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smari edited this page Sep 23, 2014 · 8 revisions

Technical documentation

Tags are a central concept in Mailpile's design. Tagging of messages is used in various ways to denote status, context, importance, display properties and many other things.

Some tags are "user visible", others are used internally by the app.

Tags may be assigned to messages manually by the user, automatically by Mailpile internals or via Filters.

Setting tag attributes

You can set tag attributes through the command line using 'set', if you know the tag's tid value: set tags.tid.field = value.

Tag metadata

Tag metadata falls into a couple of categories. Some pertains to how the app treats the tag internally, other metadata describes to the user interface how and where it should display the tag (if at all).

Display metadata

Field Values Default Description
display priority, tag, subtag, archive, invisible tag Display context in UI
display_order float 0 The order of tags in a list
icon "" The icon to display with this tag
label true, false true Whether the tag has a label
label_color color "" Color the tag in a particular way
name string "" A name for the tag
parent b36int Parent tag tid
slug string "" A URL-friendly version of the name (unique)
url url "" The URL to access the tag through

Internal technical metadata

Field Values Default Description
flag_hides true, false false Hide tagged messages from searches?
flag_editable true, false false Mark tagged messages as editable?
search_terms string "in:%(slug)s" The search query to perform to populate the tag
search_order string "" Default search order
template string "index" Default tag display template
tid b36int auto Automatically generated unique identifier for the tag
type tag, group, attribute, unread, drafts, blank, outbox, sent, replied, fwded, tagged, read, ham, trash, spam tag Tag type

Note: Generally, these technical metadata should be ignored by the user-interface, aside from code which is directly manipulating them (e.g. a "Tag settings" page), as they are for internal use by the Mailpile back-end and are likely to change as the app develops.

type

Valid values: tag, folder, group, attribute, unread, drafts, trash, spam, ham

The type field explains the role of the tag. The most basic and default type is 'tag', with other types having other roles.

  • tag: Non-exclusive identifier. A message can have multiple 'tag'-type tags simultaneously.
  • folder: Exclusive identifier. A message can not exist in two 'folder'-type tags simultaneously.
  • group: Used to delineate a social group, based on senders and recipients.
  • attribute: An internally meaningful behavioral characteristic that applies to the messages.
  • unread: An attribute suggesting that a message is unread.
  • drafts: An attribute suggesting that a message is a draft.
  • trash: A non-exclusive identifier of messages to be discarded.
  • spam: Junk messages.
  • ham: Explicitly non-junk messages.

display

Valid values: priority, tag, subtag, archive, invisible

  • priority: Of high relevance to the user
  • tag: A normal tag (default)
  • subtag: A tag with a parent, for treelike displays.
  • archive: An archive, used to store older messages but not intended to display generally.
  • invisible: A tag that never displays.

display_order

icon

label

label_color

name

parent

slug

stats

There are three statistics on each tag, all automatically generated.

  • all: The number of messages with this tag.
  • new: The number of messages with this tag that are also tagged as unread.
  • not: The number of messages in the pile that do not have this tag.

tid

url

search_terms

search_order

flag_hides

flag_editable

template

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