pre-release of Virtual Identity 0.4.3
Posted by rene on 25 Jun 2007 at 07:07 pm | Tagged as: ... ? ..., Hacking, virtual id
Once again some days passed by, but a lot of things happened, so can’t say I was completely lazy 😉 But it was time to come back to the Virtual Identity extension and repair some bugs and add some options to make all of us more happy these days. The result is the new version 0.4.3, which is by now available as a pre-release cause some testing and translation-work has to be done before the ‚real‘ release.
Whats new?
- added a new option to dynamically switch on/off an email signature if using a virtual identity. To use this option you have to install the Switch Signature Extension. Thanks to Alex for the idea and thanks to Achim Seufert for the nice extension which I could use for this feature.
- added a feature called ‚Smart Timestamp‘ which simply changes the address of any new email you are going to compose by adding a epoch-timestamp in the name. This way you can use a unique address for any message you send and check where your mail-addresses go. Thanks to JensMartin for the idea.
- added an option to warn you if the mail should be sended with any stored (unchanged) identity. Valdaran had the idea to blank the From: field, which is not really an option, to many other things are relying on this. But maybe a warning will do nearly the same nice job? Thanks to Valdaran for the idea.
- removed some old bugs, added some fresh ones 😉 Thanks to all who reported their problems.
The new version is now available for testing. Feel free to use it and report bugs and problems or help to translate the extension.
Hi Rene, danke erstmal für Deine Antwort sowie für die neue Version von Virtual Identity.
Rene schrieb:
„… allerdings ist das Problem der Auswahl einer richtigen gespeicherten Identität nicht wirklich, was diese Erweiterung leisten will. Ich weiss, durch das smart-reply hab ich mich schon etwas in diese Richtung gewagt, aber die Auswahl der passenden (Basis)Identität sollte Sache von Thunderbird sein und ich verlasse mich einfach auf eine sinnvolle Vorauswahl. Um diese Vorauswahl zu verändern, gibt es selbstverständlich auch Erweiterungen, zum Beispiel Correct Identity.“
Ich darf vielleicht meine Konfiguration noch etwas beschreiben, damit das Problem noch besser verdeutlicht wird.
Den Thunderbird habe ich so konfiguriert, dass nur noch ein einziges Mailkonto (außer dem ohnehin gegebenen „Lokalen Konto“) vorhanden ist, sowie eine Reihe von mir benutzter ausgehender SMTP-Server. Alle meine Identitäten sind demnach lediglich noch als „Alias-Identitäten“ in der Thunderbird-Kontenverwaltung angelegt.
Hierdurch wird schonmal die Kontenverwaltung sehr übersichtlich.
Mail ist in verschiedenen Thunderbird-Mailordnern organisiert, und zwar je Ordner sowohl eingehende als auch versandte Mail (um die Konversationen in Threads darstellen zu können, vgl. Screenshot http://666kb.com/i/apjgo0mztu6sb7uji.png).
Dabei gibt es einen privaten und einen beruflichen Ordner. Bei dem privaten Ordner ist alles ganz einfach, denn dort wird jeweils nur eine einzige dem Ordner zugeordnete Identität verwendet, was bereits durch die Erweiterung ‚Folder Account‘ von Christopher Eykamp bestens erledigt wird.
Bei dem beruflichen Ordner werden jedoch eine Anzahl verschiedener Identitäten benutzt. Diese verschiedenen Identitäten besitzen teilweise verschiedene zugrundeliegende E-Mail-Adressen, was dann ebenfalls kein Problem darstellt, da beim Smart Reply stets die korrekte Identität ausgewählt wird (falls die Option „Namen ignorieren“ bei Smart Reply aktiviert ist).
In dem beruflichen Ordner werden jedoch auch einige Identitäten verwendet, die lediglich einen verschiedenen Namen, jedoch dieselbe E-Mail-Adresse besitzen. Diese verschiedenen Identitäten mit gleicher Adresse werden von Virtual Identity aber natürlich nicht mehr unterschieden, wenn die Option „Namen ignorieren“ aktiviert ist.
Daher bin ich in dem Dilemma, die Option „Namen ignorieren“ entweder zu aktivieren (wobei dann einige Identitäten, und zwar die mit derselben E-Mail-Adresse, aber verschiedenen Namen, nicht erkannt werden) — oder aber die Option „Namen ignorieren“ zu deaktivieren — wobei mir dann aber dauernd neue virtuelle Identitäten kreiert werden, nur weil jemand zwar eine korrekte E-Mail-Adresse, aber einen möglicherweise von ihm selbst vergebenen, oder aber gar keinen Namen verwendet hat.
Ich würde zwar gerne die Erweiterung „Correct Identity“ noch zusätzlich verwenden, um dieses Dilemma möglicherweise zu beheben – nur ist „Correct Identity“ wiederum inkompatibel mit der erwähnten Erweiterung „Folder Account“…
Wenn es also eine Möglichkeit gäbe, bei Virtual Identity eine virtuelle Identität erst dann zu kreieren, wenn 1.) kein passender Name *und* 2.) außerdem auch keine passende E-Mail-Adresse gefunden wurde, dann würde sich das mögliche Einsatzfeld von Virtual Identity m.E. noch entscheidend erweitern.
Es ist schon richtig, dass dies vielleicht eigentlich nicht dem ursprünglichen Einsatzzweck von Virtual Identity entspricht. Tatsächlich verwende ich auch praktisch nie *virtuelle* Identitäten (abgesehen von gelegentlichen Änderungen des ausgehenden SMTP-Servers) — sondern versuche lediglich, meine zahlreichen vorhandenen Identitäten bzw. Aliase möglichst sinnvoll einzusetzen; was mit ‚Virtual Identity‘ in Kombination mit ‚Folder Account‘ bereits nahezu perfekt gelingt — bis auf das eine beschriebene Problem.
Puh, war das wieder viel Text, sorry 😉 — Diktierprogramm macht’s möglich 😉
Das Thema ‚virtuelle Identitäten‘ ist aber auch wirklich eine harte Nuss.
Vielleicht gibt es ja irgendwann noch die Möglichkeit, die Namensangaben beim Smart Reply wirklich nur dann ignorieren zu lassen, wenn gleichzeitig auch keine passende E-Mail-Adresse gefunden wurde?
Vielen Dank,
David.P
When using the Virtual Identity extension with Tbird 2.0.0.4, I get this message every minute (so long as the compose window is open):
„Account already created“
Is this known? Has it been corrected?
When I select a virtual identity to send an email with, I get an error from the smtp server:
The mail server responded: 5.5.4 … Domain name required for sender address Remco Lam. Please verify that your email address is correct in your Mail preferences ans try again.
I’ve had this before with virtual identity and had to switch back to a previous version to solve it.
Diggin a little bit deeper, it seems to be be caused because virtual identity takes the address from what’s in the „from“ field. However, using the pulldown menu to select another email address results in the from fiels only containing „Remco Lam“ , so there is no in the from field.
Because of this, virtual identity just sends the Remco Lam as email address, which is an invalid address, of course…
Remco
First of all, congrats for this extension, it is very useful. But there is one thing that I still did not manage to configure correctly.
I receive messages from a number of mailgroups, namely from yahoo groups. In this groups, the direct receiver is marked by X-Envelope-To, and the group is addressed in the To headers.
But although I have included the X-Envelope-To in the headers your extension must recognize, it just only recognize the To one, and because of this, when i reply a message in the group it sets as sender the group address, and not mine, what makes it quite annoyable.
Any piece of advice on how to configure it so this does not happen (apart from deactivating the „fast-reply“ option, of course
Thanks a lot
Hi,
I’m having a real problem with Virtual Identity. I’ve upgraded to a new computer and copied over my settings, and I can’t figure out why this is happening.
Whenever I try to send an email with VID, the email doesn’t send. It worked fine on my old machine.
Here’s what happens when I click send:
– A new account named „virtual Id0“ appears in the background account list
– Nothing else happens.
Here’s the contents of the debug window. (The last line is where it stops)
Thunderbird 2.0.0.4 (2007060411; Windows NT 5.1)
– ImportExportTools (Mboximport enhanced) {3ed8cc52-86fc-4613-9026-c1ef969da4c3} 1.2
– Signature Switch {2ab1b709-ba03-4361-abf9-c50b964ff75d} 1.4.4
– Talkback talkback@mozilla.org 2.0.0.4
– Virtual Identity {dddd428e-5ac8-4a81-9f78-276c734f75b8} 0.4.3pre
——————————————————————————–
## v_identity: replace MsgComposeCloseWindow
## v_identity: adapt GenericSendMessage
## v_identity: NotifyComposeFieldsReady
## vI_smartIdentity: msgComposeType = 0
## vI_smartIdentity: cant get URI of former Message
## v_identity: NotifyComposeBodyReady
## v_identity: replace GenericSendMessage (Virtual Identity activated)
## v_identity: VIdentity_GenericSendMessage
## vI_account: Stored virtualIdentity (name Avatar-X email testemail@uer.ca smtp smtp2)
## vI_account: Stored (doFcc true fccFolder mailbox://alex@mail.cyberwyre.com/Sent fccFolderPickerMode 1)
That’s it.
Please let me know what is going on! Thanks 🙂
Oh, to add to the above: The error is listed as follows in the Error Console:
Error: [Exception… „Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIMsgFolder.Delete]“ nsresult: „0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)“ location: „JS frame :: chrome://v_identity/content/vI_account.js :: anonymous :: line 135“ data: no]
Source File: chrome://v_identity/content/vI_account.js
Line: 135
Hi,
I managed to fix the bug by editing vI_account.js and removing the two lines
vI_account.account.incomingServer.rootFolder.Delete();
on line 100 and on line 135. I’m not sure what these two lines do, but that’s where it was choking, and I removed them and now it works.
Thanks!
> @Dave: thanks for your hints with the popup-window,
> the real problem was that the description in the
> options dialog was misleading. I changed this in
> 0.4.3pre, to use the (first,only,whatever) Identity
> without interaction you have to activate the button
> “use first found identity without interaction”,
> also if you wish to use a dialog to choose if there
> is more than one.
I don’t think so…
I want interaction if there’s more than one match but just want it to select the matched identity if there is only one. In the last version, at least, I couldn’t find a combination of options that would do this. The closest was selecting „open a dialog…“ but not „ask also…“ and „use first…“. This worked *unless* my filters were reducing the set of matches to just one. In that case, I wouldn’t get a dialog *and* it wouldn’t use the single match.
That’s the case I fixed.
Is there some combination of options that I missed?
In dieser Version ist leider immer noch der Fehler „Access key for ‚From‘ field does not work“ enthalten. Könnte vielleicht mit „Zeige SMTP-Auswahlmenü“ zusamenhängen? Dieses Feld zeigt nämlich das Drop Down und liegt daneben.
First Thanks for your nice extension.
But I got a Problem with spamgourmet here.
When I send an an Email from my real account „real@account.com“ the extension puts somehow a part of the newly (before) created Vid-Account in the From-field.
Ok. to put it simpler.
I created a vid account. This is called „vidaccount.20.predomain@s p a m gourmet.com“. I used my real account for that „real@account.com“
Afterwards I wanted to send an email from my real account (without the newly created vid account).
What happened ?
The recipient has this on the „from-field“
Prename Lastname – real@account.com
Where is the bug ?
Thanks a lot
to email me just use the given adresse without the spaces.
Sorry for that above posting
The recipient has this on the „from-field“
Prename Lastname – real@account.com
Hell.
Sorry for the spam:
Prename Lastname – real@account.com
and then
(Read it from above)
Seems I can’t post the problem in this form here.
Please contact my via mail.
Thank you very much.
Ok here’s the point.
Firt you create an VID for your main account.
Later when you send normal mail from your main account one can see the VIS-Account in the From-Field between behind your name and your main account.
like from: Prenam Lastname – main account
Search „vitual“ and „Vitual“ in your source code and add the „r“
It seems that having a comma in the name of your identity gives trouble. I don’t know if that’s the extension or the server. If it’s the server, you might want to advise against it in your extension.
you can’t use a comma in the name of the Identity. If you like to use a comma, than you have to use parenthesis to prevent Thunderbird from assuming that you separate two different addresses with a comma. For sure in this case only the first ‚address‘ is used than.
I’ve been having some troubles with VID picking up my VIDs for awhile but never bothered to track them down. I spent some time on them today and think it is a bug. Below is an excerpt of the headers from the original email. Assuming I have any clue whatsoever I’ve only deleted useless ones. Below that is the VID debugging data. I’ev added a few comments preceded by „//“ to what I think is happening. Please let me know if the comments are incorrect as it means I’m confused.
Thanks (and happy new year everyone),
— Neil
PS: All email addresses have been mangled to keep the spammers at bay. Assume my ViD is „joeuser@mydomain.com“.
PPS: I think your site is broken. https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id seems broken giving me „Trac“ internal errors about missing the „Trac.web“ module.
================================================================
Headers of interest in original email
================================================================
Delivered-To: joeuser@mydomain.com
Return-Path:
Subject: Your Webinar Invitation: Join us for „Snowed In? Can’t get to the office? Let CITRIX bring the office to you!“
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:56:05 -0500
From: Frank ReplacedForPrivacy
To: Frank ReplacedForPrivacy
Return-Path: Frank.ReplacedForPrivacy@bogus-bogosity.com
================================================================
VID debugging data
================================================================
// Startup stuff
## v_identity: replace MsgComposeCloseWindow
## v_identity: adapt GenericSendMessage
## v_identity: NotifyComposeFieldsReady
## initReplyToFields identity.replyTo:
## vI_smartIdentity: msgComposeType = 2
## vI_smartIdentity: SmartReply()
// Check for VID in address book
## vI_addressBook: Search ‚Frank.ReplacedForPrivacy@bogus-bogosity.com‘ in addressbooks.
## vI_addressBook: found 0 card(s) with matching email.
## vI_addressBook: found 0 card(s) with matching email and Full Name.
## vI_addressBook: Frank.ReplacedForPrivacy@bogus-bogosity.com not found.
## vI_smartIdentity: checked for Addressbook-Identities and found 0 address(es)
## vI_smartIdentity: ———————————————————-
// Strikeout in address book
// Now look for headers – delivered-to should match as should „to“
## vI_smartIdentity: reading header ‚delivered-to‘
## vI_smartIdentity: reading header ‚to‘
## vI_smartIdentity: reading header ‚cc‘
## vI_smartIdentity: reading header ‚x-original-to‘
// Huh? 0 addresses? There should have been two.
## vI_smartIdentity: 0 address(es) after parsing, before filtering
// Filtering should drop the „To“ address and leave me with
// just joeuser@mydomain.com VID.
## vI_smartIdentity: filter emails, compare with ‚@mydomain.com‘
## vI_smartIdentity: filtering done, 0 address(es) left
## vI_smartIdentity: ———————————————————-
## vI_smartIdentity: merged SmartReply & Addressbook, 0 address(es) left
## v_identity: NotifyComposeBodyReady
// No sadness – great sorrow 🙁
PS: Sorry – I’m using 0.4.5pre but have had this problem from earlier versions.
Hi Neil,
happy new year. I currently don’t have the time to look at the problem, but surely in the next weeks. Please stay tuned. And, use the trac at https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id (okok, it was broken 🙂 ) for further comments, just added your entry at https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id/ticket/31
Regards,
Rene
it seems like e very good web site but my English is not good. It would be great if it might be availible in other languages too. Thanks.
Hi,
maybe you have a look at the new Virtual Identity page. Still in english, but more up-to date. Sorry, no other language available.
Regards,
Rene