Version: (using KDE Devel) Installed from: Compiled sources Reply to Mailing List is a horrible name for a function that replies to Mailing List or regularly, depending on whether it can figure out how to reply to Mailing List. Reason? Let's say I'm on a mailing list (check) that KMail can't figure out how to reply to (check). When I press 'L' and type my message and send it (check), I believe it has been sent to the mailing list (uh-oh). So then I wonder why it is I don't get any response, and notice that my message never posted to the list. So I resend the message a couple times. Then the actual recipient, pissed off, writes up a nasty email telling me I should learn how to use mailing lists. If Reply to ML can't reply to the ML, then it should do *nothing*.
Here's what KMail does to figure out the correct address: if there's a Mail-Followup-To header then use its value else if we found a mailing list address (either because the user specified one or because there's a List-Post header then use this mailing list address else if there's a Reply-To header then use its value (assuming that the mailing list has set this header; for most mailing lists this assumption is correct) else if there's an address different from your address in the To header use the value of the To header (often the mailing list address is in the To header; but it could also be in the Cc header) The last "else if..." should probably be removed. Done. Anyway, please tell us the headers of the messages for which Reply to Mailing-List failed for you so that we have a chance to improve this feature.
I totally agree! Thanks. Here are the complete headers for a message delivered to pgsql-general. Return-Path: <pgsql-general-owner+M54716@postgresql.org> Delivered-To: cshobe@softhome.net Received: (qmail 30764 invoked by uid 417); 27 Dec 2003 16:34:12 -0000 Received: from noon.pghoster.com (64.246.0.64) by 192.168.0.5 with SMTP; 27 Dec 2003 16:34:12 -0000 Received: from svr1.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71] helo=postgresql.org) by noon.pghoster.com with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AaHNs-00060C-24; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 10:33:48 -0600 X-Original-To: pgsql-general-postgresql.org@localhost.postgresql.org Received: from localhost (neptune.hub.org [200.46.204.2]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F369D1B47B; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 16:31:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from svr1.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (neptune.hub.org [200.46.204.2]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 55968-07; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 12:30:40 -0400 (AST) Received: from brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca (brahma.WCG.McGill.CA [132.216.78.5]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C6CEED1B481; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 12:30:39 -0400 (AST) Received: from brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id hBRGTwfR020142; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 11:29:58 -0500 Received: from localhost (chris@localhost) by brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) with ESMTP id hBRGTvV3020138; Sat, 27 Dec 2003 11:29:58 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca: chris owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 11:29:57 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Murtagh <christopher.murtagh@mcgill.ca> X-X-Sender: chris@brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca To: "Randal L. Schwartz" <merlyn@stonehenge.com> Cc: pgsql-advocay@postgresql.org, <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Is my MySQL Gaining ? In-Reply-To: <86wu8jmnqe.fsf@blue.stonehenge.com> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312271122130.20117-100000@brahma.wcg.mcgill.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at postgresql.org X-Mailing-List: pgsql-general Precedence: bulk Sender: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - noon.pghoster.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - softhome.net X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - postgresql.org Status: R X-Status: N X-KMail-EncryptionState: X-KMail-SignatureState: X-KMail-MDN-Sent:
Thanks for providing the headers. I don't think it's feasible to deduce the mailing list address from those headers. (I can come up with a solution for this particular message but that's not a useful solution.) When using Reply to Mailing-List on this message you now get an empty To field. I leave the wish open because there might be cases which can be supported more easily.
I'm curious to hear your idea though, whether or not it's useful ;-). I would argue that instead of opening a reply window with an empty To (I can already foresee this frustrating me), it should do nothing at all. This was the behavior in CVS a couple months ago, IIRC.
Well, the message has an X-Mailing-List header. This header tells us the name of the mailing list. Assuming that the address of the list is of the form mailingListName@domain we only need to determine the domain somehow. Now we could look at the recipients of the message (To and Cc). In the Cc header we would find an email address that starts with the name of the mailing list. So it would be quite reasonable to assume that we've found the mailing list address. But as I said this would be just a nasty hack. There's a standard for special mailing list headers (RFC 2369, especially the List-Post header) which help mail clients to determine the mailing list address. So I think we can expect the mailing list software developers to make use of this header. About doing nothing if we don't find a mailing list address that's IMO no good solution because a) We would have to show an error message so that the user knows why Reply to Mailing-List doesn't work. This would be annoying. b) The user obviously wants to reply to this message. So there's nothing wrong with opening the composer. (Except that the user might want to try Reply to All if Reply to Mailing-List doesn't work.) c) You don't remember correctly. ;-) KMail never behaved differently. If Reply to Mailing-List doesn't work for a particular mailing list then the obvious solution is to filter all messages from this mailing list into a folder which is configured as mailing list folder with the correct mailing list address. That's exactly why KMail has mailing list folders.
Mail-Followup-To: Peggy Go <shatz_go@yahoo.com>, pgsql-novice@postgresql.org Hmm, seems you forgot about Mail-Followup-To in your summary. I just realized that Reply to List on a mail containing such a header sends mail to all of the Mail-Followup-To recipients. This does give me the idea for a KMail feature request, but I'll open a new bug report for that.
Yes, I forgot to mention the Mail-Followup-To header. The Mail-Followup-To header is the new (quasi ?) standard header that should be used by mail clients when replying to a mailing-list message. It's used by several mail clients (e.g. Mutt). It's set by the sender (resp. the sender's mail client) to a reasonable value (i.e. if the sender wants to be cc'ed on replies then he adds his email address to this header). Currently KMail doesn't set this header but it honors the header if it encounters the header. While browsing the bug/wish list I noticed that this wish (i.e. "Improving Reply to Mailing-List") is a duplicate of bug 67845 ("make reply-to-list smarter"). *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 67845 ***