How do you organize your gmail account with IMAP?

I recently switched to Mac from Windows, and I'm also planning to switch to gmail and drop hotmail.

However, in hotmail I had everything organized in folders and had filters set up to automatically organize incoming mail into the proper folders. Even when I viewed my hotmail through outlook.

However after reading around the gmail website, it claims they use labels and not folders. But if i create a label it doesn't appear as a folder in the leopard Mail program.

So my question is, how should I go about organizing my gmail so when I view it on Leopards mail program, all incoming mail is sorted into folders to keep my mail organized like i did on hotmail?

Thank you in advance for any advice that may assist me with this.

I know what you're asking (I think). I had the same folder/organizational withdrawal when I switched from outlook to gmail and mac mail.

What I did, and I'm not certain this will be enough for you or not; is to simply create a bunch of smart mailboxes in mac mail...

how will that affect my mail considering im using Imap?

See when i viewed hotmail in outlook, all my hotmail folders appeared there and all my mail was organized via hotmail before I even viewed it in outlook.

Considering gmail has no folders, i'm not sure how to organize my mail. If i decide to use the mail app to organize my mail... what impact will that have on my mail in gmail since i'm using Imap?

Sorry if what i said sounds confusing, but im confused as well as to how the mail app will handle folder organizing while using imap with gmail..lol