Re: [Evolution-hackers] Difficulty of storing flags on IMAP server

[Ross Boylan <ross biostat ucsf edu>]

On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 18:29 +0200, Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 09:18 -0700, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > I believe that some of the flags associated with messages (e.g.,
> > follow-up) are stored by the evolution client, rather than kept on the
> > server.  For at least some IMAP servers it should be possible to define
> > custom flags on the server and use them.
> > 
> > This would be very useful to me, since I'm accessing the mail from
> > different locations.  Any idea how big a job this would be to add?  I
> > might do it, if it's easy.
> > 
> > BTW, is anyone planning on working on the problem that messages flagged
> > initially flagged as "follow-up" and later flagged as "completed" still
> > show up when you filter by "follow-up"?
> > 
> 
> Search for CAMEL_MESSAGE_INFO_USER_FLAGS and uses of mi->user_flags in
> Camel (better search for "->user_flags" as that mi part is sometimes
> called info and sometimes with a bunch of casting around it called mi).
> 
> In camel-imap-folder.c you can take an example from functions like
> flags_to_label. I guess you'll need to convert your user_flags to custom
> IMAP flags somehow. Not sure how easy that is. 
I guess there's one way to find out:)

I suppose, broadly, that there are 2 approaches.  One would be to mirror
the IMAP flags and the local flags; that would isolate the places that
need to change.  The other would be to integrate the knowledge that the
flags were in the server more fully into the application. It looks as if
some message status information is already obtained from the server
(e.g., flagged as important; seen; replied to) for IMAP, so maybe
extending that wouldn't be too hard.
> 
> You can also add new tags (user_tags), which is similar to how
> user_flags work in Camel. It looks like those are already stored
> remotely. I think tags define the colour of the rows in your summary
> view (Important, Personal, Work, etc etc).
> 
> You'll have to write ui pieces for this too, in Evolution, of course.
Why do I need to add a ui?  I'm thinking the user experience would be
the same; it all happens behind the scenes.

Thanks for the info.

-- 
Ross Boylan                                      wk:  (415) 514-8146
185 Berry St #5700                               ross biostat ucsf edu
Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics           fax: (415) 514-8150
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94107-1739                     hm:  (415) 550-1062