Re: [MORG] XLIST extension

[Barry Leiba <barryleiba.mailing.lists at gmail.com>]

> The idea is basically to find what some of those "standard mailboxes"
> are called by the server. So instead of every client using a different
> "Sent Messages", "Sent Items, "Sent", etc. mailboxes the client could
> just look up the existing mailbox from server that has \Sent flag.

This has been proposed before.  It could be done as a ListExt
extension.  One question would be whether Google (and other
implementors) would switch to a standard version, if we standardized
something that's different from what they're using.  The whole point
of ListExt was to eliminate the pile of LIST variants... so XLIST,
specifically, would be a Bad Idea, because of that.

> The way it works now is that when client uses XLIST command instead of
> LIST command (identical otherwise), server can return these flags also
> in LIST replies:
>
>  - \Drafts
>  - \Trash
>  - \Sent
>  - \Spam
>  - \Starred
>  - \Allmail
>
> The first four are pretty standard used by most IMAP clients. \Starred
> is some gmail-specific I guess. \Allmail apparently could be described
> as a virtual mailbox containing user's all messages in all mailboxes.

"Starred" is basically a virtual mailbox that collects all the
\Flagged messages from all mailboxes.  And "Allmail" isn't quite all
messages in all mailboxes.  It's all mail in all mailboxes *except*
Sent, Drafts, Trash, and Spam... at least as Gmail has implemented it.

Some of the aspects of this are certainly Gmail-specific.  The
proposed multi-mailbox search can give the equivalent to Starred and
Allmail in existing IMAP implementations.  It can also give the
equivalent to Drafts and Trash, if we're flagging messages, rather
than moving them around.

The whole idea needs more discussion.... Some time on the Hiroshima
agenda, maybe?

Barry