Re: nnimap subfolder problem

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

Nicolas KOWALSKI <Nicolas.Kowalski@imag.fr> writes:

>> But with nnimap, the directories and files exists on the server, so
>> Gnus has no control of how they are named other than by replacing `.'
>> with `/' in the group name but that would be confusing, I think.
> 
> Confusing ? This is the standard behaviour for nnml and
> nnfolder. The first time is used those (as well as Gnus actually), I
> was confused. But then, I thought this storage using subdirectories
> was the best method.

Right, but there is no generic connection between directories and the
delimiter character used in group names with IMAP.  With the UoW
server `/' is used as the directory delimiter, with Cyrus IMAPD `.'
is used, and other servers may have other delimiters as well.

Also, compare with NNTP, Gnus doesn't do anything about hierarchies
there, it is up to the server to decide what to export.  Nnimap is
more similar to nntp than nnml/nnfolder.

>> I think everything would work fine if you create a group with a dot in
>> its name using another client (I do this all the time).  What problems
>> do you see?
> 
> I agree there are no problems. 
> 
> That just a question of habits and to make nnimap behave more like
> nnml/nnfolder backends. In addition to this, I have never seen some of
> our users use dot-named folders with their IMAP clients ; they always
> prefer to create subfolders hierarchies, as I do (until now,
> perhaps).

But if you used the Cyrus IMAPD server, all your users would be
creating mailboxes containing `.' for hierarchies instead. :-)

My point is, the hierarchy delimiter is not agreed on, and with IMAP
it may even change between each hierarchy (you could e.g. have a
mailbox called foo.bar/baz#boo&apa and each of the characters could be
"real" hierarchy delimiters).

I'm not sure how this could be implemented, suggestions welcome.