Subject: [Imap-uw] directories listed in .malboxlist and terminating slashes

From: Mark Brand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 13:59:56 +0200

There seems to be a controversy about a subscribed folder (listed in
/home/user/.mailboxlist) corresponding to a directory in the OS that
contains mailbox files but cannot directly contain messages. In Mozilla,
if you click on the node corresponding to such a folder, an error
message is shown complaining that the imap server reported that the
folder is not selectable. This is fairly annoying behavior. I know of 2
workarounds. The first is not to subscribe to such folders (but only to
desired subordinate mailboxes containing messages), but this confuses
other clients (like SquirrelMail). The second is to manually add
terminating slashes to the corresponding items in .mailboxlist.

There is an old unresolved issue about this in the Mozilla Bugzilla that
I came upon:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=166885

The last remark in the issue essentially gives the blame to uw-imap. 
I'm hoping someone on this list can clarify the issue after reading the
bug. I don't mind passing your comments on to Mozilla's Bugzilla.

Mark
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---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 09:33:57 -0700 (PDT)

The subscription list in IMAP is nothing more than a list of names.  The 
server is not required to validate a name that the client chooses to 
subscribe.  The name does not have to exist; or if it exists it does not 
have to be a selectable mailbox.

The purpose of the subscription list is to be a short list of names for 
the client.  Think of it as being like bookmarks in a browser.

Yes, there are clients which list all names and then subscribe all names. 
That's broken behavior.  A name should only be subscribed because the 
human user manually decided to subscribe it.

In conclusion, the situation that you describe is due to client bug(s). 
I read the bugzilla page in question; John Gerth does not understand the 
purpose of the subscription list nor does he understand the meaning of a 
trailing "/" in a name.

Pawel Salek made a comment today in that bugzilla page.  He's completely 
correct.

-- 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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