Blackberry, Horde, Thunderbird, Outlook co-existence

Sun Apr 19 07:32:18 CEST 2009

Quoting Tom Malone <tmalone at lancer-ins.com>:

>
>
> Bernhard Reiter wrote:
>> On Tuesday 07 April 2009, Tom Malone wrote:
>>> The main problems we have with the current setup are the two Inbox
>>> folders in Horde and Thunderbird
>>
>> What exactely are the issues?
>> Note that with IMAP email can come in from almost any folder.
>> So having a folder called "Inbox" should be fine (in addition to the top
>> folder which could be displayed differently). We probably will  
>> change Horde to
>> behave in this respect.
>>
> The issue is that Outlook with the Toltec connector would like mail to
> be deposited into the user INBOX folder.  It would then like to POP the
> mail out of that folder and sync it back to another folder INBOX/Inbox.
>
> In Outlook the user only has one Inbox where all mail is delivered.
> However, when the user then switches over to Horde the reality of the
> server is revealed.  The user will see two folders named Inbox.
>
> One Inbox has their mail from Outlook and the other Inbox has new mail
> that they have not seen.  This is VERY confusing to the user.
>
> In order to provide a view that is similar to Outlook the two Inbox
> folders would need to be combined in Horde.

I know that this issue has been pointed out before.

 From a programmers viewpoint it does not make that much sense to fix  
the web client for this specific pecularity of the Toltec connecter.  
Then again we are of course interested in making the different clients  
work well together. And I consider it likely that people use both the  
web client and a local client. It may be less likely that somebody  
uses Toltec and Kontact at the same time. But once people are abroad  
(or maybe just at home) the web client might get used.

So if you have some suggestions on how we might resolve the situation  
in Horde in a sensible manner you should open an issue and post them  
there. "sensible" might not be that easy though. The problem is that  
this would be a Kolab specific patch I probably can never integrate  
upstream. Carrying around such patches from version to version is not  
trivial.

Cheers,

Gunnar

>
> The POP/IMAP functionality is a necessary evil in Outlook/Toltec because
> there are Outlook functions that are not available if the POP processing
> is not utilized.
>
> This split Inbox also interferes with reading mail on a BlackBerry.
> BlackBerries are not full IMAP clients which means they are not able to
> see any folders other than an INBOX, Sent and Trash folder.  These
> folders also need to be at the same level on the IMAP server.  A
> BlackBerry is not able to address a folder INBOX/Inbox, INBOX/Sent or
> INBOX/Trash.
>
> Therefore, in order to user a BlackBerry with a Kolab server and the
> Toltec connector, in the standard configuration, a user would need to
> choose to either see new messages or their already seen messages.  The
> BlackBerries are my main reason for starting to go down the road of
> sub-folder mail delivery and altnamespace cyrus configurations.
>
>
>>> and email messages disappearing into
>>> Outlook, and out of the IMAP clients, only to reappear later when the
>>> connector syncs to the server.
>>
>> Once you know about the effect it should be okay, because as users you are
>> usually only using one client right now.
>>
> Sadly, I must disagree with you on this point.  Users, at least in my
> experience, are more and more starting to read mail from different
> devices and programs in different locations.
>
> Regrettably, my users see Exchange, BlackBerries and Outlook Web Access
> and are looking to me to provide an experience that approaches or
> exceeds Microsoft's.
>
> I am just trying to see if the collective wisdom of the group can give
> me any experience in this area.  It just might be that creative hacking
> can't get me around this problem and I will need to re-evaluate the
> configuration of a group of my users.
>
> On another note I have also been casually following the progress the
> OpenChange project has been making on their OpenChange MAPI server.  If
> their promises hold true I think that a Kolab server back end with an
> OpenChange server front end to Outlook could really make people stand up
> and take notice.
>
>
>>> Therefore, I have come up with the following design that I think may
>>> help alleviate the problem.
>>
>>> 2. Create an IMAP only mailbox for the user with a flat name space.
>>
>> I advise against the "flat" namespace.
>>
>>> 3. Upon delivery filter all appointments into the POP only mailbox and
>>> the rest of the mail to the IMAP only mailbox.
>>
>> Note that there already is a marker for filtering, this is called Mailbox
>> Delivery for the Webadmin Interface for the role user. So it is  
>> recommened for
>> group users to activate this sieve script.
>>
>> Bernhard
>>
>>
>>
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> --
> ************************************************************************
> Thomas Malone, Systems Administration Manager
> Lancer Financial Group Companies
> 370 West Park Avenue, Long Beach, NY 11561
> (516) 431-4441 x3230 tmalone at lancer-ins.com
> ************************************************************************
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