begin quoting Lan Barnes as of Mon, Feb 21, 2005 at 04:47:20PM -0800: > On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 02:14:01PM -0800, Stewart Stremler wrote: [snip] > > You're thinking of a standalone application? > > Yeah. Sort of. Anyway, something independent enough that it could be > used with other MUAs.
Worthy goal. [snip] > > True... if I go and re-arrange mail, I don't want to have that > > break the database. "Whoops, ~/Mail/KPLUG/12345678 isn't there, > > I don't care if you moved it to ~/Mail/2004/KPLUG/12345678!" > > What, then, is the algorithm? We need something in the data base that > points to the mail so you can find it quickly. How we gonna do that? > Does it have to be dynamic and rewrite itself when mail gets moved > around? How does it know when mail is deleted? Well, use Message-IDs to identify the message. Have some logic that trawls through an archive directory or directories to locate contents of said message. Then start caching where such a message was "last seen", and when; the user can then have a ready mechanism to "purge" the database of stale information, or not, if they archive everything off on to CDs once a year or so. > Maybe this would have to be specific to one MUA in order to be intimate > enough to know when those operations are taking place. Make it work with MailDir & MBox to start... An MUA that doesn't support or use one or the other isn't interested in playing nice with anyone else *anyway*, and so removes itself from consideration. [snip] > > Not that I know of, but I'm just as interested as you are... > > I'm just spitballing ... you're helping. A nobler application, helping. I'm reacting. Give me a statement, and I wonder if it's false; give me a problem, and I'll ponder how to solve it. [snip] > <sigh> if it's obvious and still not done, it's probably hoplessly > complicated. Better wo/men have blunted their picks on this before, I > fear. Oh, I dunno. Generally, about the time I get a design to some "obvious problem" down, someone releases a ready-made solution. So nailing down the behavior is a sort of magic invocation, as well as a means of getting a grip on the problem so that you'll recognize the solution when it wanders by... -Stewart "Ask a stupid question, and you'll find the answer right away" Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
