Plugging into the imap system

[Mike Eggleston]

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007, Rob Banz might have said:

> 
> On Dec 20, 2007, at 02:24, Gabriele Bulfon wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > I would like to know if there is some way of plugging into the  
> > system with custom agents to be notified of any event happening on  
> > the imap server.
> > For example, I would like some code of mine to be called when new  
> > messages are: written into mailboxes, deleted from mailboxes,  
> > modified etc. etc.
> >
> > The main reason for this is to implement a synchronization code.
> > We're using the cyrus imap server not only for mails but also for  
> > other informations stored as attachments into emails (agenda events,  
> > contacts and others) into specific folders, and these objects are  
> > handled by client softwares.
> > It would be great to be able to implement our servers with add on  
> > software of ours being able to intercept objects modifications and  
> > mantain event synchronization informations (for example to deliver  
> > the same data to mobile devices).
> >
> > Thanx for any help
> > Gabriele Bulfon.
> >
> 
> Let me just say that I think this approach is a really bad idea.  Not  
> only because Cyrus has no built-in API to handle this in the way  
> you're thinking, but it will simply create the same problem we have  
> with all of these "integrated suites" such as Zimbra, Exchange, and  
> OCS, by tying the implementation of the mail message store to the  
> functionality of your entire suite.
> 
> For the love of <insert diety here>, be forward thinking and keep them  
> separate.
> 
> (wow, and you're using an IMAP store for your calendar information?   
> That's kind of like using a database as a filesystem, or ... oh well,  
> what IS this world coming to.)

There is some system (on freshmeat?) that has a special folder in IMAP
for storing calendar events. The program uses the IMAP defined protocol
though.

Mike