[Kolab-devel] Future of the Webclient: lets take a modest approach, dropping IMP and MIMP

[Sascha Wilde]

Hi *,

Thomas and I had a little talk on various aspects of Kolab and
Kolab-Server, one topic was the web client and one immediate outcome
was, that as long as we still use the current Horde3 based solution
(which surly will be the case for a couple of releases to come) we need
to get it as good and usable as possible with as few afford as
possible[1].

One important step to make this possible is to drop support for IMP and
MIMP.  Currently we are advertising three variations of the web client
on the login screen and all of them are having there specific set of
problems and limitations.

We want to concentrate on one of them to get it as good as possible.
The natural choice is DIMP, as it is the most advanced with regard to
user experience and a bunch of improvements have already been made,
which are not ported yet to the other incarnations[2].

What are the practical implications of this?
- We will remove the choice between IMP,DIMP and MIMP from the login
  screen of the web client.  DIMP will be used always.
- Problems with DIMP gain higher priority, as the alternative IMP will
  no longer be valid.[3]
- Problems with IMP, which don't exist in DIMP might not be fixed.
- Requested feature only have to be realized in DIMP, which makes them
  more likely to get realized.

We hope that we get by this a better tested, more stable and less ugly
client until the time is ripe for greater changes.

Any objections to this plan?  "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace!"
;-) 

cheers
sascha

[1]  no surprise here, we currently don't have big resources to spend.
[2]  partly because no one has gotten around to do it, partly because
     porting would be hart or impossible for technical reasons.
[3]  kolab/issue4080 (DIMP: Mails can not be copied to other folders)
     comes to mind...
-- 
Sascha Wilde                                          OpenPGP key: 4BB86568
http://www.intevation.de/~wilde/                  http://www.intevation.de/
Intevation GmbH, Neuer Graben 17, 49074 Osnabrück; AG Osnabrück, HR B 18998
Geschäftsführer:   Frank Koormann,  Bernhard Reiter,  Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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