I was thinking about where on the scale from "none-at-all" to "full-
blown" Chandler should be when it comes to our email implementation.
It would take one heck of a Chandler email client to make me stop
using the application I use now. If we have an incomplete
implementation that tries to be an email client, then I'll probably
end up dealing with email in two places (in Chandler and in my other
email app) which I'm not sure is optimal. If we want to instead
embrace existing clients and figure out how Chandler can interoperate
with them, one possibility would be to embed an IMAP server inside
Chandler. People could then stick with their favorite email client,
connected to their usual IMAP server and *also* connect to the
Chandler IMAP server running on their local machine. What does this
enable:
1) A way to get items into Chandler: We could use IMAP folders being
served from Chandler itself as a mechanism to create Chandler items.
Say an email comes in and I want to make a task out of it -- just
drag the message into a Tasks folder in the Chandler account (all
within my email app's UI) and Chandler automatically generates a Task
Item in the repository containing the body of that email.
Attachments would be extracted an converted to items, etc.
2) A way to get items from Chandler to email client: Items within
Chandler could appear as emails within the Chandler IMAP folders.
They could then also be forwarded to other people just like any other
email message, using your mail client. The Chandler IMAP folders
could be 'virtual', meaning you could create a folder named OSAF, and
all Chandler items which have the OSAF tag would automatically appear
there. Or there could be folders per collection, etc.
3) A way to generate/send email messages from Chandler: I believe it
would be easy to have Chandler trigger a mail client to open up a
message-authoring window, complete with To: and Subject: (and maybe
the body too?) pre-populated, ready for the user to edit/send. Or an
alternative would be for Chandler to directly create an email message
in the local Chandler Drafts folder, ready for the user to edit/send.
Chandler would also continue to have (internal) IMAP/POP/SMTP client
support:
4) Simple emails such as sharing invitations don't really require a
full blown email client UI, and thus could be sent using something
akin to the current detail view, not using an external client.
5) Chandler could monitor the user's real IMAP/POP inbox, watching
for special emails that are Chandler specific (like sharing
invitations) and processing them.
My understanding is that Twisted has server-side IMAP support
already, so we wouldn't be starting from scratch. This is something
I might tinker with...
~morgen
P.S. There are other scenarios like having Chandler actually be an
IMAP proxy between your email client and your IMAP server... another
possiblity.
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