Re: Time for partial download of nnimap messages again?

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

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

> Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:
>
>> What Simon didn't like about this, IIRC, was that you changed the
>> message from the original.
>
> 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.)
> 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?

Depends on how general you want to make it, but I think even achieving
the same amount of functionality would be more difficult.  Having a
more detailed analysis on what needs to be done is probably useful,
like the one I did for Steinar's idea, or preferrably even more
detailed.