Subject: [MORG] XLIST extension

From: Timo Sirainen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:47:39 -0400

What do you people think about Google's XLIST extension? Seems like
something a lot of people are interested in implementing. Apparently
it's already implemented by at least Gmail, iPhone and Thunderbird 3.
Wonder if there would be point in trying to get it more standardized?

The idea is basically to find what some of those "standard mailboxes"
are called by the server. So instead of every client using a different
"Sent Messages", "Sent Items, "Sent", etc. mailboxes the client could
just look up the existing mailbox from server that has \Sent flag.

The way it works now is that when client uses XLIST command instead of
LIST command (identical otherwise), server can return these flags also
in LIST replies:

 - \Drafts
 - \Trash
 - \Sent
 - \Spam
 - \Starred
 - \Allmail

The first four are pretty standard used by most IMAP clients. \Starred
is some gmail-specific I guess. \Allmail apparently could be described
as a virtual mailbox containing user's all messages in all mailboxes.

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:49:53 -0600

On 9/28/09 11:47 AM, Timo Sirainen wrote:

> is some gmail-specific I guess. 

I see a way to "star" messages in Thunderbird, but I have never used
that feature and perhaps they added it to sync with Gmail.

Peter

- --
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:34:35 -0400

I'm pretty certain that the Thunderbird "Starred" column has always been 
mapped to the IMAP \Flagged state. It's been there for years.

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:06:49 -0400

> just look up the existing mailbox from server that has \Sent flag.

This has been proposed before.  It could be done as a ListExt
extension.  One question would be whether Google (and other
implementors) would switch to a standard version, if we standardized
something that's different from what they're using.  The whole point
of ListExt was to eliminate the pile of LIST variants... so XLIST,
specifically, would be a Bad Idea, because of that.

> as a virtual mailbox containing user's all messages in all mailboxes.

"Starred" is basically a virtual mailbox that collects all the
\Flagged messages from all mailboxes.  And "Allmail" isn't quite all
messages in all mailboxes.  It's all mail in all mailboxes *except*
Sent, Drafts, Trash, and Spam... at least as Gmail has implemented it.

Some of the aspects of this are certainly Gmail-specific.  The
proposed multi-mailbox search can give the equivalent to Starred and
Allmail in existing IMAP implementations.  It can also give the
equivalent to Drafts and Trash, if we're flagging messages, rather
than moving them around.

The whole idea needs more discussion.... Some time on the Hiroshima
agenda, maybe?

Barry

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From: Timo Sirainen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:34:41 -0400

On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 01:06 -0400, Barry Leiba wrote:
> something that's different from what they're using.

My guess is that unless it's a really simple change, they wouldn't
bother.

> The whole point

I was thinking that we could simply add those \Sent etc. flags to a
regular LIST reply, similar to how CHILDREN extension works. So I could
simply make XLIST an alias for LIST. Then perhaps some day Gmail also
supports both and XLIST can retire eventually..

Or I guess the other way would be to explicitly ask for those flags,
like:

LIST () "" * return (types)

But if the point is to actually get this standard used, I think it would
all depend on getting Gmail to do the change. And I don't really see
them implementing the rest of LIST-EXTENDED, at least not in a standards
compliant way..

> Sent, Drafts, Trash, and Spam... at least as Gmail has implemented it.

OK. I've really no idea what to do about making those two a standard..

> The whole idea needs more discussion.... Some time on the Hiroshima

That would be fine by me.

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:22:35 +0400

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:06 AM, Barry Leiba
<[email-masked]> wrote:
 [...]
> The whole idea needs more discussion.... Some time on the Hiroshima

Yes.

Let's have at least 1 hour slot for MORG in Hiroshima.