Re: [VM] Mainly: How do you use virtual folders every day? and other questions

[Uday Reddy]

address@hidden writes:

> I defined `vm-virtual-auto-folder-alist' as follows (there are other
> virtual folders too) 
> 
> (setq vm-virtual-folder-alist
>       '(
>       ("veryold"
>        (("inbox" "gmail" "stmail")
>         (older-than 150)
>         ))))
> 
> (setq vm-virtual-auto-folder-alist
>       '(
>       ("veryold" . "~/.email/archiv")
>        ))
> 
> and I can visit these with 'V V'. But when I invoke `M-x
> vm-virtual-auto-archive-messages' i only get the Messages: 

The vm-virtual-auto-archive-messages function is in the Rob Fenk's
vm-avirtual package.  This package is not properly documented and generally
not of the same quality as VM proper.  This function will also tend to be
slow because it checks each message for membership in every virtual folder.
As you keep defining more and more virtual folders, it will run slower and
slower.

So, you might consider more efficient ways of doing things.  For instance,
you can visit the virtual folder "veryold" and save all its messages
somewhere.  vm-avirtual also has a function
`vm-virtual-make-folder-persistent' which might help for this.

> ---- *Messages* ----------------
> Auto archive the entire folder? (y or n) 
> Archiving...
> No messages were archived
> -----*Messages end*---------------

Remember that the auto-archive-messages functions only work on the current
folder.  So, in your example, the current folder would have had to be one of
"inbox", 'gmail" and "stmail", and that folder would have had to have
messages older than 150 days.  Did it?

> (iii) I could not make it to define a virtual folder on an IMAP folder. Is
> there somebody here who does use this feature? (Just to know, wether its
> me or VM...) Everything I tried produced only empty virtual folders.

Yes, virtual folders work for IMAP folders.  You have to specify them the
IMAP folders using the full "maildrop" specification.

> (iv) My vm-spool-files list has several elements like this:
> 
> ("~/.email/stmail" "pop-ssl:mail.host.de:995:pass:my_username:*" 
> "~/.email/stmail.crash")
> 
> The issue is: if I insert the password instead of *, then vm does not find
> any new messages, even if there are several (according to the webinterface
> of my university). Then if I use * again, it fetches them. This might be a
> bug?

It could be a bug, but it is a bad idea to put passwords into cofiguration
files.  VM will ask you for a password and remember it.  That should be good
enough. 

> > There isn't anything built-in to do that.  But it is easy enough to define a
> > function for yourself, something along the lines of:
> 
> > (defun switch ()
> >   (interactive)
> >   (call-interactively 'vm-quit t)
> >   (call-interactively 'vm-visit-imap-folder t))
> 
> Thank you Uday, I use your snippet since. However, something I would find
> even a bit more useful would be: I would like 'q' (vm-quit) to go to an
> open folder, if there is one. 

Replace the last line by:

   (call-interactively 'vm-switch-to-folder))

I will beef up the vm-switch-to-folder function to be a bit more clever.

Cheers,
Uday