"W. Blevins" <wblevins@NOMORESWENmchsi.com> wrote in message news:35hnnv4lpqgk75ndovfe4p7dkdb7t4fnkl@4ax.com...
The "delete from server" rule doesn't neccessarily have to be
the first rule as far as I know. You can make a rule to not
process any further rules for mail lists or whatever you want
to "whitelist". The only problems with the "delete from server"
and "do not download" types of actions are that you must
not use criteria which requires the download (because by then
it is too late to take the action) and you must not continue along
to yet another rule which requires downloading because it will
do so. If you have rules to "not download", "delete from server"
"download and check body for criteria for further rules" the
program will do things in an order of priority that may not make
much sense to humans, but makes perfect sense to the computer.

1) "Do not download" criteria is met (set flag for do not download action)
2) "Delete from server" criteria is met (set flag for delete from server action)
3) Downloaded body meets criteria for "Highlight with color" (set flag for
highlighting with color action.
4) Ran out of rules to apply, or was told not to apply more rules.
5) Process actions according to set flags.
a) Do not download action taken
b) Delete action taken
c) Highlight action taken
6) Next message (back to start of ruleset)

This, of course, depends on the algorithm used by the
filter program, but you can see why something might
not work as a person might think it does. The above
filter does nothing but highlight according to the criteria
set, as far as the user is concerned, But the computer
has done as it was instructed.