[Zope] KnotMail, Portal Toolkit, WebDAV --Best Collaboration

[Michel Pelletier]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert O'Connor [mailto:bob@rocnet.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 1999 12:13 PM
> To: zope@zope.org
> Subject: [Zope] KnotMail, Portal Toolkit, WebDAV --Best Collaboration
> 

> Hopefully there are plans to "Walk the walk" with the Portal
> Toolkit for the Zope community.  By this I mean, Subscribers
> to this mail list (and others) should be able to "Become a Member...
> by visiting  a Zope portal home page..."
> 
> What are the best ways to collaborate?
> Currently we have 3 zope mail lists that are also mirrored
> on the web based http://www.egroups.com/list/zope/
> 
> Can the ZOPE community benefit from actually using
> the Portal Toolkit for our collaboration here?
> 

This is to be seen.  We really hope so.

> ***---
> 
> So far, I prefer mail lists because I can organize them into
> folders and search using my EMail Client.  I see a benefit
> and occasionally use the web based egroups copy when 
> I'm not at my primary computer.
> 
> It looks like the product KnotMail, shown as part of the
> Portal toolkit could perform many if not all the functionality
> of my e-mail client but be on THE server so I can access
> it anywhere with any browser. 
> 
> *Are there specs for KnotMail?

KnotMail is a stateless (ok, there's a bit of connection caching that
could be called 'state'), thin IMAP client.
  
>  -Can mail automatically be routed to specific folders?

If your IMAP server can be configured to do this, then yes.  There is no
interface in KnotMail to do it, however.  Mail transport issues are not
dealt with.  I guess this could be kludged by having Knotmail sniff the
inbox anytime it's select()ed and do various imap move() calls to
shuffle it around, this would probably add a noticeable overhead to
clicking on your inbox.

>  -Can mail messages be moved, copied or flagged?

Yep.  This is part of the IMAP spec.  Although what 'flagging' means is
(client) implimentation specific.

>  -Can full text searches be performed on mail (subject & 
>    body) and limited by date?

Yep.  The speed/ability of this is implimentation dependant.  Cyrus does
it well, wu_imap does it fairly well, god knows what Exchange does, but
it works.

>  -Can I maintain a ".mailproto" file so I can
>      BOUNCE From SpamKing@aol.com
>      DISCARD From sales@competitor.com
>      FORWARD To . bob@rocnet.com

I don't think this is addressed in the IMAP spec.  If it's not in the
IMAP RFC (I believe it's RFC2060) then KnotMail doesn't do it.  This is,
once again, a transport issue.

> 
> Currently I can flag messages of interest.  What about
> multiple flags, what about viewing messages in threaded
> order?  

IMAP messages can be arbitrarily 'flagged' with either permenant or
session specific flags.  I have not delved into this much, other than
using some of the convienient flags, like \Seen and \Answered.  There
are others though, and you can make your own, see section 2.3.2 and
6.4.6 of the RFC.

IMAP servers do not thread, it is up to the client to present a 'view'
of the data.  This includes threading.  I have not tackled that beast in
KnotMail yet.

> 
> What about mail list messages that remain on the server

In IMAP, everything remains on the server.  The client does not store
messages (other than perhaps to cache them, either way, the server is
authoritative)

> that allow me to mark my personal view of messages
> into various categories:  (Example:)
> 1)Total Trash -- I never want to see it again or any
>         future messages from ___
> 2) Total Trash --  I never want to see it again
> 2) Keep in distant archive
> 3) Keep - reference
> 3) Keep - Interesting
> 4) Important - Keep in current folder
> 

I guess this could be done with specific flags.

> ***---
> Some Mail could evolve into a slashdot.org type format such
> as  Story and Comments.  I really like the way that comments
> are moderated and promoted and demoted on a scale
> -1,0,1,2,3,4,5  Then, a user can set a threshold so that only
> the "best" messages (just 4's and 5's for example) are viewed.
> 

This can be certainly done with the PTK framework.  It would require
only implimentation.

> ***---
> WebDav has been discussed but this seems to have a place
> when collaborating on documentation but not for general discussion.
> (I admit to knowing little about WebDav and would love to see
> a working example)
> 

It will find it's niche, it's still an infant protocol.

-Michel