jeroen clarysse wrote: > thanks for the fast reply ! > > well, my biggest fear here is that my boss (or better : the project > leader... he's not really in charge) is no idea at all about where this > project is going... And the client allready signed the contract, > fortunately (for me (the PHP-programmer)) without a deadline on paper
Those could well be the worst clients; >>> My boss asked me to do some research on an upcoming project which >>> will mainly revolve around a website which serves as a central >>> messaging point among what is best described through an analogy with >>> the publishing world : article authors, article reviewers and journal >>> editors come together on a website on which the editors will send and >>> receive messages to and from authors and reviewers. These messages >>> must be answerable by mail, but also searchable via a web front end >>> which includes a lot more than only messages (for instance it will >>> include article-status or reviewer history, etc etc) >>> my first job is to figure out which backend to use on the server so >>> that we can have a system that nicely archives all messages and can >>> talk via POP/IMAP, but is also smoothly integrated into a bigger >>> content. So here goes the question : is DBMail fit for this ? Or is >>> DBMail not intended as a backend for a web-frontend (what a >>> scentence...) ? Would DBmail be an overkill ? Or perhaps not easy >>> enough to integrate into a website ? It all depends on your exact requirements. You could setup an /archive/ user in dbmail who receives a copy of _all_ mail in and out of the system (always_bcc in postfix). Procmail or sieve filters can be used to map out the messages into special mailboxes. These mailboxes can be queried through imap, you can use straight sql, or you could even use something like htdig if your webfront provides a browseable view of all email. Be generous with diskspace in that case, because your htdig indexes will quickly explode as the message store grows. By giving each editor/reviewer/author their own login into the system you give them straight imap access, but you can also give them all sorts of access to (read-only?) mailboxes like todo lists, assignments, etc through acl setups. -- ________________________________________________________________ Paul Stevens paul at nfg.nl NET FACILITIES GROUP GPG/PGP: 1024D/11F8CD31 The Netherlands________________________________http://www.nfg.nl
