Re: IMAP issues

[Pawel Salek <pawsa theochem kth se>]

On 02/24/2008 06:31:33 PM, Mișu Moldovan wrote:
> Disclaimer: The problems described here may be server-side issues, so
> I'll try to limit myself to the problems that are common to at least
> two IMAP servers, hoping that the problems are not server-side. The
> IMAP servers that I use are: Courier, Axigen and GMail (two of them at
> work and two at home). I also use Exchange sometimes, but I'll let  
> that
> beast aside this time.
>
>  1) I think there is only one (almost reliable) way to tell if there  
> is
> new mail in all IMAP sub-directories in Balsa and that is to keep all
> of them opened and make sure they are not closed after a period of
> inactivity. I say "almost reliable" because sometimes there's new mail
> in the Inbox and Balsa can't tell. But in general, it's strange how  
> the
> periodic check for new mail seems to traverse all the sub-directories
> on the IMAP servers, but I only see unread mail in the sub-directories
> that are open (those are the only ones that get bold when new mail
> arrives in them).

Apologies for coming back so late with answers.

Does marking "Use status for mailbox checking" changes anything here?  
Status command should be a robust way of checking mailboxes but it is  
very slow with some servers and therefore not enabled by default.

>  2) When I use more than one IMAP account I expect to be able to  
> define
> separate "Drafts", "Sent" and "Trash" sub-folders for each of them.
> Currently, there's only one "Draft" mailbox, one "Sent" mailbox and  
> one
> "Trash" mailbox per Balsa instance.

I can see arguments for and against this kind of setup - what are yours?

>  3) I can't make Balsa display threads on all IMAP servers, it only
> works with Courier. I guess the others don't implement server-side
> threads, but a nice IMAP client should manage threads even when there
> is no support on the server.

Yes. This could be implemented. I just never expected that "dumb" imap  
servers would be so common....


>  4) Public Folders are a PITA. I don't use them anymore with Courier,
> but I remember I had some issues which I have raised here in the past.
> On Axigen I have no idea how to access them, they don't appear in the
> list even if I uncheck the "Subscribed folders only" setting (which
> seems to work for the other sub-directories). But they work with other
> IMAP clients: Thunderbird, Evolution, Sylpheed etc.

I think it is a question of detecting NAMESPACEs. I usually just add  
another IMAP server with a prefix set to the relevant namespace  
(#shared in case of UW-IMAP. Some other servers maybe use #Public?)...  
Adding protocol support for this is easy, finding a right user  
interface bit more complex, imo. I may be time to investigate how other  
IMAP servers do that...

Pawel
PS. The "Enable bug workarounds" command treats the IMAP server as POP3  
as far as message fetching is concerned. No fancy checking of message  
structure and selected part fetching, just brute force download of  
entire messages...