[Edbrowse-dev] imap

[Karl Dahlke <eklhad@comcast.net>]

Adam raises a legitimate concern about "feature creep",
edbrowse trying to do too much.
I can see this point, but I also think edbrowse power is partly in its breadth.
Before I implemented odbc, some people would have thought that was
beyond the scope of what edbrowse should do.
And yet I have found it so helpful in my work
to be able to edit a database table the way I edit a file.
Similarly for managing a directory,
rename a file with a substitute command.
It is the same interface for many tasks.
When bringing up an email I can go to a hyperlink
within the email, the way explorer and outlook merge together
in a seamless whole.
I can also cut&paste things to and from emails as I formulate a reply.

The fact that people ask for imap suggests to me that they want
this unified experience to extend to imap, and quite honestly I probably
would too if I ever used or needed imap, if I ever had lots of email
to deal with, which I don't.

In fact you can see I moved in that direction from the outset, with my filters,
which automatically save certain emails to certain files based on subject
or sender etc.
What chris referred to in his imap settings,
a folder with all emails from me, can almost be done in edbrowse today with

fromfilter {
Karl Dahlke > kd-mail
}

My option to extend and continue this strategy is not ideal,
as chris points out, because the folders and arrangements of emails
are not on the server, and not seen in a consistent way from
all machines and devices.
That doesn't impact me because I only look at my mail from one computer,
but I know my friends at work had this concern as they viewed mail
from cell phones and many such devices, so I get it.

I guess I need to look at the imap support that is offered by curl,
since we already have curl in our product.
I would hope to present a similar email interface to the user,
close to what we have today,
but with more commands like switching folders (imap folders on the server),
or a list of all folders, etc,
and perhaps a way to reply to an email without necessarily having a copy
of it on your computer.

Karl Dahlke