Re: [Evolution] IMAP comments

[Jeffrey Stedfast <fejj ximian com>]

I'm going to look at rewriting a bunch of the IMAP code this weekend
(and next weekend and the weekend after that and so on until it's
usable) but my biggest concern right now is that Evolution already
exposes a number of bugs in various imap servers because we use some of
the more advanced features of the imap protocol that most other imap
mail clients don't use. I have a bad feeling that if we try to do stuff
async, we'll catch a lot more imap server bugs and get even more
complaints about not being able to work with server xyz and server zxy
and so on.

That said, the goals of the rewrite should address your concerns (except
the \Recent flag thing... we *could* do it but we'd need to have some
way of showing the difference in the UI and no other gui client makes
the distinction between a \Recent message and a non \Recent message - if
mutt does it, then it's the *only* client that does).

Jeff

On Fri, 2001-12-14 at 15:57, Jules Bean wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just trying evolution for the first time seriously.
>
> It's still not ready to become my default mailer, but it has some
> definite excellent points.
>
> Currently, I store all my mail on a permanently connected machine,
> which I ssh into from both home and work, and use mutt to read my
> mail.  Except for work mail which I leave on the work server, but read 
> using mutt's IMAP support.
>
> So, what is really cool about evolution?  Well, it's really cool that
> I can directly view attachments inline (which is tricky in mutt!).
> It's really cool that I can use my GPG key to decrypt things (which is 
> hard in mutt because I don't trust my gpg key to the permanently
> connected machine, it's only here at home).  vFolders are pretty cool
> too.
>
> Why won't I switch over to it for permanent use?
>
> 1) It doesn't support my personal mail-reading style, which relies on
> the difference between \Recent and 'not \Seen' in IMAP-speak.  mutt
> calls these 'New' and 'Old'.  Basically I distinguish between Unread
> messages I already know about, and unread messages I've never even
> seen (I don't know how mutt handles this, since it isn't using IMAP,
> but evolution could do it using IMAP). I often mark a message unread
> to remind myself to go back to it.
>
> And mutt gives me the super-handy ability to move between folders
> containing unseen (new) messages using the space bar. I have around 25 
> folders for my various mailing lists.
>
> Having watched evo's IMAP-trace, I see that it doesn't even ask for
> the 'Recent' flag.  It would be easy enough to change it's STATUS
> command from 
>
> sending : A00198 STATUS "mail/debian-devel" (UNSEEN)
>
> to STATUS "mail/debian-devel" (UNSEEN RECENT)
>
>
> 2) It's too slow.  My IMAP server is a slow old machine, and my
> mailboxes are big. The STATUS command takes a non-trivial time for any 
> mailbox, and a really long time for the big ones; and evolution won't
> even let me see my folder list until it's run all the STATUSes.
>
> Evolution could improve this solution in two ways.  One is by issuing
> STATUS commands before the last one has come back; IMAP is an
> asynchronous protocol.  You can send of a bunch of status commands and 
> watch them all come shooting back.  (I'm sure this works, I've tested
> it by hand).
>
> Secondly (more importantly), as soon as evolution has downloaded the
> folder list, it should allow me to browse, while it waits for the
> STATUS commands to complete in the background.  Evolution does already 
> do this when you click Send/Receive mail (i.e. run the STATUS commands 
> in the background) but it won't do it in the background on initial
> log-in. This is really annoying: it takes around 90 seconds or more to 
> log on initially.
>
>
> 3) This isn't a recent I wouldn't use evo, but it's a definite
> wishlist: Don't download non-text-plain parts of a multipart message
> until I ask for it.  Possibly an option to set a size threshold above
> which no message part would be download, whatever the mime-type..
> Look at this conversation:
>
> sending : A00307 UID FETCH 4554 BODY
> received: * 1559 FETCH (UID 4554 BODY (("TEXT" "PLAIN" ("CHARSET"
> "iso-8859-1") NIL NIL "QUOTED-PRINTABLE" 5285 135)("IMAGE" "JPEG"
> ("NAME" "=?iso-8859-1?Q?arrivo_troncone_prua_a_genova.jpg?=") NIL
> "JPEG File Interchange" "BASE64" 2690230) "MIXED"))
> received: A00307 OK UID FETCH completed
> sending : A00308 UID FETCH 4554 BODY.PEEK[1.MIME]
> received: * 1559 FETCH (UID 4554 BODY[1.MIME] {93}
> received: )
> received: A00308 OK UID FETCH completed
> sending : A00309 UID FETCH 4554 BODY.PEEK[2.MIME]
> received: * 1559 FETCH (UID 4554 BODY[2.MIME] {265}
> received: )
> received: A00309 OK UID FETCH completed
> sending : A00310 UID FETCH 4554 BODY.PEEK[1]
> received: * 1559 FETCH (UID 4554 BODY[1] {5285}
> received: )
> received: A00310 OK UID FETCH completed
> sending : A00311 UID FETCH 4554 BODY.PEEK[2]
> received: * 1559 FETCH (UID 4554 BODY[2] {2690230}
>
> Aaagh!  No, pleasse don't download a 2.6M JPEG down my poor 112K line
> ;-)  Not until I've really decided I want to see it, anyhow.
>
>
> I don't see any of those three on the wishlist bit of bugzilla, but
> I'm not very confident at using bugzillas. Shall I submit them? Are
> any of them already 'in-hand' for 1.2?
>
> Congratulations on an excellent product,
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jules
>
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-- 
Jeffrey Stedfast
Evolution Hacker - Ximian, Inc.
fejj ximian com  - www.ximian.com