[Design] Re: [Proposal] Decoupling In/Outbound mail accounts

[Morgen Sagen]

On Feb 8, 2006, at 4:16 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:

> We want to allow people to easily send out invitations in 0.7  
> without having to:
> + fill out incoming mail account information, thereby
> + sending Chandler into the throes of trying to download your email  
> into the repository.
>
> Currently, if you fill out the SMTP account information, you have  
> to fill out Incoming mail account information as well (so that  
> there's a reply-to email address for outbound mail.)
>
> Here are a couple of proposals for how we might de-couple incoming  
> and outgoing mail accounts in 0.7:
>
> + Add a "Reply to:" field to the SMTP account form. Allow users to  
> send email by just filling out Outbound mail information without an  
> Incoming mail account. AND/OR

At first this one appealed to me, but then what happens if you create  
an SMTP account (filling in a reply-to address), and then create an  
IMAP account (also filling in a reply-to address).  When you send  
mail, which reply-to does the mail framework use?  You could follow  
the rule that if the IMAP/POP account you're using to "send from" has  
a reply-to address filled in then use it, overriding what's in the  
SMTP account.

> + Unify Inbound and Outbound mail account info into a single Mail  
> account. Users can optionally fill out the incoming mail server.  
> AND/OR
> + Add a checkbox to the mail account form that is un-checked by  
> default: Sync automatically.

Actually, unifying Inbound and Outbound into a single Mail account is  
rather appealing; the account edit dialog could have an account-type  
listbox with three choices: IMAP, POP, or  "Outbound only", and a  
single reply-to field for the whole "account".  The only downside is  
that two Inbound accounts couldn't share the same Outbound account,  
but that's probably not a big deal.   This also means the awkward  
"use as default 'from' account" radio button gets replaced by the  
more natural "use as default mail account".  So +1 to the  
unification, but I don't think we need the "sync automatically"  
checkbox if we have the 3-way account-type listbox I described  
(unless you include that checkbox in addition to the listbox).

~morgen