Re: Time for partial download of nnimap messages again?

[Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no>]

>>>>> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann):

> What about generality?  Your suggestion works for nnimap, but WIBNI
> there was a scheme that could be made to work generally?  Something
> like an augmented backend interface.  Some backends could support a
> function to retrieve the MIME structure of a message.  (Like a TOC,
> also similar to what C-d does on a message.  But a datastructure.)

Btw the C-d result is a good fit to what you get from IMAP.

> Then additional functions should be added to retrieve certain parts
> of a message.

> Then Gnus would look whether the backend supports the new functions.
> If so, it would ask for the TOC and retrieve all text/* (or whatever)
> parts, or all small parts, or all inline parts, or something, and
> replaces the other ones with a button.

> Would this be more difficult to do?

I don't know.  My initial proposal should be possible to do with a
handler for the MIME type message/external-body, and changes to the
nnimap backend.  What do the lisp gurus say?  What's the preferred
approach?

There seems to be quite a bit of conservativism wrt. changing the
backend interface.

_If_ there is to be a backend change I would like it to go hand in
hand with other changes, like making the backend interface
asynchronous.