Re: nametrans and dovecot

[Asheesh Laroia <asheesh@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 18 Mar 2008, Daniel Meszaros wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Asheesh Laroia schrieb:
>> On Fri, 14 Mar 2008, Daniel Meszaros wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,=0D
>>
>> Your email's lines all end with these weird =0D characters, as if your
>> email client is doing something terribly wrong with quoted-printable
>> encoding.
>
> Sorry, this is Roundcube which I use when I am not at home. It's newly 
> set up so I did not yet recognize the wrong configuration. Maybe it has 
> something to do with the not yet disabled HTML mail creation. Anyway, 
> now I am using Thunderbird which should be fine.

Cool.  I'm happy to help you diagnose its configuration issues off-list. 
(-:

>>> I managed to get offlineimap working and it appears to do what I want 
>>> -=0D with a non-Python-scripted workaround...=0D
>>
>> Why avoid Python?
>
> I don't want to avoid Python itself. But if someone wants to do a short 
> test of it and gets in troubles immediately -because of his lack of 
> knowledge about Python- then it might be better providing another 
> possibility, maybe with a module/addon/plugin for "problematic" IMAP 
> servers.

That makes sense.

>
> I myself do not yet understand completely what your Python script does 
> exactly so I'd -especially if I don't have the time to learn this and 
> just want to have a simple _solution_- maybe leave "offlineimap" 
> untouched then and try something else.

Hopefully I can explain what it does, and then you can feel comfortable 
using it. (-:

>>> As a few others mentioned before in...=0D
>>> =0D
>>>   http://lists.complete.org/offlineimap@xxx/2006/07/msg00006.html.gz=0D
>>>   http://lists.complete.org/offlineimap@xxx/2007/01/msg00005.html.gz=0D
>>>   http://lists.complete.org/offlineimap@xxx/2007/10/msg00006.html.gz=0D
>>
>> These links are broken.
>
> Yes, I saw the links in the list this way and decided not to propagate
> "@complete.org" and replaced it with "xxx". The last one points to your
> solution.

Ah, okay.

>> I suggest doing what I do, anyway - use my nametrans.  It's easy and 
>> correct. (-:  There's a message in the archives about it.
>
> Ok, maybe you can help me understanding what your Python "addon" exactly 
> does...

Let's give it a shot!

> In http://svn.asheesh.org/svn/public/conf/offlineimaprc you include the
> additional Python script in line 3. In line 20 you access the function
> "backwardsnametrans" (and accordingly in line 29 and 30 the other ones).

Right-o.

> The function "backwardsnametrans" checks if the folder name is has no
> "." -then it assumes INBOX- or if it is some ".subfolder" -then it
> strips the leading dot-.

Precisely.

> The function "myfoldercmp" orders the folder synchronization after a
> given priority, and the priority is defined in the variable
> "prioritized". Right? What is the benefit of ordering? To have at least
> the most necessary folders synced if the connection drops?

Precisely!

> Then function "mynametrans" which translates local "dotted" stuff back 
> to IMAP, so it is the opposite of "backwardsnametrans", or not?

Exactly.

The idea is that nametrans translates from IMAP->local, and 
backwardsnametrans translates local->IMAP.

> As far as I understood -if I understood it right- the "myfoldercmp" is
> in general not necessary to have a Maildir++/Dovecot IMAP server
> synchronized properly using "offlineimap". I could leave it with both
> other functions to get around the "symlink workaround" I found.

I don't know about the symlink workaround.

> I'd suggest to take this over as somewhat like "dovecot_addon.py" in the 
> general distribution of "offlineimap".

I honestly agree!  I think that it would be *excellent* if offlineimap 
offered some reasonable built-in configuration options for different 
common scenarios with different servers.  SquirrelMail did that, and it 
was a huge help for me when I was getting started with mail systems.

John Goerzen, what do you think?

-- Asheesh.

-- 
God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to
receive it.
                -- Austin O'Malley