[Design] Parsing emails for date/time information

[Brian Kirsch]

Hello,
Darshana and I just talked via IRC and apparently there was a bit of a 
communication mis-understanding.

To sum up we both agree that:

1. If a mail message is manually stamped as a calendar event that the 
message should be parsed to try and determine the start / end time etc.

2. No automated process i.e. parse every incoming message for date time 
info will take place since there are serious performance considerations 
and the IMAP foldering strategy already provides a nice alternate solution.




Thanks,
Brian


Brian Kirsch wrote:
> Hi Jeffrey,
> See comments in line.
>
> Jeffrey Harris wrote:
>> Hi Brian,
>>
>> To be clear, I think Darshana's work on parsing emails would be an
>> experimental parcel implementing features in parallel with the mainline
>> IMAP-folders-for-stamping workflow, at least for Preview. 
> Sure, but there are major performance concerns if every email is 
> parsed for date time logic. Especially if a bulk download takes place.
>
> I am certainly not opposed to what Darshana is suggesting. However, I 
> am of the opinion that we solidify our 1.0 email strategy then push to 
> get a good email client complete in that time frame.
>
> There are certainly elements of email date parsing that are needed but 
> I honestly don't see the point of just driving on something 
> experimental when so much needs to be done in email for 1.0.  And this 
> stamping work could be detrimental to email performance.
>
> Also, the point I was raising is our primary preview strategy of using 
> folders as the means to stamp and bring mail in to Chandler does not 
> fit with the work that Darshana wants to do in exact detail.
>
> With the foldering approach the stampness is know but the date parsing 
> still needs to take place.
>
> With Darshana's approach the stampness is determined by the date parsing.
>
>
>
> -Brian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>  Hopefully
>> there would be synergies between her work and the workflow you mentioned
>> (if she writes code that picks out probably dates for an event-mail, you
>> could presumably use that work).
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Jeffrey
>>
>> Brian Kirsch wrote:
>>  
>>> Hi Darshana,
>>> We are going to go with a foldering approach to stamping. This allows a
>>> user to drag a mail message in to an IMAP folder and automatically have
>>> it stamped as the appropriate type.
>>>     
>> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
>>
>> Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
>> http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
>>   
>

-- 
Brian Kirsch 
Internationalization Architect / Mail Service Engineer
Open Source Applications Foundation
543 Howard Street 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
http://www.osafoundation.org