David E. Ross wrote: > On 9/9/11 8:47 AM, Alex Baer wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> I am new to this newsgroup, so please be patient with me, inittially. >> ;) >> My question has been asked several times in other forums and mailing >> lists, as it seems, certainly, but a quick web research didn't give any >> useful answers within the last 12 or 14 months. Of course, should have >> overlooked something, could you, please, point me to the relevant >> stuff? >> >> Are there plans, that Seamonkey Mail will support other mail storage >> formats than mbox? Examples would be mh or maildir. >> >> Seamonkey is such a powerful and modern suite of tools and >> applications, that it's hard to understand and accept, that only mbox >> is supported, as of now. I have had trouble with the index files needed >> to resemble pseudo-hierarchies of mail folders, and maybe other things. >> Also, incremental backups take much more time than justified, because >> if one message changes or is added to the mbox file, the file is >> considered new, and backed up completely every time. Finally, Seamonkey >> Mail slows down, when the mbox files grow (I admit: files must be REAL >> big, before the speed penalty becomes evident). >> >> So I think, support for more modern mail formats would definitely >> have significant benefits for many of us. > > See bug #58308 at <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58308>. > Originally submitted 11 years ago, it seems there might actually be > some slow progress in implementing this enhancement. >
Thanks for the quick response. I hope, the work goes on, on this, and I hope, it's possible to speed it up. Corrupted index files drove me nuts in the past, backups take inadequately long time, and once the size of mbox file exceeds a certain limit, all kinds of trouble start, from a slow-down of the whole mail client to inconsistencies caused by delays in writing back data. Prof. Bernstein seems to be a bit of a character, but maildir was a brilliant idea, I think. As an alternative, mh would also be ok. I cannot tell, what exactly is the difference between mh and maildir, or why the latter is often called the successor of the first one. Both follow the "one file per mail" approach, and neither one has ever caused me the problems I had with mbox and index files. Maybe, I should point this out: There's nothing wrong with mbox as such. In fact, it's the easiest format to create HTML pages for archiving mails and publishing mail archives. But in the Mozilla mail clients it's possible to create virtual folder hierarchies and sub- structures. And this is DANGEROUS with mbox. I have had no problems with only one level of hierarchy (i. e. flat structure) using mbox. So my request is actually: Either remove the capability to create folder structures, or make it reliable. I'd really like to use Seamonkey Mail, but at the moment I don't fully trust it, based it on experience from the past with mbox and index files. BTW: I am impressed about the bug tracking --- 11 years of history, nothing lost. More dependable than my own protein based memory, in any case. ;) Alex _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
