[ingo] RFC: how to support custom sieve filters

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

>> I'll turn the "Script" link into a "Scripts" link.
>> There you'll see a list of scripts you could View, Activate and Edit.
>> If you edit the ingo script (accordingly to what is set in the
>> backends.local.php) you'll be redirected to the GUI. If you Edit another
>> filter you get redirected to a TEXTAREA.
>
> Yes, this is how it should work if it is ever going to be implemented.

Why couldn't you write code that imports the current sieve script into  
Ingo?  You would lose the ability to have multiple backends edit the  
sieve scripts, since changes made on the sieve server will be lost if  
updating from Ingo in the future, but that's not the use-case for most  
people that implement Ingo.  i.e.: Ingo is the *only* publicly  
accessible way to editing server-side mail filtering.

>> I can see in how many ways this is going to break the "common interface
>> for all backends". Among all this would require turning on explicitly
>> even ingo generated filter.
>
> No, why, the default use case would still be the same. Beside that,  
> you can already configure now if script changes should automatically  
> or manually be uploaded.

And this doesn't change the existing interface.  It's ok to support  
additional features, as long as though features don't conflict with  
the existing features.

>> How you abstracted filters across different backends is laudable but I
>> can't see any way to go further without some minor divergences in UI
>> across different backends.
>
> I never said this wasn't possible, and the UI already adapts  
> automatically to the features of the configured backend.

And this is expected.  If you use Ingo with a sieve backend, and then  
switch to the IMAP backend, you are going to necessarily lose some of  
your rules from the output script because IMAP alone cannot support  
some advanced features.  That's why switching backends is a big  
decision, and Ingo is designed so that an admin that does make the  
switch is aware of these architecture choices.

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]