It is, however, just the thing for any user who, say, follows and archives a dozen or more e-mail lists and tires of keeping track of, and archiving, a dozen or more distinct files or subdirectories. Search criteria can be saved as virtual folders. For message searching, Pronto uses a unique type of virtual folder, which allows any search criteria can be saved as if it defined an ordinary virtual folder. This folder is updated whenever messages are added to the database. Up to two criteria, plus a full text search term, are allowed for each search.
Searches can be one-time affairs, or saved as virtual folders.
The main Pronto window shown in Figure 1 illustrates the use of message age to define a virtual search folder that holds all newly downloaded mail. Whenever an e-mail account is polled for new messages this folder is updated. The author's extensive use of two such MUAs suggests this is a prejudice, more speculative than empirical. Also, it is likely that messages stored in SQL tables are at least as secure as those in typical Unix spool files, if not more so, and they are certainly more secure than messages stored in any of the myriad idiosyncratic databases that many authors of GUI e-mail packages seem compelled to invent. These authors often guarantee that a crash of the e-mailer sends the message base to the Transporter Room, which forwards it to the Cosmic Byte Bucket.