More IMAP Annotations (folder display name and translations)

Johannes Hirche johannes.hirche at konsec.com
Fri Sep 23 17:36:33 CEST 2005


Hi! 
 
> Am Freitag, 16. September 2005 21:54 schrieb Martin Konold:
>> we are well aware of the problems with the actual imap name of a folder and
>> its display name in the GUI.
> 
> yes, though I consider the minor.
> To me in practice, each folder will have a predominate language.
> And each reader will have to understand it to a necessary extend.
> Do you have use cases where this is not the case?
> 
> In addition the default folders and the type of other folders are already 
> known which should solve some other cases.
> 
>> From a usability and interoperability point of view I think it is best to
>> seperate the IMAP folder name from the display name. This allows then for
>> example a user who has a French gui to use a Kolab account which was
>> created with a German Kontact etc.
> 
> I am unsure about this for a few reasions:
> 
> a) other clients. They will not know about the convention to save the display
> name in the annotations. Having a useful folder name is helpful here. 
> Note that quite a few are using a Kolab Server only as email server.
> 
> b) The translation list will not be complete. It also adds overhead to each 
> folder a lot of information being the same. This is not a lot, but it might 
> add up. 

The possibility to change the foldername for a specific language does offer some 
advantages, but probably also adds a lot to the complexity as Bernhard already pointed
out. The question of when to change which entries is imho not completely solvable in
a way that the user expects it.

Seperating the foldername from its displayname on the other hand is desirable, 
especially in Outlook, as it allows more or less arbitrary foldernames that can 
not be stored in IMAP. If it is ensured that the actual foldername resembles
the displayname as closely as possible and stays human readable, other clients, 
that know nothing about annotations, can still interact with kolab clients. If 
the mapping from the (for imap impossible) displayname to the used foldername is 
unambiguous, a kolab client can detect a change of the foldername by a normal
imap client and could modify the displayname accordingly, if desired.

I would recommend adding a single, optional (even for kolab clients) annotation
/vendor/kolab/display-name
with a qp encoded utf8 string of the displayname.
It is up to the client to decide if it chooses to use the folder- or displayname,
if possible, the displayname should be favored.

Greets




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