Subject: Re: Why is IMAP not more popular? (fwd)

From: [email-masked] (Jim)
Date: 13 Oct 1995 03:51:22 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] says...

Rahul Dhesi <[email-masked]> writes:
>2. User's incoming mailbox may be accessed via traditinal server-based
>programs such as pine, elm, and MH.  User's incoming mailbox may also
>be accessed via specific TCP/IP-based protocols including POP3 and
>IMAP.
>
>Now you are giving your users many choices.

My office has several hundred users who use Pine email via telnet to our
Sun server.  We would like to give users the option of using one of the
new Windows client mail programs such as Eudora, Email Connection, or Pegasus.

The problem is that our users move around alot; one day they may be on their
home PC and use Eudora, the next; they will be on a Pine (via telnet) PC.
If I use default Pop settings, the user's Unix mailbox will be emptied
(Not good).  If I tell the Pop client not to delete mail on server, the user
gets a dozen copies of their unread mail (full load on each mail check).

Is there a way to make Pop grab only messages that the client doesnt already
have in their local PC inbox ?

Thanks you any help

Jim
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Paul Steckler)
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 10:08:44 GMT

>have in their local PC inbox ?

Well, POP3 itself doesn't have that feature.

But Eudora keeps track of the messages it's downloaded, so
even if you don't set it to delete messages on the server,
you'll get just one copy of a given message.

-- Paul
-- 
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 | Paul Steckler          |     World-Wide Web:                           |
 | [email-masked]     |     URL = http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/steck  |
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From: [email-masked] (Leslie Mikesell)
Date: 14 Oct 1995 15:26:38 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
Jochen Friedrich  <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> *THAT* is an example of being stuck in an old paradigm.  The new
>> paradigm, which is already here in things like Netscape 2.0, is to give
>> a user one integrated front end that she can use to surf the Net, find,
>> download, and upload information and programs, participate in news
>> groups, mailing lists, and other discussion groups, read and respond to
>> incoming mail, manage message folders (which include news messages,
>> mail messages, and info found on the Net - some of these messages are
>> stored on the users hard disk, some on the Net, all are referenced by
>> pointers like URLs), set up filters and auto-responders, etc.
>
>True, but that's more or less the perfect usage for the IMAP protocol. 
>The mailboxes and mail filter is located on the server while your general 
>UA runs on the client and grabs the mails off the different folders from 
>the server, configures the filter on the server etc. To do this, the user 
>doesn't even need a shell account (i.e. if the CMU cyrus imapd is used).
>IMAP already provides access to multiple mailboxes and also allows to 
>store mail messages into a remote mailbox. This is definitely way-to-go 
>for the future...

In any environment where an IMAP client can reach multiple mailboxes
it should be easy to arrange having them all forwarded to a single
point anyway.  What I've always wanted is a single news client that
could access local newsgroups from many sites seamlessly, posting
responses back to the right places.  Part of the popularity of
web browers is due the the ease of hopping around to the local information
at many different places, but it is difficult to follow discussions
with the current web software.

Les Mikesell
  [email-masked]

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From: Jochen Friedrich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 11:04:27 GMT

On 5 Oct 1995, Nancy McGough wrote:

> >Let me explain how a rich, functional environment can be set up.
> >
> >1. Server processes incoming mail through user's personal environment,
> >which may involve powerful mail filters.  User has control over how
> >these mail filters operate.  Mail filters will file mail as needed,
> >possibly into the user's standard incoming mailbox.
> >
> >*THAT*, my friends, is what technology at its cutting edge ought to be
> >all about.
> 
> 

Cheers,
Jochen