TODO: Add some ideas about better search syntax

[notmuch] / TODO

diff --git a/TODO b/TODO
index 8783ebb61be9a6f42a7407a5690e6c8edaff683c..23585c80d18ff84266f638417549f545dc175ef0 100644 (file)
--- a/TODO
+++ b/TODO
@@ -4,33 +4,19 @@ Fix the things that are causing the most pain to new users
 
 2. Allow an easy way to get tags from directory names (if the user has them)
 
 
 2. Allow an easy way to get tags from directory names (if the user has them)
 

-3. Allow an easy way to remove excess tags, (date-based search)
-
-4. Make emacs fast for big search results (see "lazy searching" below)
-
-5. Fix Xapian defect #250 so tagging is fast.
-

 Emacs interface (notmuch.el)
 ----------------------------
 Emacs interface (notmuch.el)
 ----------------------------

-Make the keybindings help ('?') display the summary of each command's
-documentation, not the function name.
+Enhance '+' and '-' in the search view to operate on an entire region
+if set.
+
+Fix '*' to work by simply calling '+' or '-' on a region consisting of
+the entire buffer.

 
 Add a global keybinding table for notmuch, and then view-specific
 tables that add to it.
 
 Add a global keybinding table for notmuch, and then view-specific
 tables that add to it.

-
-Add a command to archive all threads in a search view.
-
-Lazy searching: call "notmuch search" with --first and --max to fill
-just a screenful of results, and then fill in more as ther user pages
-through the buffer.
-
+       

 Add a '|' binding from the search view.
 
 Add a '|' binding from the search view.
 

-Add a binding to run a search from notmuch-show-mode.
-
-When a thread has been entirely read, start out by closing all
-messages except those that matched the search terms.
-

 Add support for choosing from one of the user's configured email
 addresses for the From line.
 
 Add support for choosing from one of the user's configured email
 addresses for the From line.
 


@@ -45,14 +31,57 @@ Add support to "mute" a thread (add a "muted" tag and then don't
 display threads in searches by default where any message of the thread
 has the "muted" tag).
 
 display threads in searches by default where any message of the thread
 has the "muted" tag).
 

+Fix i-search to open up invisible citations as necessary.
+
+Make '=' count from the end rather than from the beginning if more
+than half-way through the buffer.
+
+Fix to automatically wrap long headers (for RFC compliance) before
+sending. This should probably just be fixed in message-mode itself,
+(but perhaps we can have a notmuch-message-mode that layers this on
+top).
+
+Implement Fcc and use it for all messages, (whether a new composition,
+a reply, or a forward). This again may require a notmuch-message-mode
+that extends message-mode.
+
+Emacs saved-search interface
+----------------------------
+Here's a proposal Carl wrote (id:87einafy4u.fsf@yoom.home.cworth.org):
+
+  So what I'm imagining for the default notmuch view is something like
+  this:
+
+          Welcome to notmuch.
+
+              Notmuch search: _________________________________________
+
+          Saved searches:
+
+              55,342      All messages
+                  22      Inbox
+
+          Recent searches:
+
+                   1      from:"someone special" and tag:unread
+                  34      tag:notmuch and tag:todo
+
+          Click (or press Enter) on any search to see the results.
+          Right-click (or press Space) on any recent search to save it.
+
+  So the "saved searches" portion of the view is basically just what
+  notmuch-folder displays now. Above that there's an obvious place to
+  start a new search, (in a slightly more "web-browser-like" way than the
+  typical mini-buffer approach).
+
+  All recent searches appear in the list at the bottom automatically, and
+  there's the documented mechanism for saving a search, (giving it a name
+  and having it appear above).
+

 Portability
 -----------
 Fix configure script to test each compiler warning we want to use.
 
 Portability
 -----------
 Fix configure script to test each compiler warning we want to use.
 

-Implement strndup locally (or call talloc_strndup instead).
-
-Implement getline locally, (look at gnulib).
-

 Completion
 ----------
 Fix bash completion to complete multiple search options (both --first
 Completion
 ----------
 Fix bash completion to complete multiple search options (both --first


@@ -61,14 +90,27 @@ and *then* --max-threads), and also complete value for --sort=
 
 notmuch command-line tool
 -------------------------
 
 notmuch command-line tool
 -------------------------

+Fix the --format=json option to not imply --entire-thread.
+
+Implement "notmuch search --exclude-threads=<search-terms>" to allow
+for excluding muted threads, (and any other negative, thread-based
+filtering that the user wants to do).
+
+Fix "notmuch show" so that the UI doesn't fail to show a thread that
+is visible in a search buffer, but happens to no longer match the
+current search. (Perhaps add a --matching=<secondary-search-terms>
+option (or similar) to "notmuch show".) For now, this is being worked
+around in the emacs interface by noticing that "notmuch show" returns
+nothing and re-rerunning the command without the extra arguments.
+

 Teach "notmuch search" to return many different kinds of results. Some
 ideas:
 
 Teach "notmuch search" to return many different kinds of results. Some
 ideas:
 

-       notmuch search --for threads    # Default if no --for is given
-       notmuch search --for messages
-       notmuch search --for tags
-       notmuch search --for addresses
-       notmuch search --for terms
+       notmuch search --output=threads # Default if no --output is given
+       notmuch search --output=messages
+       notmuch search --output=tags
+       notmuch search --output=addresses
+       notmuch search --output=terms

 
 Add a "--format" option to "notmuch search", (something printf-like
 for selecting what gets printed).
 
 Add a "--format" option to "notmuch search", (something printf-like
 for selecting what gets printed).


@@ -76,41 +118,56 @@ for selecting what gets printed).
 Add a "--count-only" (or so?) option to "notmuch search" for returning
 the count of search results.
 
 Add a "--count-only" (or so?) option to "notmuch search" for returning
 the count of search results.
 

-Give "notmuch restore" some progress indicator. Until we get the
-Xapian bugs fixed that are making this operation slow, we really need
-to let the user know that things are still moving.
+Give "notmuch restore" some progress indicator.
+
+Fix "notmuch restore" to operate in a single pass much like "notmuch
+dump" does, rather than doing N searches into the database, each
+matching 1/N messages.

 
 Add a "-f <filename>" option to select an alternate configuration
 file.
 
 
 Add a "-f <filename>" option to select an alternate configuration
 file.
 

-Fix notmuch.c to call add_timestamp/get_timestamp with path names
-relative to the database path. (Otherwise, moving the database to a
-new directory will result in notmuch creating new timestamp documents
-and leaving stale ones behind.)
+Allow configuration for filename patterns that should be ignored when
+indexing.

 
 

-Ensure that "notmuch new" is sane if its first, giant indexing session
-gets interrupted, (that is, ensure that any results indexed so far are
-flushed).
+Replace the "notmuch part --part=id" command with "notmuch show
+--part=id", (David Edmonson wants to rewrite some of "notmuch show" to
+provide more MIME-structure information in its output first).

 
 

-Fix notmuch.c to use a DIR prefix for directory timestamps, (the idea
-being that it can then add other non-directory timestamps such as for
-noting how far back in the past mail has been indexed, and whether it
-needs to re-tag messages based on a theoretical "auto-tags"
-configuration file).
+Replace the "notmuch search-tags" command with "notmuch search
+--output=tags".

 
 

-Make "notmuch new" notice when a mail directory has gone more than a
-month without receiving new mail and use that to trigger the printing
-of the note that the user might want to mark the directory read-only.
+Fix to avoid this ugly message:

 
 

-Also make "notmuch new" optionally able to just mark those month-old
-directories read-only on its own. (Could conflict with low-volume
-lists such as announce lists if they are setup to deliver to their own
-maildirs.)
+       (process:17197): gmime-CRITICAL **: g_mime_message_get_mime_part: assertion `GMIME_IS_MESSAGE (message)' failed
+       Warning: Not indexing empty mime part.
+
+  This probably means adding a test case to generate that message,
+  filing an upstream bug against GMime, and then silencing the
+  notmuch-generated portion of the warning (so that once GMime is
+  fixed, this is all silent).
+
+Simplify notmuch-reply to simply print the headers (we have the
+original values) rather than calling GMime (which encodes) and adding
+the confusing gmime-filter-headers.c code (which decodes).

 
 notmuch library
 ---------------
 
 notmuch library
 ---------------

-Add support for files that are moved or deleted (which obviously need
-to be handled differently).
+Add an interface to accept a "key" and a byte stream, rather than a
+filename.
+
+Provide a sane syntax for date ranges. First, we don't want to require
+both endpoints to be specified. For example it would be nice to be
+able to say things like "since:2009-01-1" or "until:2009-01-1" and
+have the other endpoint be implicit. Second we'd like to support
+relative specifications of time such as "since:'2 months ago'". To do
+any of this we're probably going to need to break down an write our
+own parser for the query string rather than using Xapian's QueryParser
+class.
+
+Make failure to read a file (such as a permissions problem) a warning
+rather than an error (should be similar to the existing warning for a
+non-mail file).

 
 Actually compile and install a libnotmuch shared library.
 
 
 Actually compile and install a libnotmuch shared library.
 


@@ -118,19 +175,102 @@ Fix to use the *last* Message-ID header if multiple such headers are
 encountered, (I noticed this is one thing that kept me from seeing the
 same message-ID values as sup).
 
 encountered, (I noticed this is one thing that kept me from seeing the
 same message-ID values as sup).
 

-Add support for the user to specify custom headers to be indexed.
-

 Add support for configuring "virtual tags" which are a tuple of
 (tag-name, search-specification). The database is responsible for
 ensuring that the virtual tag is always consistent.
 
 Add support for configuring "virtual tags" which are a tuple of
 (tag-name, search-specification). The database is responsible for
 ensuring that the virtual tag is always consistent.
 

-General
--------
-Audit everything for dealing with out-of-memory (and drop xutil.c).
+Indicate to the user if two files with the same message ID have
+content that is actually different in some interesting way. Perhaps
+notmuch initially sees all changes as interesting, and quickly learns
+from the user which changes are not interesting (such as the very
+common mailing-list footer).
+
+Fix notmuch_query_count_messages to share code with
+notmuch_query_search_messages rather than duplicating code. (And
+consider renaming it as well.)
+
+Provide a mechanism for doing automatic address completion based on
+notmuch searches. Here was one proposal made in IRC:
+
+       <cworth> I guess all it would really have to be would be a way
+                to configure a series of searches to try in turn,
+                (presenting ambiguities at a given single level, and
+                advancing to the next level only if one level
+                returned no matches).
+       <cworth> So then I might have a series that looks like this:
+       <cworth> notmuch search --output=address_from tag:address_book_alias
+       <cworth> notmuch search --output=address_to tag:sent
+       <cworth> notmuch search --output=address_from
+       <cworth> I think I might like that quite a bit.
+       <cworth> And then we have a story for an address book for
+                non-emacs users.
+
+Provide a ~me Xapian synonym for all of the user's configured email
+addresses.
+
+Search syntax
+-------------
+Implement support for "tag:*" to expand to all tags.
+
+Fix "notmuch search to:" to be less confusing. Many users expect this
+to search for all messages with a To: header, but it instead searches
+for all messages with the word "to". If we don't provide the first
+behavior, perhaps we should exit on an error when a configured prefix
+is provided with no value?
+
+Support "*" in all cases and not just as a special case. That is, "* "
+should also work, as well as "* and tag:inbox".
+
+Implement a syntax for requesting set-theoertic operations on results
+of multiple searches. For example, I would like to do:
+
+       "tag:inbox" SET-SUBTRACT "tag:muted"
+
+    as well as:

 
 

-Write a test suite.
+       "tag:notmuch and <date-range>" SET-INTERSECT
+       "tag:notmuch and not (tag:merged or tag:postponed)"
+
+    See id:3wdpr282yz2.fsf@testarossa.amd.com for more details on the
+    use cases of the above.
+
+Database changes
+----------------
+Store a reference term for every message-id that appears in
+References. We just started doing this for newly-added documents, but
+at the next convenient database-schema upgrade, we should go back and
+fix old messages to be consistent.
+
+Start indexing the List-Id header, (and re-index this header for
+existing messages at the next database upgrade).
+
+Start indexing the message file's directory ana make it available for
+search as "folder:" (and re-index this value for existing messages at
+the next database upgrade).
+
+Add support for the user to specify custom headers to be indexed (and
+re-index these for existing messages at the next database upgrade).
+
+Test suite
+----------
+Start testing --format=json.

 
 Achieve 100% test coverage with the test suite.
 
 
 Achieve 100% test coverage with the test suite.
 

+Modularize test suite (to be able to run individual tests).
+
+Summarize test results at the end.
+
+Fix the insane quoting nightmare of the test suite, (and once we do
+that we can actually test the implicit-phrase search feature such as
+"notmuch search 'body search (phrase)'"
+
+Test "notmuch reply" choosing the correct email address from the
+Received header when no configured email address appears in To or Cc.
+
+General
+-------
+Audit everything for dealing with out-of-memory (and drop xutil.c).
+

 Investigate why the notmuch database is slightly larger than the sup
 database for the same corpus of email.
 Investigate why the notmuch database is slightly larger than the sup
 database for the same corpus of email.