[Chandler-dev] Mail in Preview

[Ted Leung]

bkirsch++!

On Feb 6, 2007, at 1:59 PM, Brian Kirsch wrote:

> Hello,
> Yesterday I checked in fundamental changes to mail in Chandler  
> which I would like to detail for you.
>
>
> Overview:
> ===================
> In our discussions we acknowledged that for Preview,  Chandler  
> would not be a full out of the box replacement for traditional mail  
> clients such as Thunderbird and Outlook. Thus we needed a way for  
> users to take advantage of the great collaboration features  
> Chandler offers without forcing them to choose between their  
> current mail client and Chandler. With yesterday's check in, I  
> believe we have achieved this goal.
>
> Although the check in includes many cool new features and  
> improvements the fundamental change is that Chandler no longer  
> downloads all email from an IMAP Inbox or a POP Server.
>
> Instead, Chandler scans the IMAP Inbox and POP Server for Chandler  
> communications and downloads them. These are emails which were sent  
> from another Chandler user and contain specific mail headers that  
> the Mail Service uses to identify the communication. Chandler  
> emails can be plain text or contain ICal and EIML attachments to  
> support the Edit / Update workflow's and Event sharing.
>
> While this solution works great for Chandler collaboration there  
> are times when a user receives an email from a non-Chandler client  
> that contains information he or she wants to bring in to Chandler  
> such as an invitation or task.
>
> No problem, we have got this covered too!
>
> This brings us to the concept of Chandler IMAP Folders. These are  
> folders, which on the users request Chandler, will create and  
> configure on the IMAP server.
>
> The folders are as follows:
>
> 1. Chandler Mail - placing mail messages in this folder results in  
> Chandler downloading them and creating Items stamped as a MailStamp.
>
> 2. Chandler Tasks - placing mail messages in this folder results in  
> Chandler downloading them and creating items stamped as a MailStamp  
> and a TaskStamp.
>
> 3. Chandler Events  - placing mail messages in this folder results  
> in Chandler downloading them, parsing in a locale aware manner the  
> subject and body for any date time information, and creating items  
> stamped as a MailStamp and an EventStamp.
>
> I've been using the Chandler IMAP Folders for some time now and  
> they are an easy and productive way to get data in to Chandler.
>
>
> IMAP
> =========
> As I detailed in the overview, the Chandler IMAP code now supports  
> Chandler to Chandler communications and Chandler IMAP folders.
>
> Although we do not yet have UI the Chandler IMAP code actually  
> supports complete IMAP foldering. And for each IMAP folder can  
> contain the following configurations:
>
> 1. Only Download Chandler to Chandler messages
> 2. Download all Mail
> 3. Download all Mail and stamp as Events
> 4. Download all Mail and stamp as Tasks
> 5. Delete messages from the IMAP server that have been downloaded  
> to Chandler
> 6. Limit the number of messages downloaded to a specific number.  
> i.e. only download up to 300 messages from the folder
>
>
>
>
> POP
> ========
> POP works similar to IMAP and out of the box will only download  
> Chandler to Chandler communications.
>
> However, it also has some advanced configuration features that we  
> don't yet have UI to support:
>
> 1. Only Download Chandler to Chandler messages
> 2. Download all Mail
> 3. Delete messages from the POP server that have been downloaded to  
> Chandler
> 4. Limit the number of messages downloaded to a specific number.  
> i.e. only download up to 300 messages
>
>
> Putting it all together
> ===================
> Much work has been done around making Sharing and Mail set up and  
> configuration easy for the user.
>
> The number of new or improved features is large and is best  
> demonstrated in an Thursday OSAF All Hands demo.
>
> I encourage everyone to play around with Account Preferences Dialog  
> and provide feedback on its ease of use.
>
> New features include:
>
> 1. Folding of POP and IMAP in to an Incoming Account type
> 2. Auto Discovery
> 3. Chandler IMAP folder creation and removal
> 4. Improved account testing dialogs
> 5. Better interaction with SSL cert dialog
> 6. Save and Restore improvements including support for foldering  
> and restoring default accounts
> 7. Better form validation
>
>
>
> Thanks,
> -Brian
>
>
>
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