Re: [Evolution] Undesired IMAP account

[Matthew Barnes <mbarnes redhat com>]

On Mon, 2012-07-23 at 09:24 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> Making delete-account elaborate would be optimizing a rare operation,
> IMHO.  How often do users create / delete mail accounts? Hopefully that
> is very uncommon.   GNOME-Online-Accounts specifically automates that,
> so if you use GOA there isn't much need at all to define custom accounts
> [except that GOA, itself, may not be very easily extensible;  it appears
> the only way to implement/publish a service is GOA is by writing C...]

GNOME Online Accounts is also an opt-in service for any application that
wants to participate.  So I always assume, for example, Thunderbird will
soon have a GOA add-on.

Imagine having Evolution and Thunderbird open side by side, each with an
identical account linked to the same GOA account, and each programmed to
react instantly to changes broadcast from the GOA service.  If I were to
delete the GOA-linked account through Evolution, would I be surprised to
see the account also vanish from Thunderbird?

I think such behavior could be extremely alarming if you're not aware of
the inter-application linkage behind the scenes.  Therefore, I disallow
deleting GOA-linked accounts through Evolution, and defer to the Online
Accounts panel in System Settings.  Seeing a mail account vanish from
multiple apps when deleting through the Online Accounts panel is less
surprising.

I have talked to Debarshi Ray (GOA maintainer) about providing a way for
applications to open System Settings to a particular panel and item.  If
and when such a mechanism is provided, I'll add an "Open Online Account"
button to Evolution to be shown when a GOA-linked account is selected.

Matthew Barnes