[Dev] Chandler as an email client? Another idea...

[Morgen Sagen]

I was thinking about where on the scale from "none-at-all" to "full- 
blown" Chandler should be when it comes to our email implementation.   
It would take one heck of a Chandler email client to make me stop  
using the application I use now.  If we have an incomplete  
implementation that tries to be an email client, then I'll probably  
end up dealing with email in two places (in Chandler and in my other  
email app) which I'm not sure is optimal.  If we want to instead  
embrace existing clients and figure out how Chandler can interoperate  
with them, one possibility would be to embed an IMAP server inside  
Chandler.  People could then stick with their favorite email client,  
connected to their usual IMAP server and *also* connect to the  
Chandler IMAP server running on their local machine.  What does this  
enable:

1) A way to get items into Chandler:  We could use IMAP folders being  
served from Chandler itself as a mechanism to create Chandler items.   
Say an email comes in and I want to make a task out of it -- just  
drag the message into a Tasks folder in the Chandler account (all  
within my email app's UI) and Chandler automatically generates a Task  
Item in the repository containing the body of that email.   
Attachments would be extracted an converted to items, etc.

2) A way to get items from Chandler to email client:  Items within  
Chandler could appear as emails within the Chandler IMAP folders.   
They could then also be forwarded to other people just like any other  
email message, using your mail client.  The Chandler IMAP folders  
could be 'virtual', meaning you could create a folder named OSAF, and  
all Chandler items which have the OSAF tag would automatically appear  
there.  Or there could be folders per collection, etc.

3) A way to generate/send email messages from Chandler:  I believe it  
would be easy to have Chandler trigger a mail client to open up a  
message-authoring window, complete with To: and Subject: (and maybe  
the body too?) pre-populated, ready for the user to edit/send.  Or an  
alternative would be for Chandler to directly create an email message  
in the local Chandler Drafts folder, ready for the user to edit/send.


Chandler would also continue to have (internal) IMAP/POP/SMTP client  
support:

4) Simple emails such as sharing invitations don't really require a  
full blown email client UI, and thus could be sent using something  
akin to the current detail view, not using an external client.

5) Chandler could monitor the user's real IMAP/POP inbox, watching  
for special emails that are Chandler specific (like sharing  
invitations) and processing them.


My understanding is that Twisted has server-side IMAP support  
already, so we wouldn't be starting from scratch.  This is something  
I might tinker with...

~morgen

P.S.  There are other scenarios like having Chandler actually be an  
IMAP proxy between your email client and your IMAP server...  another  
possiblity.