Re: a scratch course on virtual folder usage

[Vitaly Mayatskikh <v.mayatskih@gmail.com>]

At Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:43:50 -0500, Rodrigo Amestica wrote:

> my understanding is that a virtual folder is what I should use when I
> need to get a view of messages matching a certain
> condition. And for doing so I can use 'V' (wl-summary-virtual)

Correct.

> However, by using this mechanism I cannot define a matching criteria
> that involves more than one attribute, like 'To AND From'. 
> 
> My questions:
> 
> 1. in the manual (section 3.11) a description if given for fully
> elaborated matching criteria. However, I do not understand how could I
> make wl to ask me for that criteria and then take me to that virtual
> folder. Is this possible somehow?

When Wl asks you "Search by (Body)", you can slap Tab and see all
predicates available. To search with To AND From, choose AND <enter>,
From <enter>, enter To searching criteria <enter>, To <enter>, enter
From searching criteria <enter>. So in lisp it should look like (and
(from ...) (to ...)). This way you can build very complex searching
criteria.

> 2. is it possible for wl-summary-virtual to request for more than one
> single attribute? Would that allow OR-ing and AND-ing and Negating as
> one would expect? 

Yes.

> 3. after I have searched for a given criteria wl takes me to that
> virtual folder. How can I come back to this search after I have left
> it to an other folder? Searching again is very inefficient.

You may want to add virtual folder into your ~/.folders. Back in time
I had such folder:

/from:v.mayatskih|tocc:v.mayatskih/%lkml:v.mayatskih@imap.gmail.com:993!,%netdev:v.mayatskih@imap.gmail.com:993!,%ppc-dev:v.mayatskih@imap.gmail.com:993! "my-lkml"

It was collecting all the messages from given imap folders, where my
email was mentioned. Virtual folder has normal entry in Wl's database
(stored in ~/.elmo), including offline cache, and, IIRC, virtual
folder does not do rescan, if source folders were not changed.

> 4. in the folders buffer it seems like wl-fldmgr-make-filter and
> wl-summary-virtual do the same thing. But the first does not work on
> my local maildir folders:
> 
> Can't change access group
> 
> what's the difference? 

Sorry, have no ideas.
-- 
wbr, Vitaly