Blackberry, Horde, Thunderbird, Outlook co-existence

[Bernhard Reiter]

Am Freitag, 17. April 2009 18:43:28 schrieb Tom Malone:
> 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.

I think one important step is to point out the technical problem Outlook, 
Blackberry or other clients have here. With IMAP, any folder can contain 
fresh emails, any IMAP client must be ready to cope with it. However this is 
the mid and long term solution to switch to clients which are more IMAP 
ready. (E.g. Kontact on Windows.)

> In order to provide a view that is similar to Outlook the two Inbox
> folders would need to be combined in Horde.

Gunnar, we should plan for a configurable hack like this.
Even if this is only a short term solution as users will get confused if they 
are not ready to deal with incoming email in other folders, like one they 
have given from a functional account like sales at demo.kolab.org.

> 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.

Well client could be broken in several other aspects as well. This is sad, but 
it could lead to potentially unlimited things someone would need to provide.
Maybe a second account with a few only for the Blackberry would be an approach 
to hack around this.

> >> 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.

I've meant that they are only using only client at a single spot in time.
So you are not having the blackberry on your left hand, the mouse for the web 
on your laptop in your right hand and the nose for typing outlook on the 
keyboard, which would consist of three clients being used simultaniously. ;)

Of course with shared folders, this might happen.

> 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.

Yep, we try to help. 
Another idea: You could potentiall give the "mail.default" folder a different 
name. If you start up Outlook/Toltec in English, it will create a folder,
but if the folder is already created and has the right folder-type,
Toltec (and any other client) should honor it. Maybe this helps you with the 
modelling to not have INBOX/Inbox, but something else INBOX/abc to work with.

> 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.

Maybe. My hope also is that a Free Software client like Kontact on Windows 
gets more users and a larger community. It can be controled much better. 
Accessing Outlook from outside (MAPI) or inside via plugin currently is a pain 
and probably will stay a pain as some things are fixed and cannot be changed
even when they are broken.



Best,
Bernhard


-- 
Managing Director - Owner: www.intevation.net       (Free Software Company)
Germany Coordinator: fsfeurope.org. Coordinator: www.Kolab-Konsortium.com.
Intevation GmbH, Osnabrück, DE; Amtsgericht Osnabrück, HRB 18998
Geschäftsführer Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter, Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner
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