There's something I'd like to do within mutt, but it's complex and I'm
not sure if mutt can handle it. I'm currently using gnus to
accomplish this complex task, and although it works, I'd like to
switch to mutt if at all possible.
In order to explain what I want to do, I have to first give some
background:
I manage a server machine that is connected to the backbone by a very
fast link. On this machine I receive a large number of items that I
archive, and which I want to be able to review from my machine at
home, which is behind a much slower PPP data link.
The items I receive consist of data in many different formats: text,
word-processor documents, images, executables, etc. And many of these
items are rather large. I've written some software which runs on my
server and automatically organizes all these received items, and every
time something new comes in, this software running on my server
generates a short email message describing the item, and it sends this
email to me at my machine at home. Each email also contains the file
name on the server where the item resides.
What I am able to do at home (within gnus) is ...
-- Mark each email message with a tag specifying whether I want to
delete the associated remote file or download it to my local
machine (no tag means that I just keep it on the server).
-- Invoke a command that causes the list of files associated with the
tagged messages to be processed via an FTP session (controlled by a
Perl ftp-client object) where all these files are either downloaded
to my local machine or deleted off the server, depending on the way
they've been marked.
-- This FTP process runs in the background so that I can continue
to read other messages in that folder or other folders.
-- This background process also invokes a Perl IMAP module to mark
each email message as Deleted for each associated file that has
been deleted on the server.
-- When the background process finishes processing all its files,
it issues an IMAP Purge command to remove the emails for
the files that were deleted.
Given that I already have written and have been using the Perl script
that runs in the background and performs the FTP actions and manages
the Delete and Purge IMAP commands, is it possible to configure mutt
to do the email-client portion of this process? ... i.e.,
-- Mark a group of messages as deleteable or downloadable.
-- Invoke an external command that runs in a separate process,
passing it the list of IMAP message ID's or UID's of the
tagged messages, and an indicator as to whether the remote
file associated with each message should be downloaded or
deleted.
-- Allow me to interact with mutt while all this is running.
-- Re-draw the mutt screen periodically as the external process runs
and performs the Delete and Purge IMAP statements, so I can see the
messages disappearing as their remote files get deleted.
Is this just too much complexity for mutt, or do you folks think
that this is possible?
Thanks in advance.
--
Lloyd Zusman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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