OT again... is there an IMAP expert in the house?

[Steve Holden]

"Donn Cave" <donn at u.washington.edu> wrote ...
> Quoth "Chris Gonnerman" <chris.gonnerman at newcenturycomputers.net>:
> | "Steve Holden" <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote ...
> |
> |> So why not write a process to collect emails using POP3 (much easier
than an
> |> SMTP server) and insert them in a local NNTP server. If you could
persuade
> |> staff to reply to the newsgroup as well as the customers it seems that
might
> |> give you a lot of what you want, no?
> |
> | The key element missing is the ability to track disposition.  If a
> | newsgroup article is responded to, no record is kept *with the original
> | post* AFAIK.  Am I wrong?
>
> No, nor necessarily right.  The usual NNTP server software wouldn't
> do any such thing, but you don't want any of that stuff anyway.  You
> want NNTP (maybe), but you sure don't want USENET!  On the other hand,
> I believe any normal NNTP client can be expected to post replies back
> to the same server it got the message from, and will annotate the
> header with the original message ID.  From there, it ought to be
> straightforward to match them up and maintain whatever records you
> want.
>
> You'd have to train the users to avoid reply by SMTP.  There might
> also be a problem with client seen/unseen expiration, if you want
> people to keep seeing that message until it's answered or something.
>
Can we say "client threading"? If they use an even halfway sensible mail
client they can "reply to group" to make sure that the NNTP server gets a
copy of all replies. Obviously they would also want to Cc the customer so
the reply actually did some good (unless we are purely talking about a
record-keeping system).

> | The customers (and I) would like to be able to see at a glance which
> | messages are not responded to; this leads back to an issue tracker.
>
> Can't think of any really slick way to do that.  You could probably
> get away with an edit to the header subject line - I don't think
> clients cache that stuff, but I could be wrong.  Otherwise, maybe
> move the answered messages to another "group".
>
Given that they would share a LAN with the NNTP server it should be obvious
by the threading which messages have been handled and which haven't. If no
reply appears in the thread, nobody has replied.

Anyway, you've probably got enough ideas that you are sick of the subject
now!

regards
 Steve
--
Consulting, training, speaking: http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming: http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/