Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!olivea!uunet!osh3!chip From: chip@osh3.OSHA.GOV (Chip Yamasaki) Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm Subject: Re: Hey Syd, here's a couple of ideas! Message-ID: <1991Jun23.043746.11600@osh3.OSHA.GOV> Date: 23 Jun 91 04:37:46 GMT References: <1991Jun20.044510.781@osh3.OSHA.GOV> Organization: U.S. D.O.L - Occupational Safety & Health Admin. Lines: 35 In tih@barsoom.nhh.no (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo) writes: >What I'd really love to see, is a UA that uses a free text (inverted >index) database for storing mail items, and has a reasonably powerful >command set for selecting messages. I'd like to be able to use >selection criteria like "all messages either to or from person a or b", >"all messages where the subject contains the word 'foo'", "the last >30 messages sent", "all messages with the word 'gargleblaster' in >the text", "all messages sent by me last monday", and so on... (Of >course, the syntax would be different from these examples, and much >less verbose.) >So, comments, anyone? And, to the elm developers: How major would >such a change to the basic mail storage system be; would it mean a >more or less total rewrite, or is elm modularized in such a way that >it's possible to replace the storage and folder selection system >with a different mechanism? Well, I think with the API I suggested a user could do all of those things with their own application. The API could offer functions to open_folder() (you could store all your mail in one folder if you wanted), top_of_folder() to go to the first message, next_message() to skip, and things like message_sender() and send_date() to return whatever info you wanted. Then it's just a matter of picking the types of info you wanted to index and coming up with your interface. I think when you start talking about "free text databases" and full featured search engines you are really getting out of the E-Mail business. With the API though you could hook just about anything into Elm and add E-Mail functionality to virtually any application. -- -----------------------+--------------------------------------------------- Charles "Chip" Yamasaki| The opinions expressed here are my own and are not chip@oshcomm.osha.gov | supported or even generally accepted by OSHA. :-) -----------------------+---------------------------------------------------