On Mon, 13 May 2002 12:11:34 +0900 (JST), Mark Keasling wrote: > In a ridiculous extrapolation of your assertion that a client should not > change the data to mirror its GUI, I could assert that an IMAP server should > only have a single mailbox and that other user mailboxes are just part of > the client UI.
That's not at all ridiculous. That very idea was seriously considered once upon a time. What led to its demise was the limitation in TOPS-20 mailbox format of only 30 keyword flags (a limitation that outlasted TOPS-20). People wanted to categorize with more than 30 names. > It is possible to present your idea of a trash interface to the user without > using a trash mailbox. My question is it possible to present my idea of a > trash interface to the user with out using a trash mailbox? Yes, I claim that it is possible. It requires some creativity, but it is certainly possible. There are many possible solutions, none of which stand out as more "right" than another. It is certainly true that some IMAP extensions (ANNOTATE comes immediately to mind, but I worry that it has gone off the deep end) would make things a lot easier. But it's still possible. Rather than my suggesting a particular solution, try this exercise. Suppose that it was an absolute requirement that the "restore from trash" operation put the message back precisely as it was, including the UID (to preclude one obvious kludge). Let's also add an absolute requirement that it interoperate with a client that uses the DELETE/EXPUNGE model. So you're really stuck with it. How would you do it? More importantly, how would you do it so that it works well? How might you do it so that it works even better than a Trash mailbox/ Here's an observation that may help: An IMAP mailbox can be used to store things other than messages. It can also store all sorts of useful metadata as long as you make it look enough like a message to pacify the APPEND command on some servers. Maybe you don't want to move messages to another mailbox called Trash. But there may be other things what you may want to put in another mailbox dedicated for a purpose other than messages.
