mu4e: extend "reply to all/sender only" with "reply to mailing list"

[mbunkus]

At the moment it isn't possible to reply solely to a mailing list with mu4e. I can only reply to all and remove the non-mailing list addresses manually.

This PR adds a third mode: "reply to list". It will use the List-Post header if present; otherwise it'll use the first address in the To header (this is a bit of a heuristic as well as a way to make "reply to list" always do something).

[djcb]

Hmm, I simply use R (and 'sender only') which seems to work fine for all the mailing-lists I'm using. Doesn't that work for you?

[djcb]

Hmm, I simply use R (and 'sender only') which seems to work fine for all the mailing-lists I'm using. Doesn't that work for you?

[mbunkus]

No, it doesn't, at least not for lists who don't set Reply-To to the list's address. Let'stake the IETF's CELLAR list (standard mailman). From is the original sender's address (not the mailing list address), To is the mailing list address, Reply-To isn't set, List-Post is set. In that case:

• "sender only" uses what's in From, meaning the person who sent the mail
• "all" uses the original From (the person) as the new To and the original To (the list address) becomes the new Cc requiring me to remove the new To and move the new Cc to the new To.

I don't have a list around that sets Reply-To to the list's address in order to test how that works. I really want an option that implements "definitely send to the list, no matter who else is copied and no matter how the list is configured" as this minimizes the mental work I have to do. I don't have to think about "does this list set Reply-To and would I therefore get away with 'reply to sender'", and I don't have to use "reply to all" with the additional manual steps of removing the additional person addresses and moving the list address from Cc to To.

I've been using these functions for well over a year now. I just thought others might be happy to have such functionality as it was requested over on Reddit.

[mbunkus]

No, it doesn't, at least not for lists who don't set Reply-To to the list's address. Let'stake the IETF's CELLAR list (standard mailman). From is the original sender's address (not the mailing list address), To is the mailing list address, Reply-To isn't set, List-Post is set. In that case:

• "sender only" uses what's in From, meaning the person who sent the mail
• "all" uses the original From (the person) as the new To and the original To (the list address) becomes the new Cc requiring me to remove the new To and move the new Cc to the new To.

I don't have a list around that sets Reply-To to the list's address in order to test how that works. I really want an option that implements "definitely send to the list, no matter who else is copied and no matter how the list is configured" as this minimizes the mental work I have to do. I don't have to think about "does this list set Reply-To and would I therefore get away with 'reply to sender'", and I don't have to use "reply to all" with the additional manual steps of removing the additional person addresses and moving the list address from Cc to To.

I've been using these functions for well over a year now. I just thought others might be happy to have such functionality as it was requested over on Reddit.

[djcb]

I think the it would be better to set reply-to to the mailing-list address then, for such messages. The patch seems to do some manual re-parsing in mu4e-draft; that's not really something I want to do.

[djcb]

I think the it would be better to set reply-to to the mailing-list address then, for such messages. The patch seems to do some manual re-parsing in mu4e-draft; that's not really something I want to do.

[mbunkus]

I think the it would be better to set reply-to to the mailing-list address then, for such messages.

Uhm, the Reply-To header is not under my control as a recipient of the mailing list message. This function is about enabling the user to do whatever she thinks fits best no matter how other people have configured their software (mailing list software, email client).

The patch seems to do some manual re-parsing in mu4e-draft; that's not really something I want to do.

Fair enough. The only reason I did that is that there didn't seem to be any other way to get the List-Post header as it isn't part of the origmsg structure. If you have a better idea how to pass the header around, I can look into implementing it.

Look, I won't be offended if you don't want to incorporate such a function. It's just something that a lot of other power-user mail clients (mutt, Thunderbird, kmail) have had for ages and that some people really expect to be there.

[mbunkus]

I think the it would be better to set reply-to to the mailing-list address then, for such messages.

Uhm, the Reply-To header is not under my control as a recipient of the mailing list message. This function is about enabling the user to do whatever she thinks fits best no matter how other people have configured their software (mailing list software, email client).

The patch seems to do some manual re-parsing in mu4e-draft; that's not really something I want to do.

Fair enough. The only reason I did that is that there didn't seem to be any other way to get the List-Post header as it isn't part of the origmsg structure. If you have a better idea how to pass the header around, I can look into implementing it.

Look, I won't be offended if you don't want to incorporate such a function. It's just something that a lot of other power-user mail clients (mutt, Thunderbird, kmail) have had for ages and that some people really expect to be there.

[djcb]

What I meant is that perhaps mu should set the reply-to flag to the mailing-list address for such messages; then mu4e would DTRT in a more cases.

[djcb]

What I meant is that perhaps mu should set the reply-to flag to the mailing-list address for such messages; then mu4e would DTRT in a more cases.

[djcb]

Do you have an example message that's not handled correctly at the moment?

[djcb]

Do you have an example message that's not handled correctly at the moment?

[mbunkus]

Do you have an example message that's not handled correctly at the moment?

Sure, here you go.

With that message reply to "all" puts Steve Lhomms address into To and the list's address into Cc. With reply to "sender only" it puts Steve's address intoToand nothing intoCc. What I often want is to only reply to the list (lists's address inTo, nothing inCc`), and current mu4e simply doesn't offer a way to do that safe for replying to "all" and manually fixing the headers — which is annoying and error-prone.

[mbunkus]

Do you have an example message that's not handled correctly at the moment?

Sure, here you go.

With that message reply to "all" puts Steve Lhomms address into To and the list's address into Cc. With reply to "sender only" it puts Steve's address intoToand nothing intoCc. What I often want is to only reply to the list (lists's address inTo, nothing inCc`), and current mu4e simply doesn't offer a way to do that safe for replying to "all" and manually fixing the headers — which is annoying and error-prone.