[imp] folders ? a FAQ

[Steven Patterson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pike" <pike@kw.nl>
To: <imp@lists.horde.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 11:04 AM
Subject: [imp] folders ? a FAQ


> I am missing the point somewhere.

You are - you're confusing mail folders (IMAP folders) with UNIX (or
Windows) directories.

> IMP doesn't use the folders I created (~/sent_mail, ~/mail and ~/drafts)
by hand.

What you want to do is something like the following (assuming you no longer
have your ~/mail - but don't delete it unless you're sure you have nothing
in it!):

% cd
% mkdir mail && chmod 700 mail
% cd mail
% touch sent_mail drafts

(normally you'd make these with your imap server through imp or another
client rather than usign "touch", so long as ~/mail is there!)

Mail "folders" are in fact just plain text files which have several emails
one after another in them.  This is how your inbox works as well (for an
example try typing 'more /var/spool/mail/your_username' which will show your
inbox on many Unix systems)

Now on to the options:

> $default->folders                   = 'mail/';  // can i use more folders
? comma separated ?

Yes.  This option tells IMP that it should ask the imap server to look in
the directory ~/mail for your mail folders.  Remember then, any file in
~/mail can then be a mail folder.  The ~ is not required in this option, it
assumes it's relative to your home directory.

> $default->use_imap_subscribe        = true;   // subscribe to what ?

Imap servers keep an internal list of which folders (i.e. FILES) under
~/mail (or whatever you set above) you wish to see as folders and which you
want hidden from you.  This means that if you have other files in that
directory or you have folders which you don't wish to see for some reason
then you don't have to.  If you set this "false" you will instead see every
file under that directory as a mail folder (I believe).  I'd set it true and
then "subscribe" to your folders in IMP as most IMAP clients use the
subscribe mechanism to see the available folders.

> $default->show_dotfiles            = false;   // which dotfiles ? could i
like see _all_ folders ??

What this means is that if you have a file called, say ".Sent_Mail.summary"
(which Netscape might make for example) then should it show up as a folder
or not?  Normally if you type "ls" in Unix it doesn't show files which start
with a dot, they're hidden.  Probably you want this false.

> $default->sent_mail                 = 'sent_mail';   // where's the slash
?

This is assumed to be ~/mail/sent_mail (or more correctly
~/$default-folders/sent_mail) and remember that this sent_mail "folder" is
in fact a FILE not a directory.

> $default->postponed                    = 'drafts';   // where's the slash
?

As above for sent_mail.

> Whatever it should do, it doesn't give me ... folders.

All of your other options are fine, see if that helps!

Steve
--
Steven Patterson, MSci ----------------------------------------------+
|       Electronic Information Systems Support and Development       |
|         Computing Services, University of Southampton, UK.         |
+-------------------------------------------- Tel: +44 (0) 2380 595810
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..  I have suffered for my anger, there are wars that can't be won  ..
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