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SpamBayes Configuration

Most SpamBayes configuration options are managed via the SpamBayes Manager, available from the SpamBayes toolbar. While this dialog allows you to configure standard options, there are a number of other (typically advanced or experimental) options that can be set manually.

WARNING: Please read the following before going any further:

If you have any further questions, please post them to the SpamBayes mailing list.

Quick links

Configuration overview

Editing the configuration files

Available options

Simple example - Outlook

Simple example - SpamBayes

Configuration overview

The Outlook plug-in uses two sets of configurations - one contains option values specific to the Outlook plug-in, and the other contains option values that are also used by other SpamBayes applications. It is important that you edit the correct file - if you place option values in the wrong file, they will have no effect.

All options from all configuration files are "merged". This means that any file can set any option. If multiple configuration files specify the same option, the value from the file last loaded is used. When SpamBayes writes its configuration during normal processing, the entire merged set of options is written. The end result of this means that next time SpamBayes is run, the earlier configuration files will have no effect, as the last one loaded (the main config file written by SpamBayes) will have all values already.

Outlook configuration files

The Outlook plug-in looks for configuration files as follows:

  1. A file named default_configuration.ini in the bin directory in the directory you installed SpamBayes into (by default C:\Program Files\SpamBayes). By default, no such configuration file will exist.
  2. A file named default_configuration.ini in a SpamBayes directory in the Windows Application Data directory (e.g. with Windows XP this is \Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\SpamBayes). By default, no such configuration file will exist. This is the default SpamBayes data directory.
  3. A file named {outlook-profile-name}.ini in the data directory. Using the name of the Outlook profile means that SpamBayes will work in a multi-profile environment.

General SpamBayes configuration files

The Outlook plug-in looks for configuration files as follows:

  1. A file named default_bayes_customize.ini in the bin directory in the directory you installed SpamBayes into (by default C:\Program Files\SpamBayes).
  2. A file named default_bayes_customize.ini in a SpamBayes directory in the Windows Application Data directory (e.g. with Windows XP this is \Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\SpamBayes). By default, no such configuration file will exist.
  3. A file named {outlook-profile-name}_bayes_customize.ini in the data directory. Using the name of the Outlook profile means that SpamBayes will work in a multi-profile environment. By default, no such configuration file will exist.

Editing the configuration files

The configuration files are plain text files, and can be edited in any text editor (such as Notepad). The format for both the Outlook-specific configuration files and the general SpamBayes configuration files is the same; only the available options differ.

A configuration file has a number of sections, and each section contains a number of named values. For example:

[Filter]
enabled:True
save_spam_info:False

Note that section, option, and (usually) values are all case-sensitive. In other words, General is not the same as general.

This assigns the value True to an option named enabled, and the value False to an option named save_spam_info, both in a section named Filter.

If you want to set an option in a section that doesn't exist in your file, just add a line with the section header above the option name. Likewise, if you want to set an option in a file that doesn't exist (e.g. default_configuration.ini), you will have to create the file. Notepad, or any other text editor, can be used to create and edit .ini files.

A configuration file pre-filled with all default values (for Outlook-specific or general SpamBayes) can be used as a starting point if you would find that easier.

Available options

You can see a list of Outlook-specific options, or a list of general SpamBayes options that can be manually set in this release.

Simple example - Outlook

A simple example to move your >data directory to a new location: C:\New Folder.

  1. Close Outlook, so that any changes made will be effective.
  2. Look in the table above and see that the applicable option is called data_directory, it is in the General section.
  3. This option needs to be set before the configuration file in the data directory is loaded (otherwise it is obviously too late), so it can be put in C:\Program Files\SpamBayes\bin\default_configuration.ini or in the default data directory location. This example will use the former.
  4. By default this file will not exist, so use Notepad to create it.
  5. The file only has two lines, like this:
  6. [General]
    data_directory: C:\New Folder

    (If more options were being set, the file would be longer.)

  7. Name the file default_configuration.ini and save it in C:\Program Files\SpamBayes\bin.

  8. Open Outlook.
  9. To check that the new data directory is being used, click the Show Data Folder button on the Advanced tab of the main SpamBayes Manager dialog. This should open the new data directory (C:\New Folder, here).

Simple example - SpamBayes

A simple example to enable the "Use Bigrams" option.

  1. Close Outlook, so that any changes made will be effective.
  2. Look in the table above and see that the applicable option is called use_bigrams, it is in the Classifier section.
  3. This option can be in any configuration file. This example will use the default_bayes_customize.ini file in the data directory.
  4. By default this file will not exist, so use Notepad to create it.
  5. The file only has two lines, like this:
  6. [Classifier]
    use_bigrams: True

    (If more options were being set, the file would be longer.)

  7. Name the file default_bayes_customize.ini and save it in the SpamBayes data directory.

  8. Open Outlook.
  9. This option recommends retraining after enabling it, so do so via the Training tab of the SpamBayes Manager.