OfflineIMAP 5.99.0 Posted

Hi,

I am doing some work on OfflineIMAP again.  I have posted
what I'm
calling a beta of v6.0.  This is 5.99.0 and is available on
http://softw
are.complete.org/offlineimap now.

I hope to make it into 6.0.0 soonish.  After 6.0 is out, if
time
permits, I hope to work on some more major new features such
as
auto-restarting syncs on timeouts.

Changes are:

  * Re-scan remote folder names at the start of each sync
run.
    Closes: #329000, #396772.
  * Drop internal imaplib.py in favor of default Python
one.
  * New user interface: Machine.MachineUI. 
Machine-parsable.
  * Drop all the Tk interfaces.
    Closes: #265088.
  * Now supports specifying timeouts for socket operations.
  * Updated copyright files.
  * Improved interaction with Dovecot maildirs.  Patch
thanks to Asheesh
    Laroia.
  * Improved filesystem syncing semantics, which should
reduce duplication
    in the event of hardware failure.
  * UID validity diagnostics improvement.  Patch from David
Favro.
  * No longer leave preauthtunnel zombies with autorefresh.
    Patch from Peter Colberg.  Closes: #410730.
  * --help now shows available UIs.  Patch from Daniel
Rall.
  * Check all resolved addresses.  Patch from Mark Brown. 
Closes: #413030.
  * Removed todo directory from tree, moved to BTS.
  * New PID file to enable third-party "kill
offlineimap" tools.

-- John

On Tue July 10 2007 5:03:37 pm Vincent Beffara wrote:
> > Hi,
>
> Hi,
>
> > I am doing some work on OfflineIMAP again.  I have
posted what I'm
> > calling a beta of v6.0.  This is 5.99.0 and is
available on
> > http://softw
are.complete.org/offlineimap now.
>
> Cool ! BTW, what happened to version 5 ?

Back in 2003, I rewrote OfflineIMAP using Python's Twisted
infrastructure.  I 
have long been dissatisfied with imaplib.py and thought I
could use a better 
IMAP library.

It turned out to be fairly nightmarish.  Twisted lacked some
features I 
needed, and it was also extremely difficult to debug
programs written in 
Twisted.

Back in September of 2003, I had announced the first alpha
of 5.0:

http://lists.co
mplete.org/offlineimapcomplete.org/2003/09/msg00002.html.gz

which was written in Twisted.

But that got canned due to the problems of working with
Twisted for a project 
of this size and complexity.

> Talking about that - how hard would it be to add an
"IMAP server" mode
> to OfflineIMAP, so that syncing could be triggered by
the MUA - in such
> a way that the answered is that from the
"parent" IMAP server when
> connected, with caching on the fly, and the cached
state when offline ?

Hard.  IMAP is a complex protocol that can take effort to
get right.  I'm not 
aware of an IMAP server implementation in Python.

But I'm thinking about v7 already and want to make MUA
integration a priority 
there.  I think I can do some nice things by hooking into
inotify and 
potentially syncing folders as they are accessed on disk.

I am also leaning towards rewriting OfflineIMAP from scratch
in Haskell.  I 
have wanted to write my own IMAP library for a long time
(due to 
deficiencies in imaplib.py), and that's much easier to do in
Haskell than 
Python.  Haskell also has some more powerful threading tools
that will make 
it easier to gracefully handle sync problems with accounts. 
 I think that 
even with my own IMAP library, code size should shrink by
50% and be much 
easier to maintain and contribute to.

But this all assumes that I find time somewhere.  I keep
hoping that mail 
readers will just get good enough that OfflineIMAP becomes
obsolete.  I am 
annoyed that this hasn't happened in the 5 years since
OfflineIMAP 1.0.0 was 
released!  I really didn't expect to still need to use
OfflineIMAP 5 years 
later.

-- John

On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, John Goerzen wrote:
...
> But this all assumes that I find time somewhere.  I
keep hoping that mail 
> readers will just get good enough that OfflineIMAP
becomes obsolete.  I am 
> annoyed that this hasn't happened in the 5 years since
OfflineIMAP 1.0.0 was 
> released!  I really didn't expect to still need to use
OfflineIMAP 5 years 
> later.
It's said that all software eventually evolves to the point
where it
can send email.  It's sad that most software never evolves
to the
point where it can properly read -- and synchronize! --
mail.

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On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:38:26 -0500
John Goerzen <jgoerzencomplete.org> wrote:
> I am also leaning towards rewriting OfflineIMAP from
scratch in
> Haskell.    

That would be quite cool.

> But this all assumes that I find time somewhere.  I
keep hoping that
> mail readers will just get good enough that OfflineIMAP
becomes
> obsolete.  I am annoyed that this hasn't happened in
the 5 years
> since OfflineIMAP 1.0.0 was released!  I really didn't
expect to
> still need to use OfflineIMAP 5 years later.  

I want to move to some terminal-client after switching to
emacs and 
offlineimap is still indispensable tool to use to get email
sync-ed
between desktop & laptop and, considering the present
state of affairs
in email world, I'd say offlineimap has a long life ahead
;)


Sincerely,
Gour


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Hi

On Jan 11, 2008 9:25 PM, Gour <ggdasagmail.com> wrote:
> > But this all assumes that I find time somewhere. 
I keep hoping that
> > mail readers will just get good enough that
OfflineIMAP becomes
> > obsolete.  I am annoyed that this hasn't happened
in the 5 years
> > since OfflineIMAP 1.0.0 was released!  I really
didn't expect to
> > still need to use OfflineIMAP 5 years later.

I use offlineimap to synchronise an exchange mail server and
an
courier-imap server. The exchange server is used for
push-email.

So even if the clients do get better, there will always a
need for offlineimap.

After using offline imap for two month, the main issue is
regarding
timing. I'm not sure offlineimap can do anything about it
but here it
goes:
the time showed on the synchronised email is the time showed
when it
was synchronised not when the message was originally
received.

The first time I synchronised my account with another imap
server
(here exchange), the 14000+ email were all dated on the day
of the
synchronisation.

It would be useful to have a way to force the time (assuming
it is possible).

Jean-Yves