[Spambayes] Outlook Plug-in: Buttons in message window

[Seth Goodman]

Bob Coe wrote on  06:33 -0600:

> > From: Mark Hammond [mailto:mhammond at skippinet.com.au]
> > Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 8:09 PM
> > To: python-spambayes.5.flick at xoxy.net; spambayes at python.org
> > Subject: RE: [Spambayes] Outlook Plug-in: Buttons in message window
> >
> > > I would like to see the "Delete as spam" button in the
> > > message reading window, not just in the message index window.
> > > Sometimes I have to open a message in order to determine
> > > whether or not it's valid. Currently I then have to shut it,
> > > go back to the index and tag it there. Would be great to do
> > > it in fewer steps.
> >
> > Yeah - that is a good idea - but I am reluctant to take this
> > step until I can make the existing toolbar buttons reliable.
> > We are getting way too many bug reports about the toolbars.
> >
> > Mark.
>
> Is it time yet?  ;^)

While on the subject of toolbar buttons, I would find it very useful to
display the spam and not-spam buttons all the time, instead of a
context-sensitive subset.  This causes a problem for my use of Spambayes
with Outlook as I train on more than just unsures, but not everything.
That is, I set my ham threshold high enough that it classifies more ham
correctly, but I will still train on some of the higher-scoring ham.
Ditto for the spam, though this is less important.

The obvious question for those who may use Spambayes as I do is, "why
not just set the ham and spam thresholds tighter and have those messages
go into unsure, where you can then train on them?"  The answer is that
most of what goes to unsure is spam, and I look there infrequently
enough that I am annoyed when I find an important message in there.  By
raising the ham threshold, virtually no ham winds up in unsure, yet the
highest scoring ham is still a candidate for training.  Since the
not-spam button isn't visible in the inbox, I have to first move the
message to unsure in order to train on it, which is not only a bother,
but it messes up the statistics.

Displaying the not-spam button in the inbox and the spam button in the
spam folder basically means making the buttons not context-sensitive at
all.  I realize that many people like it the way it is, so it would
ideally be an option in the training toolbar with the present method as
default.  It could be a single option that let's you choose "display
spam, not-spam buttons only where needed" or "display spam, not-spam
buttons in all folders".

--
Seth Goodman