Wiki

TotalQuickFilter for Thunderbird

TotalQuickFilter adds enhanced search functionality in addition to turning the stock quick filter bar into a full toolbar.

Compatibility:

Thunderbird 60 - TotalQuickFilter v4.1

Thunderbird 68 - TotalQuickFilter v5.3

Thunderbird 78 - TotalQuickFilter v6.2

Thunderbird 91 - TotalQuickFilter v6.5.1

Thunderbird 102 - TotalQuickFilter v7.0

Thunderbird 115 - TotalQuickFilter has been discontinued for Thunderbird 115.

Features include:

Cross filter AND searches.
Textfilter OR and NOT term searches: use a pipe | for OR and a hyphen - preceding a term for NOT.
Multiple textfilter selection with AND or OR searches: secondary selected textfilters are preceded by a toggleable + or | button.
Inverted filtering: right click a Filter button to invert (find all NOT Starred, eg).
Additional textfilter buttons: adds searches for To, Cc, and All Addresses (From, To, Cc, or Bcc).
Highlighter: finds all Body terms in the message and can be used to find-in-page (both messages and feed web pages) when no textfilters are active.
Toolbar customization: all buttons and bars are fully moveable/removeable; any other button or item may be added to the QuickFilter Toolbar via the Customize... dialog.
Keyboard support: all buttons and elements contain tabstops, and toggling is performed by <enter>; use ctrl-enter to invert or negate tag/term buttons (like a right click).
Full width: the toolbar is usable with the Vertical layout (and Stacked, available in the MoreLayouts extension).
Bug fixes: over 30 Thunderbird bugs fixed or made obsolete; see below.
Info Button: contains a guide with more details; please read the guide.
Settings are found in: Add-ons Manager Options|Preferences.

New in 3.0:
Quickly filter by Sender or Recipients or Subject: select a message and use the QuickFilter Button menulist.
Quickly filter by email: select a message and use the context button for an email in the headers.
Quickly filter by selected text: select a message and select some text (in headers or the message body). Use the context menu, or shift-A (add selected text to the filter textbox) or shift-R (replace textbox with selected text); the current filter criteria will be used.
Keyinput start search delay: configure it!
Toggle QuickFilterBar: ctrl-shift-K is now a toggle.

New in 6.0:
The QuickFilterBar toolbar now has a more responsive design behavior when sizing for narrow screens and adds an expand button for multiline display of the toolbar.
For email based textfilter searches, the DisplayName value (and easter egg NickName for advanced users) are included in a search if the email is in the Address Book. The preference Show only Display Name for people in my address book must be checked to enable this search capability.

NOTE: The core search function has known bugs and can return false positives. A message may match the search but there will be nothing visible to highlight. Verify this by viewing the source (Ctrl-U); the word may be there. If not, a second type of error selects a message if a match is found in the following message's header.

Comments, Questions, and Bugs:

TotalQuickFilter forum or TotalQuickFilter issues.

Bug fixes in TotalQuickFilter v2.0

Bug 63573 - have a google-like "search engine like" interface for searching mail news
Bug 240454 - Add AND / OR searching to quick search
Bug 349085 - Can't search on negative terms in Thunderbird's Quick Filter box with NOT or minus
Bug 381258 - Quick Search: "Message Body filter" fails for Newsgroups. Body search should be disabled if not offline.
Bug 550832 - Add "Filter for messages involving <contact>" command to email address context menu (message header pane)
Bug 561328 - "Searching..." from status bar doesn't disappear after search (quick filter bar) is completed on a virtual folder (saved search folder)
Bug 570313 - With tags quickfilter on, removing a word filter sometimes makes the secondary filter bar disappear in spite of "tags" matches
Bug 573325 - After using quickfilterbar, status bar wrongly shows "Searching..." forever (should show "X matches found" or "No matches found" instead)
Bug 573496 - secondary quickfilter modification bar: Implement tab stop and/or keyboard accelerators for filter buttons (sender, recipients, subject, body currently inaccessible)
Bug 575313 - Labels on QuickFilter buttons should be togglable
Bug 575355 - Quickfilter toolbar buttons/items should be movable to other toolbars (e.g. main toolbar) via Customize...
Bug 585669 - stretch quickfind bar over message list and preview in vertical view
Bug 586131 - Quickfilter bar has lost OR functionality using | (Pipe character)
Bug 587476 - Allow Quick Filter Bar Customization as a Toolbar
Bug 592248 - Quick Filter Bar is too wide, when in Vertical View --> Search Text Field is very small
Bug 612800 - Not all tags displayed when switch between unread and not on quick filter bar (tag bar doesn't refresh on condition changes)
Bug 616933 - [Quick Filter bar] Toggle quick bar hide text (layout change from text + icons to only icons)
Bug 635622 - Quick Filter bar capability to select on ONLY the one chosen criteria (Shift+Click?)
Bug 672074 - cancel button in the quicksearch bar textbox disappeared
Bug 683809 - Quick Filter: untagged messages
Bug 744365 - Quickfilter: inverse selection (thus inverse filter)
Bug 765637 - Selecting multiple tags in quickfilter/view-button-menu should allow AND-operation [[port/modify from Tb23]]
Bug 784097 - after deleting session.json, previously hidden quickfilterbar is shown, but according to menu state (View > toolbars > qfb) it is not shown (unchecked)
Bug 788084 - Quickfilter: "Filter messages by" selectors should be available before filtering (Sender, Recipients, Subject, Body)

Bug fixes in TotalQuickFilter v3.0

Bug 319540 - Quicksearch from mail (without typing)
Bug 345366 - After using quicksearch filter (e.g. message body), status bar doesn't display "X matches found" any more (number of search results) *matches always shown by textbox
Bug 359684 - Highlight search phrase in "Message body filter" search results
Bug 570339 - Quickfilterbar: when adding body filter after no matches, no-matches-tooltip stays though there are new matches (and "Continue this search across all folders" behaviour, too)
Bug 587478 - More intuitive way to close the Quick Filter Toolbar
Bug 638845 - Message Reader: Implement right-click context menu "(TB-)Quickfilter for [selected text]" (for selected text in message reader or header)
Bug 714340 - hide the words "quick filter" from the quick filter bar when in icon mode
Bug 944942 - Quick Filter Bar search delay should be longer or configurable (premature search on unfinished word takes long in big folders)

Bug fixes in TotalQuickFilter v6.0

Bug 460737 - Quickfilter ignores searches for friendly display names from address book contacts...

Bonus core fix to always persist user set QuickFilterBar state

Bug 894793 - Many open message tabs are gone after a crash or restart of Thunderbird