History. Maildir was introduced by qmail to avoid reliability problems with the mbox format (particularly when used on NFS); it was introduced in a gentler time when most people were content with a single homogenous mailbox.Henry Baragar wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 17:26:00 -0600, Daniel Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I now understand this after reading through the maildir++ specification. This leads me to make two suggestions. If possible it would be great if the documentation that is shipped with binc specifically spells out that if you plan on having Mozilla Thunderbird as a supported client then you better change your bincimap.conf file from Maildir++ to IMAPdir.
If anything, I think that the documentation shipped with Binc should point specifically to http://lifewithbincimap.org/index.php/Main/IMAPClientsWithBinc when discussing IMAP clients. I don't think that the Andy should be responsible for maintaining accurate information for all IMAP clients. That task is better done by the user community, particularly the ones that are using a particular IMAP client in a production environment.
This seems like a good idea.
Second, I suggest this page (http://www.bincimap.org/bincimap-imapdir.html)specifically mention that root level directories are not allowed formaildir++ mail depots.Maybe, but maybe not... since this might be irrelavent to the end user (see below) and since Maildir++ is somebody else's creation (see http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/README.maildirquota.html)
I guess that depends on your definition of end user. For binc I see the end user being the system administrator who sets up binc. If the system administrator runs into trouble I think the first place they are going to turn to is this mailing list. So I was making the suggestion in the hopes that the system administrator could find the answer without having to consult this mailing list and take up other people's time.
I'm curious why Maildir++ is the default in the configuration file if it is someone else's creation and IMAPdir is a creation of the bincimap project effort. Either way, I was just making suggestions and with your instructions below I have the answer I was looking for.
Then the world change: email usage exploded and IMAP was introduced. Maildir++ was introduced to handle IMAP folders without requiring users to migrate their existing Maildir's to a new format; that is, existing mail delivery instructions still worked without clutterting up the user's directories.
Then along came Binc which introduced IMAPdir, which has a much nicer design (in my humble opinion) than Maildir++. Now what should be the default Binc configuration? If Binc was only being installed on systems that have never had an email system, then IMAPdir is the answer. What about if there already was an email system delivering mail to Maildir's (or Maildir++)? If IMAPdir is the default, then new installations hav to run Maildir++2IMAPdir.sh or Maildir2IMAPdir.pl to convert the Maildir's to IMAPdir's. If the Maildir++2IMAPdir.sh was run, then the administrators need to make sure that all the mail delivery instructions in all the different places (like all the .qmail* files) have been migrated as well. If the Maildir++2IMAPdir.pl was run, then users see both an IMAPdir directory as well as a Maildir directory (that has links back into the IMAPdir directory); that is, extra clutter. If Maldir++ is the default, then the administraton does not have to migrate anything.
So, that is why Maildir++ is the default.
Besides using IMAPdir, there two ways to address this in Thunderbird:
1. In "Account Settings", in "Server Settings" click the "Advanced button".
On the "IMAP" tab set the "IMAP Sever Directory" to "INBOX/". Now,
Thunderbird has no problems creating the "Trash" folder and all the
other folders appear as siblings of "INBOX".
1. In "Account Settings", in "Server Settings", set the "When I delete a
message" to "Remove it immediately"; if this is too drastic, then
change the setting to "Mark it as deleted" and the trashed emails will
be permanently deleted the next time you command Thunderbird to do so.
Note that I am only using Thunderbird 0.4 in my lab, but I don't think that these things have changed since.
Regards, Henry
Well your instructions show I was completely wrong. This is exactly what I was looking for. I've added these instructions to the life with bincimap wiki. If anyone would like to polish what I've added, the specific page can be found at: http://lifewithbincimap.org/index.php/Main/ThunderbirdFolderSetup.
Two things:
1. Do either of 1. or 1. :-) not both: they are mutualy exclusive.
2. The introduction of the NAMESPACE verb in v1.3 should eliminate
this particular problem.Henry :-)
Thanks!
Dan
-- Henry Baragar Instantiated Software Inc. http://www.instantiated.ca
