[Dovecot] Lack of external documentation?

[Giles Coochey]

On 15/03/2012 19:27, Terry Carmen wrote:
> On 03/15/2012 03:06 PM, Steve Campbell wrote:
>> Firstly, this isn't meant to be critical, and I realize the subject 
>> line probably suggest criticism, so...
>>
>> I was sort of forced into using dovecot as my imap/pop server due to 
>> upgrading 3 versions of OS on my mail servers. So far, that's not 
>> bad. What surprises me is that one of the first things I usually do 
>> whenever I start using different software is to purchase a book that 
>> seems to suit me. Searching all of the common places like amazon, 
>> ebay, etc for manuals turned up little to nothing on dovecot.
>>
>> I'm wondering why and is this so new that people just haven't written 
>> books about it yet?
>>
>> The one thing I'm a little critical of, though, is that trying to 
>> make heads or tails of dovecot by following the online documentation 
>> is a little problematic. I'm constantly jumping to another page and 
>> then back to the original page, and for the most part, I just don't 
>> know enough about it all yet to know what I'm looking for.
>
> The best docs are on the wiki and this mailing list. If you find the 
> information in the wiki to be lacking, the best thing you can do is 
> find the solution yourself and/or on this mailing list, and then make 
> a wiki entry so the next person will know how to solve the same 
> problem you had.
>
> Dovecot is a complex piece of software, and understanding some 
> functionality requires reading the wiki, asking on the mailing list 
> and/or examining the source code. You can also obtain paid support 
> from these companies: http://dovecot.org/support.html
>
> I'll be the first to admit that complex and specialized configurations 
> are sometimes difficult to figure out, however this list has always 
> been a tremendous amount of help.
>
> Terry
>
>
>
>
>
>
What he said +1. I don't want to be-little IMAP software or the work 
that Timo has done to get dovecot to the IMAP server world, but IMAP in 
general is a small enough subject to only really warrant two maybe three 
books - the most recent of which was written 5-7 years ago. The original 
release of dovecot was around 2002, but I don't think it became as 
widely adopted as Courier / Cyrus until around 2010. I wouldn't be 
surprised that if there is a next edition of "The Book of IMAP" or the 
O'reilly "Managing IMAP" that there would probably be an equal share 
section on dovecot than any other server out there.



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