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Re: musings about an RB community email client

To: REALbasic NUG <realbasic-nug at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: musings about an RB community email client
From: Brad Rhine <support at bradrhine dot com>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:03:36 -0500
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Delivered-to: realbasic-nug at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <8F17E477-B386-492D-B5F3-A2F02BC93A62 at inspiringapps dot com>
On Nov 29, 2007, at 1:52 PM, Joe Strout wrote:

> But it's made me wonder... would there be any interest in a few of us
> coming together and writing an open-source email client in RB?

Yes. Definitely. Most of the pieces are already there.

> I guess the chief one would be handling HTML mail.  I don't have much
> faith left in the HTMLViewer control.  We could parse the HTML
> ourselves and display messages that are simple styled text messages
> just fine, but it will probably break down when you get one of those
> advertisements that's fancy HTML full of images and whatnot.

When wielded properly, the HTMLViewer is great. I use it in a couple  
of projects and have not encountered all that many issues. For simple  
display of HTML mail (in which clicks on external links would  
presumably be passed off to the default browser), I think it would  
suffice.

> Efficient searching could be another challenge.  Might want to store
> messages in a database, though I tend to be a fan of flat files.  If
> we did do a database, I'd want to be sure to include an export to
> standard mbox format (and maybe a way to schedule a nightly export,
> for backup purposes -- email is important!).


I think SQLite is the way to go for storage. It would make searching a  
(very fast) breeze. I agree about a way to export to mbox, though.

--
Brad Rhine
http://bradrhine.com
AIM:bradrhine
Tangelo: Web Publishing... With A Twist!

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