Subject: followup on email about nested directories..

From: Joseph Silverman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 15:12:06 -0800

What I need to do, and am hoping that uw imap will do, is create 
subfolders within folders.  So, for example, I could create folder X 
that contains messages and then put folder Y into it.  I realize that 
both mbox and mbx formats are flat files and thus it seems UNLIKELY 
that this can be done.  However, I am asking, IS THERE A WAY that I can 
do this with ANY uw imap supported options?
THANKS - Joseph

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:09:12 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

In order to create mailboxes within a mailbox, you need to use a mailbox 
format which supports this "dual-use".

mbx format is not such a format; nor is traditional UNIX mailbox format.

The dual-use mailbox formats supported in the distribution version of 
c-client are mh, mx, and news.

Personally, I think that "dual-use" is a bad idea from a user interface 
point of view, since that means that for a name you have to have a 
separate "open as mailbox" and "open as directory" operation.  But this 
seems to be a matter of religion.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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From: Lars Hallberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 03:17:12 +0100

Mark Crispin wrote:

> In order to create mailboxes within a mailbox, you need to use a 
> mailbox format which supports this "dual-use".
>

That is doable. Just deside on a special mailbox name to be the folders 
'own' mailbox, let just call it mbox0 for now.

If You try to access a folder as a mailbox, open folder/mbox0.

If You try to access a mbox as a folder, just report it as empty.

If someone try to save to a folder that's an mbox, create an temp 
folder. Move the mbox ther as tmpfolder/mbox0, move tmpfolder to the 
original mbox name, then proceed with the save.

Will likly break other tools, but only if people actuly *us* the feature.

> Personally, I think that "dual-use" is a bad idea from a user 
> interface point of view, since that means that for a name you have to 
> have a separate "open as mailbox" and "open as directory" operation. 

The ui isue is solwed long time ago. Standard 'treeview' with a + or 
arrow to expand a node, and some icon to select it.

> But this seems to be a matter of religion.

Yeha, but I actuly have found a use for it. I sort mail in differnt 
folder, and for each folder mail older than one year in one folder for 
each year. Would clean up my folderlisting *allot* to make thes yearly 
folders subfolders to 'ther' mailbox. While keeping them in the same spot.

/LaH

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From: "Tomas Pospisek's Mailing Lists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:20:36 +0100 (CET)

> c-client are mh, mx, and news.

Additionaly to this, you are not very supportive of the mh format, so it 
can be considered half-supported (can I say it that way).

AFAIK Maildir supports what you want, there are add-on patches available, 
f.ex. here [1]. It seems to be actively maintained However I don't know 
how well it works.

*t

[1] http://www.math.washington.edu/~chappa/pine/info/maildir.html

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   Tomas Pospisek
   http://sourcepole.com -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
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