[Dovecot] Binc IMAP "IMAPdir" style layout

[Martin Lucina]

Hi,

I'm in the process of migrating several years worth of mail to be
accessible via an IMAP server.  Some time ago, I evaluated both Binc
IMAP and Dovecot and found Dovecot to be much faster on large folders,
which is quite important to me.  One thing I did not however manage to
determine from the documentation on namespaces is whether or not it is
possible to implement what Binc IMAP calls an "IMAPdir" style layout.

IMAPdir lets me layout mailboxes in the filesystem like so:

$HOME/
   Maildir/                   <---- users mail goes here
   Mail/                      <---- IMAP root
       INBOX -> ../Maildir/   <---- (symlink)
       folder/                <---- some other mailbox in Maildir format
       folder.subfolder/      <---- '.' is the hierarchy separator
       folder.subfolder-2/  
       other-folder/

So IMAP clients subscribe to 'INBOX' and 'folder' and 'folder/subfolder'
respectively.

This gives me two features that I want:

1) The ability to easily access all my mail using a command line Maildir
capable client such as nail, for when I'm connection over a super-slow
SSH over GPRS connection.  Also, I can actually see my folders (and
their subfolders) without having to look for Maildir++ style names with
'ls -a' (e.g. Maildir/.subfolder/).

2) Mail folders are organized logically, unlike the standard Maildir++
layout where everything is a subfolder of 'INBOX', which strikes me as
stupid.

Is such a thing possible with Dovecot?  Any help would be much
appreciated.

Thanks,

-mato