[Dovecot] OT: IMAP folder aliases

[Rob Middleton]

On 26/09/2009 6:40 PM, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 07:55:41PM +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>    
>> On Sep 25, 2009, at 7:49 PM, Eric Shubert wrote:
>>      
>>> Timo Sirainen wrote:
>>>        
>>>> On Sep 25, 2009, at 4:14 PM, Patrick Ben Koetter wrote:
>>>>          
>>>>> Has anyone seen an approach or a solution that solves the problem
>>>>> from a users
>>>>> point of view? A server side alias list that maps to a server
>>>>> standard?
>>>>>            
>>>> Symlinks maybe? Or something similar done internally. The main
>>>> problem would anyway be LIST command, should it show all of them or
>>>> somehow try to figure out which one to show?
>>>>          
>>> Do the clients identify which program they are?
>>>        
>> No. And one of the first commands they typically do is LIST. So there
>> are no good ways to solve this.
>>
>> Although I haven't really seen much problems myself. Linux clients allow
>> changing what mailboxes they use, so I just configure them to use the
>> same as Apple Mail..
>>      
> Given than you seem to bless Apple Mail folder structures it makes it
> a good candidate to try to push as a standard for others to
> copy. Maybe there could be example setups/configs shipped with dovecot
> that maps other naming conventions to Apple's? In that way dovecot
> would start to inforce the use of a standard which in the long term
> could become a real standard.
>
> If Apple's structure are not the best to go with, then we could use
> some other naming convention, I just trust that Timo's choice is not a
> bad one. ;)
>    
I personally dislike Apple Mail's special folder naming from a 
'supporting users' viewpoint. By default it uses an underlying IMAP 
mailbox of "Sent Items" while displaying the name "Sent" in the GUI. It 
confuses folk that use both Apple Mail (Sent=Sent Items) and Thunderbird 
(Sent=Sent) to access their email account; because it makes little sense 
to the user it needs intervention by IT support to explain/fix (or they 
just suffer with two sent folders).

That said, if Apple Mail in 10.6 already supports XLIST this oddity 
could potentially be fixed from the IMAP server side (ref my email 80 
minutes ago).
& Thunderbird will have XLIST from v3 when released soon.

(Doesn't Apple use dovecot on Mac OS X 10.6 server now? I'm surprised we 
haven't seen an XLIST plugin or patch to make the Mac-mail-client to 
Mac-mail-server universe all work together well. However it is early 
days for that extension.)

Cheers,
Rob Middleton.