Autofile Help and User Guide
Presentation
Autofile is a Thunderbird
add-on that will accelerate and simplify the way you file messages after you
read them. It adds a powerful Autofile button at the top right of the displayed
message. This button will allow you to file the displayed message directly to
each folder where you generally file messages from each message author. No more
drag and drop needed.
The Autofile button : red or green?
There is only one Autofile
button, which can appear either red or green. The button is red when the
Autofile system does not know where to file the displayed message. The Autofile
button is green when the Autofile system knows where to file the displayed
message.
When the button is red, it is
labeled ‘Autofile’. When the button is green it is labeled with the name of the
folder where Autofile will move the displayed message when you press the
button. When green, the full path of the target folder is shown in the tooltip
above the Autofile button.
The green button:
When Autofile button is green,
just press it and the displayed message will move to the target folder whose
name appears on the button. On the button above, the message will move to a
folder named CNDA.
If you hold Shift key while
pressing the green button, the message is not moved but a configuration window
pops up. This allows you to change the target folder or deregister the e-mail
author (i.e. clear any previously set target folder for this author).
The red button:
When Autofile button is red,
press the button and a configuration
window will appear.
The configuration window
The configuration window has 2
distinct sections.
The
top section: simple registration
The top section will allow you
to specify the target folder where to move the currently displayed message. You
will see the name of the author of the currently displayed message. You need to
select the target folder by typing a few letters of its name in the empty field
and then select the folder from the list. Then press ‘Move message’ and the
message will move to the target folder and the target folder will be registered
for this author. From now on, when you display a message from this author in
Thunderbird, you will have the green button.
Note: alternatively, after you
select a target folder, you may want to press ‘Move and Close’. It is the same
as clicking ‘Move message’ and then closing the window: the current message
will be moved and the target folder will be associated with this author.
In the same way you can
deregister a registered address by clicking Deregister. From now on, when you
display a message from this author in Thunderbird, you will have the red
button.
The field showing the
currently displayed message author may be edited. However if you edit it, only
the Deregister button will be available, while the button to move the message
will be disabled.
Note that Autofile registers
only the raw e-mail address, avibep@avibep.org, not the description part
AVIBEP, which is completely ignored. Therefore an author appearing in various
mails with two different descriptions but the same e-mail address will be
handled as a unique author.
The
bottom section: automatic mass registration
The bottom section of the
configuration window allows you to automatically mass register authors and
their target folders. You specify a root folder in the field by typing a few
letters of the folder name and then you select the folder in the list that
appears. Now press ‘Start autoregister’ and Autofile will check each message in
the folder and in its subfolders. For each message author, it will register its
containing folder as target folder for this author.
During this process of
automatic mass registration, an author WILL NOT BE REGISTERED if any of the
following cases is true:
-
this author
belongs to more than one folder of the folder hierarchy below the root
folder: Autofile cannot choose the
target folder it needs to associate with this author. You will need ti register
it using the simple registration above.
-
this author
is already registered: it was probably manually registered by you and Autofile
will not override your registration.
Warning: mass registration may
take time if you have lots of mails. The good news is that you can select the
folders to mass register. If you do not have too many e-mails, feel free to
mass register all folders at once by selecting ‘Local Folders’ as root folder.
The ‘Purge’ button next to
‘Start Autoregister’ allows you to automatically remove from registration in
Autofile all authors in a folder hierarchy. Whether they were automatically or
manually entered makes no difference: they will all be removed.
The
help section
Click ‘Help’ to open the help
you are currently reading. ‘Close’ will close the configuration window.
Shortcut: Ctl + Shift + W
Hitting together Ctl + Shift +
W is the same as hitting the Autofile button. When the Autofile button is red,
hitting Ctl + Shift + W while open the configuration window. When the button is
green, hitting Ctl + Shift + W will move the current message to the folder
displayed on the button.
Renaming a folder
What happens if you rename a
folder that is associated with one or more authors ? If you rename a folder that
is associated with one or more authors, Autofile will not be able to move
messages to the renamed folder.
Autofile will deregister an
author associated to the renamed folder only when a message from this author is
displayed in the message pane: the Autofile button will become red. Other
authors associated with this folder will not be affected. This means that if
you change your mind and rename the folder back to its previous name,
registrations will still be valid for all authors for which no message was displayed.
Once you rename a folder, no
previous registrations to this folder will be valid. To let authors being
registered to this folder:
1.
open the
configuration window, then select the renamed folder
2.
click purge
to erase all old registrations of authors to the folder previous name
3.
click Start
autoregister.
Things to
know
·
Opening the
configuration window can be achieved either by pressing the red button, or by
holding the Shift key and pressing the green button.
·
Autoregistration
preserves registrations that were previously entered, manually or
automatically. Once a registration has been entered, manually or automatically,
there is no difference: it will be preserved during future autoregistrations.
·
Before
using autoregistration on a very large folder, test it on small folders to have
an idea of how fast it works. If you do not want to keep these test
registrations, just use the purge button with the same folder.
·
When you
autoregister authors down from a root folder and some author appears not to be registered,
this is likely because the author appears in at least 2 folders of the folders
hierarchy below the root folder (the root folder being included in this
hierarchy).
·
You can
overwrite a registration, ie re-register an author: if you want to change the
registered folder for an author, you need first to have the configuration
window open. Once the configuration window is opened, select a Thunderbird
message from the author you want to re-register. His e-mail address will now be
displayed in the configuration window. Now choose a destination folder with the
folder selection field and press ‘Click to move message’. This will register
the author with the new target folder.
·
In the same
way, if you want to deregister an author, you need to have the configuration
window open. Once the configuration window is opened, select a message from the
author you want to de-register. His e-mail address will now be displayed in the
configuration window. Click ‘Deregister’. This will deregister the author.
·
If you need
to remove some entry in a dropdown list of folders, select the entry by
pressing on your mouse left button and, still while pressing the left mouse
button, press delete key.
·
Autofile
does not modify your mail data except when it moves a message to a folder.
Registering or deregistering or purging do not modify your mail data. Autofile
never erases your data.
·
Obviously
no data is exchanged with the outside world.
·
By using
Autofile, you expressly understand and agree that you are using it at your own
risk and that you will not hold the developer or Mozilla liable for any issue
related to Autofile use.
Known issues
All the following issues are
minor issues that will likely be fixed by future Thunderbird releases.
In rare cases, due to a
Thunderbird bug, Autofile cannot access a folder messages list in order to
autoregister or purge the authors using the configuration window. If you try to
autoregister or purge such folder authors registrations, the configuration
window will show an abnormal number of messages or authors, such as 0 (see
picture), while the folder actually contains many messages with authors unique
to this folder, who should have been autoregistered or purged. This issue happens
because Thunderbird index file is defective for this folder.
You can see that the index
file is defective by looking at the number of messages in the folder as it is
displayed in Thunderbird left pane. If it is not displayed, right click on the small
column icon at the top
right of the left pane and put a check mark in front of ‘Total’ (see picture):
this will add a column in Thunderbird left pane that shows the number of
messages in each folder. If the number of messages is blank for a folder, the
folder need be fixed before you can autoregister it.
If this happens with one of
your folders that you need to autoregister or purge, just select the folder,
this will force Thunderbird to fix the index file for this folder. The number
of messages in this folder will now show in the ‘Total’ column of Thunderbird
left pane. Then autoregister and purge should now work for this folder.
Unfortunately, this will not fix the folder’s subfolders if their index is
screwed too: you need to select the subfolders one at a time to fix them as
well.
In very rare cases, due to a
Thunderbird bug, Autofile may seem not move a message when you press the green
button. Actually it does move the message but the message remains displayed in
the source folder, though you will find it as expected in the target folder. To
get rid of this sticky message, just delete it in the source folder. No panic:
as we said, the message was moved in the target folder.
Autofile uses the new
Thunderbird API which will make it work for years. However this API is very new
and some functions appear not to work 100%. Especially a call to the API
browser.messages.move([currentMessage.id] ,targetFolder) sometimes fails for
unknown reason with no error message. There is no way around this issue as this
is the only way to move a message. Usually when such kind of issues appears,
restarting Thunderbird may help.
Thunderbird API is supposed to
work on Windows and Apple systems. Users have reported trouble with Apple.
Certainly future Thunderbird
versions will fix such issues in the API.
Support
Before asking for support,
please disable any Thunderbird extension you may have installed, and check if
the issue persists. Most issues, including buttons not showing up, come from
extensions/add-ons that are not compatible with Thunderbird API and therefore
prevent Autofile from operating properly.
If you experience any trouble,
please e-mail to: autofile@oasisllc.com.
Make sure you detail in your e-mail if the button is green or red. Screen
copies may help understand what happens.