the current CLI functionality accessible to bindings. I'm not really
> sure of the pro's and con's of such approach. It would certainly be
> overkill for this one feature.

It is probably overkill for any one feature, but it does seem like
something useful to have. So maybe it would be worthwhile to create
for this one feature, even it it is overkill.

  Tom

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Jesse Rosenthal]

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:59:53 -0500, Tom Prince <tom.prince@ualberta.net> wrote:
> It is probably overkill for any one feature, but it does seem like
> something useful to have. So maybe it would be worthwhile to create
> for this one feature, even it it is overkill.

I can think of other features where some layer like this would be
useful. It would be great, for example, if it were possible to output
search lines with recipients instead of senders, for the purposes of a
"tag:sent" sort of window. 

(I actually have my own cobbled-together python thing which, connected
with my other cobbled-together python remote thing, intercepts search
calls for that tag and gives me a search view with non-me
recipients. But obviously, as much as I love cobbling, it would be even
better not to have to do that.)

Best,
Jesse

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Austin Clements]

Quoth Jesse Rosenthal on Feb 29 at 10:05 am:
> On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:59:53 -0500, Tom Prince <tom.prince@ualberta.net> wrote:
> > It is probably overkill for any one feature, but it does seem like
> > something useful to have. So maybe it would be worthwhile to create
> > for this one feature, even it it is overkill.
> 
> I can think of other features where some layer like this would be
> useful. It would be great, for example, if it were possible to output
> search lines with recipients instead of senders, for the purposes of a
> "tag:sent" sort of window. 

What if the output of search (say, specifically the JSON format)
included information on each message in the thread such as the
'message' production from devel/schemata minus the body field?  Then
the frontend would have loads of information it could produce its own
summaries from.  (Plus, with a little tweaking, I don't think this
would be any more expensive than producing the current notmuch search
summary output.)

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Jesse Rosenthal]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:36:57 -0500, Austin Clements <amdragon@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> What if the output of search (say, specifically the JSON format)
> included information on each message in the thread such as the
> 'message' production from devel/schemata minus the body field?  Then
> the frontend would have loads of information it could produce its own
> summaries from.  (Plus, with a little tweaking, I don't think this
> would be any more expensive than producing the current notmuch search
> summary output.)

I was hoping for something like that when I started fiddling. But it's
still going to end up being a library question, because
notmuch-search.c, is tied pretty tightly to the lib: i.e. it uses
functions like `notmuch_thread_get_authors (thread)'. I was using the
python bindings, and I ended up having to make a second query off the
thread id (I could have recursed through the messages too, I suppose).

So I guess what I'm saying is that what you're suggesting sounds great,
but we'd still have to either (a) add new library functions
(`notmuch_thread_get_recipients', `notmuch_thread_abbrev_me'), (b) keep
them all in the client and make pazz and scripters recreate them, or (c)
play around in the sort of client-library space that it sounded like
Bremner was suggesting.

Best,
Jesse

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Austin Clements]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:50:46 -0500, Jesse Rosenthal <jrosenthal@jhu.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:36:57 -0500, Austin Clements <amdragon@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> > What if the output of search (say, specifically the JSON format)
> > included information on each message in the thread such as the
> > 'message' production from devel/schemata minus the body field?  Then
> > the frontend would have loads of information it could produce its own
> > summaries from.  (Plus, with a little tweaking, I don't think this
> > would be any more expensive than producing the current notmuch search
> > summary output.)
> 
> I was hoping for something like that when I started fiddling. But it's
> still going to end up being a library question, because
> notmuch-search.c, is tied pretty tightly to the lib: i.e. it uses
> functions like `notmuch_thread_get_authors (thread)'. I was using the
> python bindings, and I ended up having to make a second query off the
> thread id (I could have recursed through the messages too, I suppose).
> 
> So I guess what I'm saying is that what you're suggesting sounds great,
> but we'd still have to either (a) add new library functions
> (`notmuch_thread_get_recipients', `notmuch_thread_abbrev_me'), (b) keep
> them all in the client and make pazz and scripters recreate them, or (c)
> play around in the sort of client-library space that it sounded like
> Bremner was suggesting.

I was suggesting just using notmuch_thread_get_toplevel_messages in
search (essentially, mixing a bit of show into search).  No library
changes necessary.

It may still be useful to have a collection of *utilities* that could be
reused in bindings; basically, things that currently live in the CLI but
could be broken out.  These should live outside of libnotmuch proper.
My concern would be what we put in such a library.  Currently, the CLI's
internal architecture is quite agile, but as soon as you put some of
that in a library, you have a library interface to support.

Re: Replacing my name/email with "me" (or similar) in author lists

[Jesse Rosenthal]

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:47:46 -0500, Austin Clements <amdragon@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> > On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:36:57 -0500, Austin Clements <amdragon@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> > > What if the output of search (say, specifically the JSON format)
> > > included information on each message in the thread such as the
> > > 'message' production from devel/schemata minus the body field?  
> [...]
> I was suggesting just using notmuch_thread_get_toplevel_messages in
> search (essentially, mixing a bit of show into search).  No library
> changes necessary.

In any event, I'd really love to see something like this. Because I work
remotely, over an ssh tunnel, and it's nice to have various scripts
local. However, things like notmuch_addresses and my recipient_search
script have to run on the server, since they need bindings-level access
to the database. If I could get the JSON you describe over the wire, I
could probably just make one remote call and then confine my local work
to JSON parsing. A niche need, I realize.