Re: downloading attachments on demand

["Ted Zlatanov" <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On 18 Apr 2006, jas@extundo.com wrote:

> "Ted Zlatanov" <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:
>
>> On 18 Apr 2006, jas@extundo.com wrote:
>>
>>> Alternatively, as I believe I have proposed before, we could add a
>>> new backend interface to allow Gnus to query the MIME structure of
>>> articles, and then only request partial articles, and handle the
>>> Gnus cache coherency stuff in Gnus instead of in some
>>> nnimap-specific command.
>>
>> Can we combine this work with the flags work we discussed a while ago
>> (arbitrary flags/tags)?
>
> I don't see much connection, actually.  How would you combine these
> two things?

I don't mean they are directly connected, but that they both require a
rethinking of the backend API.  If they both require it, it's better
to do a major change like that just once.

>> It would probably be easier to do a major backend addition like that
>> in one effort instead of twice.
>
> Adding a backend interface isn't that difficult.

I mean the backend API.  It should change to allow body structure
queries and arbitrary tags.  I don't think in its current form it can
do either easily, but perhaps I'm wrong.

>> It may also be worthwhile to look at the entire nn* backend system and
>> how it's implemented in each backend.  I'm sure there are lessons to
>> be learned and code that could be rewritten for better performance or
>> reliability.
>
> Yup.

This, too, could require significant changes...  So I would suggest
combining all that work in one project instead of spreading the pain
and knowledge over several projects.

Ted