should we be able to edit imap messages?

should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

I'm using dovecot to create a local offline imap setup. I've heard that
imap messages are supposed to be "immutable", but I'm not really sure
what that means in this case.

I'm fooling around with editing messages to add custom headers, only for
local use. I can edit my messages and add the headers, and save the
message again, but I'm not sure what happens when I sync dovecot with
the remote servers. Will this create a new message with a new
Message-ID? If so, I won't bother doing it. But I'm not quite sure how
"immutable" is supposed to play out in this case...

Thanks,
Eric

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:

> I'm using dovecot to create a local offline imap setup. I've heard
> that imap messages are supposed to be "immutable", but I'm not really
> sure what that means in this case.

I'm not sure either, but AFAIK IMAP doesn't allow articles to be
updated, so the only way to edit an article is to save a new article and
delete the old one.

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

>>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:
>
>> I'm using dovecot to create a local offline imap setup. I've heard
>> that imap messages are supposed to be "immutable", but I'm not really
>> sure what that means in this case.
>
> I'm not sure either, but AFAIK IMAP doesn't allow articles to be
> updated, so the only way to edit an article is to save a new article and
> delete the old one.

Thanks! That was the impression I was getting. I'll just leave this
alone then.

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:

> Thanks! That was the impression I was getting. I'll just leave this
> alone then.

Yes, but I think article editing actually works in nnimap.  At least it
has worked at some point in time, because I have done it to re-thread
articles.

However the way it works, is by creating a new article when saving, and
then deleting the old article.

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:

>>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:
>
>> Thanks! That was the impression I was getting. I'll just leave this
>> alone then.
>
> Yes, but I think article editing actually works in nnimap.  At least it
> has worked at some point in time, because I have done it to re-thread
> articles.
>
> However the way it works, is by creating a new article when saving, and
> then deleting the old article.

Yeah, but then when you sync the server thinks it has a new message, and
if you're using other clients elsewhere, they all get the "new" message,
and... it just ends up feeling wrong, I think

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Dan Christensen]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> Yeah, but then when you sync the server thinks it has a new message, and
> if you're using other clients elsewhere, they all get the "new" message,
> and... it just ends up feeling wrong, I think

The new message has all of the appropriate flags, so this has never
been a problem for me.

But the summary buffer usually doesn't update correctly for me, so I
need to exit and reenter the group.

Dan

Re: should we be able to edit imap messages?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 04 May 2014 16:32:10 +0800 Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> wrote: 

EA> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:
>>>>>>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>:
>> 
>>> Thanks! That was the impression I was getting. I'll just leave this
>>> alone then.
>> 
>> Yes, but I think article editing actually works in nnimap.  At least it
>> has worked at some point in time, because I have done it to re-thread
>> articles.
>> 
>> However the way it works, is by creating a new article when saving, and
>> then deleting the old article.

EA> Yeah, but then when you sync the server thinks it has a new message, and
EA> if you're using other clients elsewhere, they all get the "new" message,
EA> and... it just ends up feeling wrong, I think

Well, you can't edit IMAP messages by design, it would break the whole
protocol :) But I think appending the modified version is really quite
reasonable, it's a rare thing.

Ted