Subject: [lemonade] Notes on Virtual Mailboxes / Contexts

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:28:09 -0700

Notes on virtual mailboxes/contexts from talking to our client people:
- not useful if only one backing mailbox
- Good to have ability for client to have out-of-the-box default 
views, but also ability for user to create complex criteria that are 
stored on server, listed by clients, subscribed by user per device
-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly-selected tag: ---------------
Every man thinks God is on his side.
The rich and powerful know he is.
                     --Jean Anouilh

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From: Steve Hole <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:33:03 -0700

> - not useful if only one backing mailbox

Hmm ... this is interesting.

It is also somewhat counter to our experience.   I suspect that the 
opinion is based on a "what if scenario" rather than actual experience 
(not criticizing -- just suggesting that might be the case).

Our experience has been that people don't much care where things are 
physically stored as long as they can get to them quickly.   Having 
logical "views" of mail is one of those features that, once you have it, 
it is almost impossible to do without.  It is, without any doubt, the 
single most successful feature we have ever incorporated into any our (now
many) messaging systems.   This includes "basic" things like search, sort 
and threads.

Something to think about at any rate.

Cheers.

---
Steve Hole
Chief Technical Officer - Electronic Billing and Payment Systems
ACI Worldwide

Email: [email-masked]
Phone: 780 424 4922

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From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:00:27 -0700

>  Hmm ... this is interesting.

Hi Steve -- good to see you here.

>  (not criticizing -- just suggesting that might be the case).

It is an impression from looking at adding a feature to a client, not 
from experience using the feature.

>  physically stored as long as they can get to them quickly.

But people may have desktop clients and/or server-based filtering, 
and hence already have mail in various mailboxes.

>  Having logical "views" of mail is one of those features that, once 
> you have it,

But is this a logical view limited to one mailbox, or is it something 
that, as far as the user is concerned, mostly ignores details such as 
which mailbox a message happens to be in?

>  Something to think about at any rate.

Something I'd like to understand better.
-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly-selected tag: ---------------
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to
the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his
children are smart.                                      --H.L. Mencken

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From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 00:13:34 +0100

On Tue Jul 11 17:33:03 2006, Steve Hole wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:28:09 -0700 Randall Gellens 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
This is my opinion on virtual mailboxes.

Contexts I actively use existing fallbacks for - ie, I have filtered 
views setup client-side that I frequently use. These are based on 
IMAP SEARCH, just as both contexts and virtual mailboxes are.

> opinion is based on a "what if scenario" rather than actual 
> experience (not criticizing -- just suggesting that might be the 
> case).
> 
> Our experience has been that people don't much care where things 
> are physically stored as long as they can get to them quickly.   
> you have it, it is almost impossible to do without.  It is, without 
> any doubt, the single most successful feature we have ever 
> incorporated into any our (now
> many) messaging systems.   This includes "basic" things like 
> search, sort and threads.

I think you're actually agreeing with Randy's point here in a sense - 
virtual mailboxes based on a single mailbox are not interesting - 
virtual mailboxes capable of being based on all mailboxes are 
interesting.

Of course, if there is only one mailbox, the two issues are collapsed.

Dave.
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