Marc Perkel wrote:
Here's some thoughts I'd like to throw out there. I know it's not
standard IMAP protocol but someone has to try new ideas first and I want
to see what people (Timo) think of this.
IMAP establishes a connection between the client and the server.
Wouldn't it be great if it could be a conduit to let custom Thunderbird
plugins talk to custom server application over the IMAP interface? For
example, personalized server settings. Suppose for example I want
Thunderbird to edit my server side white lists or black lists or any
other setting? Wouldn't it be nice if IMAP supported these changes? The
connection is made. It's a secure connection that's been authenticated.
Lets use it!
Here's my initial thoughts on this. Suppose we extended IMAP to include
an EXECUTE command as follows:
EXECUTE command parameter, parameter ....
I believe that the IMAP RFC defines how IMAP servers may implement and
advertise additional non-standard capabilities and how to report those
in the CAPABILITIES string.
I would strongly recommend that any such solution fit within the RFC
definition of these new custom capabilities. This would suggest, for
instance, that you would *not* involve both IMAP and SMTP, but that all
of your communications with the server would take place via the IMAP
protocol stack.
I would also suggest that you might want a method whereby a dovecot
plugin could add a new capability, with attendant command syntax, rather
than a 'generic' EXECUTE command, so that clients could *absolutely*
know (as they do now from the CAPABILITIES string) whether or not the
feature they want is supported.
Cheers,
- Brian
