Re: OT: IMAP servers that can handle nested maildirs?
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On Thursday, November 30 at 03:19 PM, quoth Sweth Chandramouli:
> does anyone know of an IMAP server that can handle nested maildirs
> of the sort that mutt generates
Of the sort that mutt generates? Mutt doesn't automatically generate
any particular hierarchy at all. It's a one-mailbox-at-a-time mail
reader, and will happily use ANY hierarchy that you tell it to.
> (i.e. where nesting is done via filesystem directories rather than
> creating one huge directory where hierarchy is indicated with a
> separator like "."), so that I can use mutt as my main mail app but
> have the same mail store made available via IMAP to other clients
> when I need to use them (which I sometimes do)?
All you need to do is retrain your fingers away from using / to using
. and you're set. I did this for *years* before I finally went
all-imap-all-the-time.
> Has anyone else come up with a good solution to this?
I'm afraid I don't see the real "problem" here. It sounds like your
"problem" is that you want to be able to access your local folders
like so:
=INBOX/foo/bar
And the major problem is that if you're editing a mailstore that is in
a format many IMAP servers prefer, you're forced to use:
=INBOX.foo.bar
... aside from having to retrain your fingers to do it the second way
rather than the first, I'm afraid I don't see this as a huge problem.
(I used to do exactly this.)
But, if you feel it is simply unacceptable, what you probably want to
do is get an IMAP server that has flexible backend support. For
example, BincIMAP uses "modules" to access it's backend (Binc calls
them "depot styles"), and you can write one that will store your mail
exactly as you like.
You are, however, unlikely to find an IMAP server that does what you
suggest, because Maildirs contain folders already. For example, if I
had an IMAP server that did as you seem to be describing, and I told
it to create the folder INBOX/new - what should it do? It could, of
course, simply refuse, but that wouldn't exactly match up with the
IMAP spec, though that is hardly a serious flaw here. What is probably
worse is that it would make for a support nightmare, because then
you'd have to explain to all your umpteen users (imagine doing this at
the scale of a major university with more than 10,000 accounts)
exactly why they can't name their folders anything they like.
~Kyle
- --
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
-- Bertrand Russell
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