[Patch v2 0/3] emacs: allow show to colour based on tags and flags

[Jameson Graef Rollins]

On Thu, May 03 2012, Mark Walters <markwalters1009 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are a couple of extra reasons why I like the show ones
> separate. One is that I like to colour headerlines of matching messages to
> highlight them, but in search mode that would highlight every
> line. Secondly, I colour some things "negatively" in show mode: for
> example I show excluded messages in grey. This negative colouring does
> not make sense for search mode because I would only want to grey out
> results where all messages were excluded not results where at least one
> message is excluded. Of course we don't show entirely excluded threads
> in search, but similar comments apply to say the "replied" tag: I could
> show those in green (on the basis they are "dealt with") but I would not
> want a thread coloured green just because I have replied to one message
> in it.

Ok, that makes sense.  Maybe there could be switch to inherit colors,
and then a way to set them independently as well.

>>> BTW, I like how this clearly distinguishes tags and flags.  I wonder
>>> if we could transition to flags for some information that's current
>>> shoe-horned into tags but actually represents immutable information
>>> about a message (attachment, signed, and encrypted or so).
>>
>> Yes!  As Austin probably remembers, we've discussed this before.  I
>> definitely agree that it makes sense to somehow distinguish "immutable"
>> information that is a fundamental, unchanging/able property of the
>> message, and it might be nice to look ahead to that here.
>
> In essence I agree: my only concern is can the user search for these
> immutable things, and what syntax is used there. 

Well, nothing exists yet so we can define it as we wish, but I would say
absolutely they should be searchable.  That's an important part.  They
just wouldn't be changable, like tags are, since they represent
immutable characteristics of the original message.  I would suggest we
use something like "prop:" (for "property"), e.g. "prop:signed", or
"prop:attachment", etc.

jamie.
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