Virtual Identity 0.4.1 is released
Posted by rene on April 25, 2007 at 04:39 pm | Tagged as: ... ? ... , hacking , virtual id
It took longer than I expected, but I think it was worth to include a lot of feature-requests and get rid of some bugs. Many thanks to you all who gave me suggestions and reports and translations and thank-you-mails without this feedback the extension would have been even not half as nice as it is by now. So as you see, I like the result of the work last week, and I hope you will enjoy it too. Do not like to mention the list of bug-fixes again, just the list of new features compared to version 0.4.0:
- You can now sort the header any way you like, then exclude 'to' or 'cc' as you like it, but you have to tell it that Virtual Identity has to use those headers. Chang said your settings and add 'to' and 'cc' to the list of headers. A header name now refers to all headers of that name, not like before only the outmost one of you mail. To select a specific header, just use the number of it's occurrence, so for instance ": 3" and add it to the header name. And if you wish to use only the email address and not the name, then simply add ":@".
- reading the headers in version 0.4.0 was installed on dependent or Mnenhy enigmail. Now it's independent on other extensions, so you are free to use whatever you like (but to protect the freedom of having secrets the same way as the freedom of choice or the freedom of speech, you might choose to install enigmail anyway )
- added a nice debug window, Which helps you understanding what really does Virtual Identity. using complex filter rules you might get very creative, and this is the place to look if it does not work as expected. This debug information is so helpful for me to understand how and when problems occur if you are sending a bug report.
Ok, here you can find the recent 0.4.1 release , and, Tadaa, there will be a documentation soon ( have a look at the work in progress )
Hi Rene,
I found a bug with the identity chosen when replying.
I have multiple accounts, each with separate Inboxes. There are actually two problems:
1) In certain cases, it's setting the sender identity to the wrong account. I think I might have fixed this by checking the "ignore full name while comparing email addresses" option, but my feeling is that if I have Account A and Account B, and I hit reply to a message in Account B, from the identity Account B should take preference / unless / it's overridden in the Virt ID settings. Not in my case, it chooses account A Whether I enable or Smart Reply. (If I do not enable Smart Reply, then I think it's definitely a bug that it chooses account A.)
2) When I enable Smart Reply and check the "ignore full name" option (everything else is defaulted), and I reply to a message in account B, it first chooses the identity from account A, then correctly changes it to the identity for Account B. However, it does NOT REMOVE the signature from account A, then I end up having two separate signatures in my reply, and I have to manually take one out.
Thanks,
Keith
PS: Anything you can do about the spam filter settings and my IP address, so I do not have to keep using a proxy?
Actually, now that I think about it, does Virtual id put any consideration at all what into what account / folder is in a message when a reply is being composed? Maybe that's part of my problem - that I'm expecting it to do this.
By the way, the link to the 0.4.1 docs on this page does not seem to be working.
Keith
Hi Keith,
So, the problem is that Thunderbird Select which account is being used. If found to exist Identity Virtual Identity as the one to choose, it switches to this one and all settings of this one are used (so-so signatures and so on are changed). But if virtual Identity has to create a 'virtual' non-existent identity, it does this based on the Thunderbird has selected account.
If you like to control Which account Thunderbird uses, maybe you should additionally use the 'correct identity' extension, not that I use it myself, but this one should do the job.
Does this help you? Just tested it with a created account, can not reproduce your problems here.
Thanks for the tip with the documentation, it's not worth the name silently And therefore was not published, but it's changed now. And regarding the SPAM problem, I do not know why but your IP ended on a blacklist. I removed it, hope its working now.
Regards,
Rene
Hi
I've notice a problem with this extension. I use a Thawte signature to sign my outgoing emails. This extension for some reason creates an error dialog when trying to send saying it could not find it or it expired. When looking at my settings however, they are correct and it has a long way to go before it expires.
I end up having to not sign the email and without sending.
Regards.
Rene,
Thanks! (For the reply, and for getting me off the blacklist.)
Regarding this: "If found to exist Identity Virtual Identity as the one to choose, it switches to this one and all settings of this one are used (so-so signatures and so on are changed)."
What about the fact that it's leaving the old signature when inserting the new signature, so that I end up with two? Are you saying this is a Thunderbird issue? (I would believe that, if only because I saw this once in awhile in 1.5, when I changed the account I was sending from. Could never reproduce it reliably, though.)
And regarding this: "But if virtual Identity has to create a 'virtual' non-existent identity, it does this based on the account Thunderbird has selected."
I guess what I do not fully understand is that if the email is labeled "To: Account A" and located in a folder in A's account inbox, why would not have to create Virtual Identity a virtual identity that would result in selecting its The identity from account B?
I can try to create a simplified standalone testcase, if you like. Let's do it over email, though.
Cheers,
Keith
Sorry, that second to last paragraph should have said "why would have to create a Virtual Identity Virtual Identity ...." - Remove the extra "not".
Keith
Hi AppleBag,
usually do not use S / MIME, but are you sure the problem is related to Virtual Identity? Have you tried it without the extension? I just tested it (again) and it seems fine here, I can encrypt and sign the messages without problems, so if I change the Identity (means Virtual Identity is active).
But have a look at the preferences of Virtual Identity, you must have 'copy S / MIME settings' for the Virtual Identity Account activated, otherwise S / MIME will not work with Virtual Identities. But it should work with existing Identities if you leave this switch deactivated.
Hope to help you, regards,
Rene
Rene, thanks for creating this extension that should be useful so! I hoped this recent release would help, but I still have problems. Two comments:
(1) No matter how many possible virtual addresses it finds in the headers, nothing shows up in the "checklist" that pops up - but they do appear in the drop-down menu.
(2) I receive email from a mailing list [example: group@yahoogroups.com ], so none of my accounts show up in the headers. It would be GREAT if there were an option for "if .. then". (If the email is to "group@yahoogroups.com" then automatically use my email address associated with that mailing list.)
Thanks for your work!
Marrow
Rene,
Thanks for this wonderful extension and for continuing to fix and upgrade. I've liked it from the very beginning, and now love it since you added smart reply.
I can do most of what I want with smart reply, but am stuck on a couple points:
(1) in Thunderbird's Account Settings for fu@my.domain , I have an additional identity defined, fu@other.domain . Messages sent to fu@other.domain are forwarded to fu@my.domain , so when I reply to them, I want to use fu@other.domain . recognizes the smart reply email address and fills it in, but does not fill in the name from the Account Setting to Which the identity belongs (when no name was included in the message).
(2) When I receive messages from a certain account, I want to always reply from a different account than the Which message was sent to. Is there a way to do this with smart reply?
Thanks,
John
I have several newsgroups accounts that use the same email address as my mail accounts. With default settings header, it seems that VI picks up the email account. If I add "from" to the headers for smart reply, it seems to pick up the news group account instead.
This happens even if I turn off smart reply for newsgroups.
Seems it should be sticking to email account identities.
Hi,
thanks for the comments and reports, I was a little busy for some days but will go through your posts soon.
Nice regards,
Rene
This may be a bit incoherent, because I do not understand what is happening.
I use correct_identity and virtualID. I have set up correct_identity to set my identity to an account with a bogus SMTP server, because I always want to be forced to pick one of my several IDs. I have set up virtual identity to identify my virtIDs not, but to open a dialog or use first address found. I also have smartDRAFT turned off I have the SMTP selection box turned on.
When I load a new draft message, sometimes I get the ID associated with the account I used, sometimes I see the ID associated with the current account, and sometimes I see the bogus account (which I should always get). I always see in the SMTP box the SMTP server associated with the account. However, when I hit send, the message fails because it tries to send to my bogus SMTP server, Which is not listed in the box. I must manually select the account in order to send, even if it is the same account that is showing. When I select the account, neither the account nor the SMTP server name change, but the send succeeds.
Something similar happens when I reply. It (the combination of correct_identity and virtualID) pick some account and SMTP server, and show that to me in the boxes, but the attempts to send bogus use my SMTP server and fails. If I am replying to someone who sent to one of my throwaway email addresses (the reason I use virtID), that address is available in the dropdown box, Which is good. I select it as above and the sending fails, even though the box shows a correct SMTP server. I must select the server, even if it is the same one.
My suspicion is that correct identity is coming along after reseting virtID and something inside firefox, meaning that what I see in the input boxes is not what firefox is seeing. Can not prove it, though.
Note that if I draft a message, cancel that message, then draft a new one, second that message usually has my bogus address info in the boxes. Something is getting cleaned up when the message is canceled.
I use correct_identity only because I want the default from address to always be the bogus address that the sendmail example, SET will fail if I do it. The behavior today is sort of OK because the sendmail does fail, but having it fail while seeing correct information in the boxes is strange. If virtID gave me the option of setting the default from address when drafting a new message (another sort of 'draft' option), then I could stop using correct_identity.
Like I said, incoherent. I hope this is useful information.
I also have a problem with Virtual Identity selecting the wrong account. I'm not able to reproduce it right now, though, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
NB: When I used Virtual Identity earlier (0.3.x) I did not have this problem.
I thought I was having problems with Smart Reply, then turned it off But the problem persisted. When I reply to a message, the last ID used for sending a message is used. If I then close the reply without sending chosen, and even without correcting the id, and then try replying again, the ID is correct. It is correct from then on for that message. But goes back to this behavior with each new message.
Sometimes I even get the problem just by writing a new mail. I read mail on account A, click create new mail, and the From field is populated with the latest posted address from account B.
I ended up installing and deinstalling v0.4.1 v0.3.4 (with nightly tester tools on Tbird 2) instead. It works as it should.
Henrik,
Thanks for the suggestion. So I uninstalled v0.4.1 and installed v0.3.4 (enabled for TB2 with MR Tech Local Install) and life is good again. Hopefully Rene wants to be able to fix this and release a v0.4.2 sometime soon so I can have virtual IDs and smart reply.
jl
Hi,
sorry for being so quiet, but I'm currently and for the next weeks so very busy. But keep commenting forgotten, it will not be. Just finished a bugfix release 0.4.2.
bugfixes:
Charles (Henrik, John)
* "When last I draft a new message, sometimes I get the ID associated with the account I used, sometimes I see the ID associated with the current account, and sometimes I see the bogus account (which I should always get)." If Smart-Reply found (for instance) an existing identity, sending works ok and what not tampered by the extension. But Thunderbird does not remove the window, it 'recycles' the window. Next time you compose a message, this one shows the same old identity but uses a different one behind the scenes. So I changed Virtual Identity to remove Window completely if message was sended, Window-Recycling is ThisWay disabled.
Mark:
* "No matter how many possible virtual addresses it finds in the headers, nothing shows up in the" checklist "that pops up -. But they do appear in the drop-down menu" Yes, what broken, repaired it.
Dave:
"I have several newsgroups accounts that use the same email address as my mail accounts. With default settings header, it seems that VI picks up the email account. If I add "from" to the headers for smart reply, it seems to pick up the news group account instead. ... Seems it should be sticking to email account identities. "Right, did not thougt of that. Connected usage of newsgroup accounts to the Switch Which Enables Virtual Identity for newsgroups.
new feature requests:
Mark:
* "I receive email from a mailing list [example: group@yahoogroups.com ], so none of my accounts show up in the headers. It would be GREAT if there were an option for "if .. then". (If the email is to "group@yahoogroups.com" then automatically use my email address associated with that mailing list.) "Create thisone as to identity and use CorrectIdentity or an other extension to choose the right one answering to a mailing list.
John:
"In Thunderbird's Account Settings for fu@my.domain , I have an additional identity defined, fu@other.domain . Messages sent to fu@other.domain are forwarded to fu@my.domain , so when I reply to them, I want to use fu@other.domain . recognizes the smart reply email address and fills it in, but does not fill in the name from the Account Setting to Which the identity belongs (when no name was included in the message). "You can use a fixed name by now if no Name is recognized or Names are ignored (see options dialog). Maybe I'll change this if this is not enough, do not have the time by now, sorry.
John:
"When I receive messages from a certain account, I want to always reply from a different account than the Which message was sent to. Is there a way to do this with smart reply? "Use Correct Identity for this feature.
Regards,
Rene
Thanks for the thorough responses, Rene! I have installed the other add-on you mentioned, as well as your recent release 0.4.2, and everything is going great! Thank you.