[dev] identities

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

Quoting Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@recoil.org>:

> Are identities tied into IMP though?  I'd say they are tied into
> the preferences system more than any individual module.  If you can
> share preferences across modules, then several could apply to more
> than just IMP (Turba comes to mind pretty much immediately)

Or Babel, for posting, or ... yeah. I'd say that an Identity is a good candidate
for the object store that I just proposed.

> The best way to consider identities may just be a 'subclass'
> of preferences.

That's kind of what I envision user objects being - but they're more self
contained, and they're not the kind of thing that you'd need on every page. I
suppose things could just be dumped into the session if they were going to be
needed on a bunch of pages, and then back to the object store...

[snip]
> This way, it should be pretty simple to override specific
> stuff for an identity, but still retain the flexibility of 
> defaults.  If a server admin didnt want users changing their
> full names, then the .recoil.defaults.fullname could be made
> 'sticky', so that it would apply all the way up the chain to b) and a)

Hmm. This is getting kind of hairy - I see the idea, definitely, and it's very
flexible, but it might be a bit overwhelming. For things like a fullname and
signature, you just don't use one if the user hasn't specified one... As far as
making things "sticky", I think letting the admin say what fields of an identity
are editable per server will hopefully be good enough...

> Mulberry - do you use it under Win32?  The only decent IMAP client
> Ive been able to find for Win32 is Outlook 2000 so far, and that's not
> very decent :-)

Nope - I've got a win2k box and a linux box on my desk, and I use IMP for my
work and personal mail on both. =)

-chuck

--
Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck@horde.org>
Many states consider gambling so immoral that they not only prohibit private
gambling organizations, they thoughtfully provide their own.