Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
At 09:32 AM 12/15/00 -0300, you wrote: Jeremy Howard wrote: IMHO, the best open source WebMail servers are PHP based I have this dangling idea of building a TWIG lookalike (in Perl), with a 'plug-in'/'module' structure, so I may write the email client, and others fill with their desired modules. Anyway, it's a seriuos undertaking, but it's in my plans to rip as much code and design choices from stable OS webmails as possible. I test drove the WebMail server, and, ... it was nice! What I had in mind was a simple stand-alone (with a robust email server API: POP IMAP, NEWS) Apache mod_perl email module, that would allow authorization, read, compose, send, forward, and delete. I don't think it would need to read attachments, but being able to save and attach files would be useful. A simple directory interface would also be useful but not hard requirement. An eligant simple interface would cover about 90% of most needs. Having it simple and easy to install is key.
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri Dec 15 11:28:03 2000 -0800 brian moseley wrote: On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? It's a pretty powerful system and it was designed for mod_perl. Look it up on CPAN. it's an option, but it's got a large amount of dependencies, which makes it a tremendous effort for me to install on my system. for instance: 'On the frontend, install PostgreSQL. You may be able to use another SQL database, but (1) it must support transactions (this rules out MySQL unless someone rewrites Wing::Login in a way which doesn't require transactions). This rewriting doesn't take much effort, I have done it for one company. You will need much more effort adding other things to make it full-featured web-mail system. Installing postgres doesn't take much effort either. It even compiles well on systems that mysql will not because of older libraries. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
Jeremy Howard wrote: IMHO, the best open source WebMail servers are PHP based true, I am using and patching TWIG quite a lot, and that made me see how messy PHP gets when dealing with libraries and things. It's not nice to see a large app written in PHP... at least not this one. I have this dangling idea of building a TWIG lookalike (in Perl), with a 'plug-in'/'module' structure, so I may write the email client, and others fill with their desired modules. Anyway, it's a seriuos undertaking, but it's in my plans to rip as much code and design choices from stable OS webmails as possible. It's just a way to soak up all my holidays in perl code ... martin
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, martin langhoff wrote: I have this dangling idea of building a TWIG lookalike (in Perl), with a 'plug-in'/'module' structure, so I may write the email client, and others fill with their desired modules. Anyway, it's a seriuos undertaking, but it's in my plans to rip as much code and design choices from stable OS webmails as possible. (speaking as the author of a proprietary mod_perl webmail...) DO IT!! twig's the best thing out there and it's highly functional but aesthetically atrocious. i use it but i wish there was a good mod_perl alternative. i'm not terribly interested in hacking php. i don't know if i could legally help write code or not. might not be an issue at all, dunno. but i can certainly give advice.
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
brian moseley wrote: (speaking as the author of a proprietary mod_perl webmail...) DO IT!! my fear is that writing it as a mod_perl app, it'd be terribly niche, and we wouldn't get it rolling. I'd rather write a bunch of modules, that can be called from a CGI or a templating system. Then those modules can be reused on other apps. Plus, we should be writing that is pure-CGI compatible -- y'know, we won't be needing any actual mod_perl hooks, and CGI-compat means is more usable under other configs, and keeps you honest. martin
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, martin langhoff wrote: brian moseley wrote: (speaking as the author of a proprietary mod_perl webmail...) DO IT!! my fear is that writing it as a mod_perl app, it'd be terribly niche, and we wouldn't get it rolling. I'd rather write a bunch of modules, that can be called from a CGI or a templating system. Then those modules can be reused on other apps. you'd be silly if you didn't layer your application this way. Plus, we should be writing that is pure-CGI compatible -- y'know, we won't be needing any actual mod_perl hooks, and CGI-compat means is more usable under other configs, and keeps you honest. up to you. if i was doing it i'd be using ao and mason :)
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, martin langhoff wrote: I have this dangling idea of building a TWIG lookalike (in Perl), with a 'plug-in'/'module' structure, so I may write the email client, and others fill with their desired modules. Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? It's a pretty powerful system and it was designed for mod_perl. Look it up on CPAN. - Perrin
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
martin langhoff wrote: brian moseley wrote: (speaking as the author of a proprietary mod_perl webmail...) DO IT!! my fear is that writing it as a mod_perl app, it'd be terribly niche, and we wouldn't get it rolling. I'd rather write a bunch of modules, that can be called from a CGI or a templating system. Then those modules can be reused on other apps. Plus, we should be writing that is pure-CGI compatible -- y'know, we won't be needing any actual mod_perl hooks, and CGI-compat means is more usable under other configs, and keeps you honest. martin i might suggest looking at my fave email module Mail::Sender http://search.cpan.org/doc/JENDA/Mail-Sender-0.7.04/Sender.pm for more info if this could be modperl comptible i think this would be a good thing btw: i have used this with HTML::Template before!
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? It's a pretty powerful system and it was designed for mod_perl. Look it up on CPAN. it's an option, but it's got a large amount of dependencies, which makes it a tremendous effort for me to install on my system. for instance: 'On the frontend, install PostgreSQL. You may be able to use another SQL database, but (1) it must support transactions (this rules out MySQL unless someone rewrites Wing::Login in a way which doesn't require transactions). (2) it must support using ident lookups for authentication (or else you will have to tweak the DBI connection setup).' all in all, it's a somewhat daunting task. on the other hand, you've got me itching to give it a shot :)
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri Dec 15 11:28:03 2000 -0800 brian moseley wrote: On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? It's a pretty powerful system and it was designed for mod_perl. Look it up on CPAN. it's an option, but it's got a large amount of dependencies, which makes it a tremendous effort for me to install on my system. for instance: 'On the frontend, install PostgreSQL. You may be able to use another SQL database, but (1) it must support transactions (this rules out MySQL unless someone rewrites Wing::Login in a way which doesn't require transactions). This rewriting doesn't take much effort, I have done it for one company. You will need much more effort adding other things to make it full-featured web-mail system. -- ☻ Ričardas Čepas ☺ ~~ ~
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
At 11:28 15/12/2000 -0800, brian moseley wrote: On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? It's a pretty powerful system and it was designed for mod_perl. Look it up on CPAN. it's an option, but it's got a large amount of dependencies, which makes it a tremendous effort for me to install on my system. for instance: 'On the frontend, install PostgreSQL. You may be able to use another SQL database, but (1) it must support transactions (this rules out MySQL unless someone rewrites Wing::Login in a way which doesn't require transactions). Without looking at the code, that probably shouldn't be too hard. Otoh 1) MySQL now has some support for transactions and 2) if you really want this to be used widely it should probably factor out all db code and hide it under and API so that people could use it with whatever backend they see fit (rdbms or not). on the other hand, you've got me itching to give it a shot Wing has been widely tested in the field iirc, it's probably a good idea to base anything in that domain on it. -- robin b. Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you don't think, right?" -- Dr. Who
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? I've seen TWIG and its *very* clever, if ugly. It'll let you authenticate against a lot of things. Use IMAP or POP. Use News. Use mysql, Postgres, MySQL, or none. Use cookies or encoded links for state. It's *very* flexible, and I've come to like that a lot. That's why I'd like to base most of my design choices on it. martin
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Robin Berjon wrote: Wing has been widely tested in the field iirc, it's probably a good idea to base anything in that domain on it. possibly. groupware applications aren't that complex really, tho (except for calendaring and scheduling); the main problem is that they're *large* when they become featureful, and in some ways it feels like a waste to build a new one just cos "i want to do it my way". i'd really like to see an app with a much more outlook-ish interface than twig. and i don't think wing has all of the pim functionality that twig has. can't say if wing is a good starting point for that or not.
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, martin langhoff wrote: Perrin Harkins wrote: Is there a reason you don't want to just hack on WING? I've seen TWIG and its *very* clever, if ugly. It'll let you authenticate against a lot of things. Use IMAP or POP. Use News. Use mysql, Postgres, MySQL, or none. Use cookies or encoded links for state. It's *very* flexible, and I've come to like that a lot. That's why I'd like to base most of my design choices on it. yup.
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
At 12:23 15/12/2000 -0800, brian moseley wrote: On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Robin Berjon wrote: Wing has been widely tested in the field iirc, it's probably a good idea to base anything in that domain on it. possibly. groupware applications aren't that complex really, tho (except for calendaring and scheduling); the main problem is that they're *large* when they become featureful, and in some ways it feels like a waste to build a new one just cos "i want to do it my way". I agree, groupware is usually fairly easy modulo that you still have to write a lot of easy code. It would be a waste to start from scratch. Patching Wing could be an option. i'd really like to see an app with a much more outlook-ish interface than twig. and i don't think wing has all of the pim functionality that twig has. can't say if wing is a good starting point for that or not. I don't like outlook but as you said earlier the code should be handled in some place and the display elsewhere. I don't know twig but if a horrible interface is what plagues it, then it wasn't written that way. Ideally one would have an API for the mail logic (-list_mailboxes($user), -list_messages($user, $mailboxes), $message-content($msg_id), etc...) and the display would be totally separate. if the existing modules don't allow for such things, then a rewrite would be needed. But that doesn't exclude cannibalising code where it makes sense to :) -- robin b. Being schizophrenic is better than living alone.
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
Hi - Original Message - From: "George Sanderson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 22:47 Subject: RFC: Email (mod_perl) Apache module? The module would allow the users to read and send email. Now that would be advocacy;-) No, that would be spam. -- \js
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
Leon Brocard wrote: Jeremy Howard sent the following bits through the ether: IMHO, the best open source WebMail servers are PHP based: In Perl, there's also WING: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mbeattie/wing/ and my oh-my-god-it's-still-in-development-and-I'm-still-breaking- the-CVS-version-and-it-still-doesn't-have-the-features-I-want-it-to: http://astray.com/acmemail/devel/ I've heard of WING, but the information at that URL is really scarce, and missing things like screenshots and/or a demo version to give you a good idea of what it does. There are a lot of webmail systems out there... but I haven't seen any that have all the features that we needed. So, instead of trying them out, I just picked one that looked easy to extended and started adding the features that I needed. I've taken the stable version of acmemail, and hacked in what we needed: S/MIME encryption/decryption/verifiying, nested IMAP folders using MH, the ability to add/rename/delete folders, our own look, some user configurability (block sigs, poll times, icon/label prefs, etc, so far). I didn't realize that there was a devel version of acmemail in CVS, or I would have hacked on that instead. However, I'm hoping that my changes can get into CVS eventually, as CVS has message threading, better session stuff, theme support, and other stuff. As for scalability... the only problem I've seen, is when users open up a folder that is really big (20MB), and the load on the IMAP server goes up. Hopefully that problem will be gone when the server is replaced with a Dual PIII-800, loads of RAM, and multiple SCSI drives in Raid 5, instead of the Celeron 500 with a single IDE drive that it is right now. -- Regards, Wim Kerkhoff, Software Engineer Merilus Technologies, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: Email (mod_perl) Apache module?
George Sanderson wrote: I think it would be cool to have an email Apache module. I was thinking that if the URL was something like: http://www.site.com/user/mail it would activate the module. The module would allow the users to read and send email. Kind of like how I did Apache::FileMan (an Apache web site file manager). This would allow sites to get email interfaces up and running very quickly and provide a common user interface. Now that would be advocacy;-) IMHO, the best open source WebMail servers are PHP based: http://twig.screwdriver.net/about.php3 http://www.horde.org/imp There is a Perl based WebMail server at: http://www.webbasedemail.com/ although I haven't tried it.
