On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 00:41:15 +0200 Holger Mauermann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
ok, let us begin ;-)
The Subject: should be set to the vCard FN type.
I doubt there is any doubt...
IMHO it is better to use From: for the primary mail address, because it is more compatible with mail software which doesn't support this type of address book. Most of them show only subject, from and date in the message list.
They are required to show the "To" field [instead of From:] if they are displaying the "Sent" folder.
While I do see your point, storing E-mail in the To: field gives you a change to store SEVERAL addresses in the header.
It is easy to write a new message - you only need to "Reply" to an address book entry.
If you really want to support those mail-only clients this way, be prepared to receive quite a few messages with:
Subject: Re: Holger Mauermann
And if there is no From: header at all, it is not a valid RFC 822 message. So I think the From: should be set to the first EMAIL;INTERNET[;PREF] type.
You are free to store anything in the From: field if you really want to get a "valid" message (I doubt that RFC822 should be followed too closely here, as we currenly talk about the mail STORAGE only, so RFC822 format is the only requirement, not the existance of certain header fields). While Calendar messages can be viewed as "messages to be", Contacts definitely have nothing in common with E-mails as things being transferred via mail transfer agents.
Again, I have nothing against storing that data in the "From:" field, but you won't be able to store several addresses if you choose to do so.
I see that CommuniGate Pro only stores the vCard in the message. But it could be more helpful if there is also a human readable part with the contact information, no matter if it's plain text or a nice coloured HTML table.
Lotus Notes does that. Do you really think it's needed? If I want to store contacts and other things, I want groupware capabilities. And if I want groupware capabilities, I need a groupware client - or, at least, a client that supports vCard.
> A much more important task - IMHO - is to create an RFC about storing > "Contact Group" information. Old-time players as Lotus and Microsoft did >not > address this issue at all, so there is no even a de-facto standard. We >use some vCard-like format for Groups
What about adding a References: header to the group members? Then you may even use the IMAP THREAD extension to display the groups ;-)
This won't solve all existing problems - groups can include Contact items in other mailboxes. Of course, the References: header can be "extended" to include the name of the mailbox the original contact is stored in... Then we will still have a problem with moving data between mailboxes: I can move a contact that my group is referring to, or I can move the group "message" itself. Of course, we can just say that "yes. this will break the group", but all these things should be discussed first, and only if no better solution is found, the simple "do not do it, otherwise it will be broken" approach should be taken.
Note that even if a Group includes a reference to some Contact, it still should include the E-mail (and the Real Name) from that Contact - so if the link with the original Contact item is broken, it's still possible to E-mail to all group members. On the other hand, if I broke the link (being unaware of this fact), and then changed the Email address in the Contact element, mailing to the Group will send my message to the old E-mail address - w/o me knowing about that.
Holger
Sincerely, Vladimir
