Automatically guess Base Identity & SMTP from Virtual Identity

[anonymous]

1. Let someone email you at a virtual email, such as some-guy@….

2. Click that email and press "Reply".

3. Your reply will come up as: "some-guy@…, virtual Id mailbox@…, SMTP otherserver"

I propose that the Virtual Identity extension improves its identity scanning like this:

virtual ID: some-guy@…. Scan for best-matching real "base ID" account that ends in: @yourdomain.com, and select that base ID + the SMTP server associated with that real account.

So, repeating the first test, with this improvement:

1. Let someone email you at a virtual email, such as some-guy@….

2. Click that email and press "Reply".

3. Your reply will come up as: "some-guy@…, virtual Id mailbox@…, SMTP yourdomain"

Why I propose this fix: Because, it is extremely tedious to constantly select + ctrl-C the virtual ID, select the proper base ID/SMTP server, and paste the virtual ID again, just to get it to use the correct outgoing server.

I have to do that for every email I ever receive and it's tedious. With a small change to code to detect "@domain.com" and look for best-matching real base ID server/SMTP, all those worries will be over.

[anonymous]

Damn antispam removed all email domains...

Here I try again with spaces in each example address:

1. Let someone email you at a virtual email, such as some-guy @ yourdomain.com.

2. Click that email and press "Reply".

3. Your reply will come up as: "some-guy @ yourdomain.com, virtual Id mailbox @ otherserver.com, SMTP otherserver"

I propose that the Virtual Identity extension improves its identity scanning like this:

virtual ID: some-guy @ yourdomain.com. Scan for best-matching real "base ID" account that ends in: @ yourdomain.com, and select that base ID + the SMTP server associated with that real account.

So, repeating the first test, with this improvement:

1. Let someone email you at a virtual email, such as some-guy @ yourdomain.com.

2. Click that email and press "Reply".

3. Your reply will come up as: "some-guy @ yourdomain.com, virtual Id mailbox @ yourdomain.com, SMTP yourdomain"

Why I propose this fix: Because, it is extremely tedious to constantly select + ctrl-C the virtual ID, select the proper base ID/SMTP server, and paste the virtual ID again, just to get it to use the correct outgoing server.

I have to do that for every email I ever receive and it's tedious. With a small change to code to detect " @ domain.com" and look for best-matching real base ID server/SMTP, all those worries will be over.

[anonymous]

OP here: I can't keep watching this ticket for replies since I know you are very inactive here. I hope you have enough info to think about this possible feature. It would be pretty simple: Regex to extract the "@ domain.com" from the virtual ID and match it to the closest Base Identity server and select that server + that server's outgoing SMTP server. It would be a very good feature because it's so tedious to keep manually correcting it every time I reply to a message.

Alright Rene, good luck!

[rene]

Hi,

sorry for ignoring your suggestion for soo long.

I think this feature is already implemented. Can't you do the suggested procedure with the filter, which is implemented in virtual identitys storage? Just open the Storage-Window and add any suitable filter in the filter-Tab, set the required id and smtp and it should work.

Please reopen the ticket if this does not work for you.

Nice regards, Rene

[anonymous]

Rene, that was a good idea but unfortunately didn't solve the problem.

And to make sure now that you understand that I've tried everything: I went into every single setting in Virtual Identity, each and every one of them, and toggled them on and off, to fully learn what each does, so I'm now a very advanced Virtual Identity user.

So, onto the results: I went into the Settings-Storage and added filters that match @example.com and were set to use example.com's outgoing SMTP and Base Identity, with "Sender" left blank to auto-fill it.

The results were that it doesn't work reliably. I tried selecting various emails directed at @example.com and hitting reply, and was confronted with various results, like:

Sender: The Name of ANOTHER Base Identity, the topmost/default one (like foo @ otherserver.com) SMTP: Correct Base Identity: Correct

Or:

Sender: Correct SMTP: Correct Base Identity: Correct

etc.

It was not reliable at all.

Anyway this would be a hassle-workaround for something that can be solved in your code like this:

1. Find the Recipient email address (header scanning as usual).
2. Loop through the regular identity-procedure (that you're already doing... looking for stored identities that match this one).
3. If no stored identity was found, now you use a regex:

   /@[^@]+$/
   

   to extract the @example.com domain string.
4. Now loop through EVERY available Base Identity, and use the SAME regex on THOSE (so @server1.com, @server2.com, @example.com - BINGO!).
5. After you find the matching base identity, you select that base identity + its SMTP server.

I think maybe hmm let's say 10 minutes of coding would solve this and make Virtual Identity even more awesome and working perfectly out of the box. :)

[anonymous]

Great idea, huh? ;) Bump.

[rene]

Hi,

thanks for the detailed suggestion, I need some time to think about the issue. Even if I currently have not understood completely what should be done, one important aspect is not to change the current behaviour in a way, that users who like the current schema don't get any new problems with the change.

I will come back to this topic in a few weeks, currently I'm a little busy,

Nice regards, Rene

[rene]

Hi,

finally found the time, feature is implemented with [c55313051d00d36], part of 0.9.18.

Thanks for the suggestion, regards, Rene

[anonymous]

This is working perfectly now. Thank you rene! <3