Re: [Nmh-workers] What is MH ? (was: exciting new stuff for 2.0 (IMAP proposal))

[Oliver Kiddle]

Ken Hornstein wrote:

> I have mail stored on an IMAP server.  I think it's perfectly
> reasonable that I should be able to do "scan +IMAP:inbox" (or however
> you want to indicate that a particular folder is on an IMAP server; I

Why not extend that to +mbox:inbox for mbox folders?

Seriously, though, perhaps you could consider extending msh to support
IMAP. At least in msh, users don't expect their scripts to work.

> have no strong feelings on the matter), and I have yet to see anyone
> offer a reason why this is _not_ a "useful objective".  Yeah, an

I don't contend that this wouldn't have it's uses but I would argue that
a user-space filesystem would be far more useful. Typically, the
usefulness of software is a function of the number of interconnections
between components (or features) and not a function of the number of
components. Integrating IMAP breaks with the original concepts behind
MH. And, like Robert, I have many scripts used in conjunction with MH.
Without similar IMAP support in these, MH doing IMAP would be of limited
use to me. If someone is determined to implement it then I don't want to
stop them but don't expect me to be particular enthusiastic.

FUSE may only support Linux but it is a relatively new addition (kernel
2.6.14 or thereabouts). If proved a success and given time, it (or a
similar interface) would make its way into Darwin/Solaris/what have you.
An IMAP filesystem will have wider uses which could mean that non-MH
people may help us with it. We may not care if they add a mount option
to export Maildir format messages but they could also help debug other
areas. And if someone beats us to it, we could take their filesystem and
hack it to support MH.

As a point of interest, kmail uses a kioslave (a KDE specific virtual
filesystem) for accessing mail. I think you can use imap:// URLs in
konqueror to access this.

Oliver


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