Extensions, and other information

Plug Ins

Extensions to CronosII

Note

This written for the final release of the original Cronos II. i.e. CronosII-0.2.2-mr2.

Users ofi386 binary packages (DEB's and RPM's) should not need to manually install any of the plugins. The standard tarball release should also install the plugins for you.

Included with the MR2 / Eclipse release of CronosII are four Plugins. These are:

  1. Sample

  2. Fortune

  3. Filters

  4. NoHtml

Installing

Note

A normal "./configure --prefix=/usr && make && make install" should now install the plugins. The binaries are, perhaps a little unusually, held as copies in the top source directory. This is a work around (that works) however they do need to be in that location to install correctly.

Try
cp -r plugins/*/*.so ./
From the top level directory if they are not.

The source code and installation instructions for the Plugins are included in the MR2 tar ball. Code for Fortune and Filters is also kept separately at the Cronos II home site.

The simplest way to install the Plugins is to copy the pre-built binaries to the //install-path/share/cronosII/plugins/directory on your system. Otherwise you will have to obtain the CronosII-0.2.1 version header files and build the binaries your self from source. (See the source code for the latest instructions).

Filters

This Plug in brings basic mailbox filtering to CronosII. Currently it supports moving and copying mail to different top-level mail boxes. Sorting is achieved through the use of string matching in mail headers and/or body. Support for wild-cards is enabled and this makes configuration reasonably simple. All you need do is find some unique combination of characters for any mail source to have it sorted to your preferred mailbox.

Loading and Configuring Filters Support

To load the Filters Plugin navigate to "load":
Settings ==> Preferences ==> Plugins ==> Load. 
The dialog will open at the default install path. Select Filters.so and Click OK.

Next select
 "Cronos II Message Filters" and click on "Configure".
A dialog titled Cronos II Message Filters opens. As this is our first filter rule
 select "New".
A Tabbed Dialog opens titled: New Filter.

The first page contains entry fields to build a rule. The second page, "Actions" tells Cronos II what to do with the mail once a match has been found.

Example 1. A simple example

By way of explanation, lets set up a simple example filter:

Select the "Match Rules" Tab.

In the top field ("Filter Name") enter a name for the rule. e.g. Test1

In the description field enter a description for this rule. e.g. Just a basic test. This finds my own mail to myself.

Now, enter a string you want to filter with.
 e.g. *your-own-email-address*.

Note

You are advised to use wild cards (*) to find the string within a mail header or body. The string must match exactly or be allowed to not match some parts of the section being looked through.

Next select which part of the Email you want to filter with. e.g. From:. Then ADD it to the list. The rule will be written to the display area below.

Now leaving the same string in place choose "TO" and add that to the list as well.

Now just because this is an example select
 "Match Any Rules".
This radio button essentially allows you to filter by ALL these rules (and) or filter by ANY of these rules (or).

Next select The "Action" tab. Here for example we could select to send the filtered Email to Drafts, Garbage, "My-Mailbox" or any other mailboxes we have configured.

The filter will now find any mail with "your-email-address" in the TO: or FROM: fields of the mail header.

Currently you may only move messages to those present on the pop-out list. Any top level mailboxes you add will appear on this list

OK, so we have made a filtering rule and given the application some action to take when it finds a mail that matches the rule.
 Click OK to exit the "New Rule" dialog, then "Exit" "Cronos II Message Filters"
(this writes the rule to your CronosII configure directory). Finally select
 "Apply" and "OK"
and go ahead and test it.

To test it mail something to yourself and see if it ends up in the correct place. :) With just a little practice and thought you will be able to do all sorts of things with your mail. Don't forget, wild-cards make for a much simpler experience.

NoHtml

Availability

If you would like to get the "Stand Alone" Plugins or find out how to write your own, visit the Cronos Website < http://cronosii.sourceforge.net/ > and follow the links to Manuals and Plugin. A HTML how-to is included in the Source Tarball, look under the Plugin directory.The full source for all the above plugins is included in the tar releases and in the CVS tree.