Auto-display as HTML based on sender

LazyGun · 14 Jun 2022, 08:05 PM

It'd be great if I could tag a list of senders, for whom the email always displays as either HTML or Text depending on what preference I select with Display External images as an ON/OFF option.
All others default to whatever is set as the default.

BritTim · 15 Jun 2022, 01:34 AM

A more flexible way of achieving similar functionality occurs to me. A mail header X-DISPLAY-OPTION could be set to determine how the message will be displayed. This might be set, for instance, by a sieve script or rules based on any conditions you choose. If you wanted it to depend on specific senders, this would be possible. You could also, perhaps, make it depend on simply whether it is from a known sender. Other possible conditions come to mind.

JeremyNicoll · 15 Jun 2022, 03:42 PM

I asked FM to let us nominate per-folder whether the contents should be viewed as text or html, back in Sept 2020, which is when (I think) they at least gave as a view-as choice in an individual mail's viewer. Of course before that the only choice was in Settings and affected every mail in every folder all the time, which was unbelievably clumsy.

At least if we had per-folder choices, one could use normal filtering to route mails to an appropriate folder.

Their response was just the standard "I have shared this with our development team. Please note that we're unable to offer any timeline as to if or when this feature could be implemented.".

My default viewing mode in FM is "as plain text". For mails I get that really benefit from viewing as html I filter those to a separate folder, then - what a palaver! - every so often I select a set of them, choose "forward as attachment", and send them all (in a single mail) to a different provider's webmail system (*), then mark the ones I just sent as "read", then move them to a temporary FM folder where I keep them until I'm sure I've used the other system to view them. The hassle in moving a set of mails like this is less than the hassle of selecting each mail in turn, then clicking Actions - View as HTML. I actually have a set of temporary folders for this, and when I send a set of - say 12 mails - elsewhere I give that mail a subject line like "fwd 12 temp3" and make sure that the temp folder I keep them in is the one I named "temp3". So it's easy later on to make sure that the right specific sets of moved-around mails get deleted.

* - the different provider uses Roundcube, where I also default to "view as plain text". But when a set of emails sent there (as attachments in a single mail) is opened, it first shows as a plain text mail with a set of icons representing those attached files. So far, so normal. However with one click on an always-visible icon the whole mail can be changed to html view, and that affects all the attachments as well as the ordinary body of the mail. So if I send, say, 10 mails at once to the RC system, I need one click to open that mail and just one more click to see all ten of the attachments' html. I read those then when I delete that mail I also delete the safety set that I retained in the corresponding temporary folder back on FM's system.

14 Jun 2022, 08:05 PM	#1
LazyGun Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Dublin, Ireland Posts: 128	Auto-display as HTML based on sender It'd be great if I could tag a list of senders, for whom the email always displays as either HTML or Text depending on what preference I select with Display External images as an ON/OFF option. All others default to whatever is set as the default.

15 Jun 2022, 01:34 AM	#2
BritTim The "e" in e-mail Join Date: May 2003 Location: mostly in Thailand Posts: 3,095	A more flexible way of achieving similar functionality occurs to me. A mail header X-DISPLAY-OPTION could be set to determine how the message will be displayed. This might be set, for instance, by a sieve script or rules based on any conditions you choose. If you wanted it to depend on specific senders, this would be possible. You could also, perhaps, make it depend on simply whether it is from a known sender. Other possible conditions come to mind.

15 Jun 2022, 03:42 PM	#3
JeremyNicoll Essential Contributor Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: Scotland Posts: 492	I asked FM to let us nominate per-folder whether the contents should be viewed as text or html, back in Sept 2020, which is when (I think) they at least gave as a view-as choice in an individual mail's viewer. Of course before that the only choice was in Settings and affected every mail in every folder all the time, which was unbelievably clumsy. At least if we had per-folder choices, one could use normal filtering to route mails to an appropriate folder. Their response was just the standard "I have shared this with our development team. Please note that we're unable to offer any timeline as to if or when this feature could be implemented.". My default viewing mode in FM is "as plain text". For mails I get that really benefit from viewing as html I filter those to a separate folder, then - what a palaver! - every so often I select a set of them, choose "forward as attachment", and send them all (in a single mail) to a different provider's webmail system (), then mark the ones I just sent as "read", then move them to a temporary FM folder where I keep them until I'm sure I've used the other system to view them. The hassle in moving a set of mails like this is less than the hassle of selecting each mail in turn, then clicking Actions - View as HTML. I actually have a set of temporary folders for this, and when I send a set of - say 12 mails - elsewhere I give that mail a subject line like "fwd 12 temp3" and make sure that the temp folder I keep them in is the one I named "temp3". So it's easy later on to make sure that the right specific sets of moved-around mails get deleted. - the different provider uses Roundcube, where I also default to "view as plain text". But when a set of emails sent there (as attachments in a single mail) is opened, it first shows as a plain text mail with a set of icons representing those attached files. So far, so normal. However with one click on an always-visible icon the whole mail can be changed to html view, and that affects all the attachments as well as the ordinary body of the mail. So if I send, say, 10 mails at once to the RC system, I need one click to open that mail and just one more click to see all ten of the attachments' html. I read those then when I delete that mail I also delete the safety set that I retained in the corresponding temporary folder back on FM's system.